Most business owners who strive to be successful do what everybody else
does, but try to do it better. Some, however, find a niche in which few others
latter category is CS Stucco & Plaster, Inc., North Haledon, N.J.
While its common for most wall and ceiling contractors to start with residential,
then move up to commercial, CS started with residential and stayed
there—but it was high end residential. Most contractors do drywall on the
inside and EIFS on the outside, but CS does plaster on the inside and has its
own proprietary system of cement hardcoat stucco for the outside. Most contractors
are price competitive; CS simply charges more than anyone else.
Most contractors, once the job has been estimated, turn the work over to
their foremen. But the top management of CS stays involved with each job
from start to finish, giving the final approval. Most successful companies are
growth oriented, but CS, for its own quality control purposes, is vigorously
opposed to growth. And, while most contractors are continually competing
for business, CS gets its business by simply answering the phone.
Growth Spurts
One reason CS has always had a clear definition of itself is that for about 10
years it was a subsidiary of California Stucco. Then, in 1991, two sons of this
family owned business, Ron and Steven Gorter, purchased the CS portion
and made it a separate entity. California Stucco had been, and continues to
be, a broad-based contractor. But the highly specialized CS had grown from
doing small custom jobs to doing large ones. Ron is president, Steven a vice
president, and, at about that time they were joined by two other owners, Greg
Kimmet, a vice president, and Kraai Lance, who is apparently untitled. About
three years ago, Todd DeJong joined the management team as estimator and
project manager.
“We started out with one crew, and now, about 21 years later, we have upward
of 60 men in the field, working from 15 to 20 jobs every day, many million-
dollar projects,” Kimmet says. “We’ve always prided ourselves
that we’ve been able to get into the higher end custom homes as
well as the difficult commercial projects. We rarely do the big,
flat wall money-jobs; we’ve priced ourselves out of that market.”
Kimmet mentions that the market seems to change every couple
of years, ranging from retaining walls to new construction
to renovation, but the focus remains primarily on high-end residential
with occasional commercial jobs.
Although the company will sometimes use exterior insulation
and finish systems on its commercial work, on its forte, custom
residential, it never does. As Kimmet explains, they can always
say they use cement stucco. “In the past we tried a lot of products,
and we did a lot of testing to develop our own cement
hardcoat system,” Kimmet says. “There’s a lot more to it than
just putting up wire and cement on the wall. We put this product
forth because we feel it will perform better in residential
applications than EIFS.”
Kimmet says that moisture and drainage issues always require
proper head flashing, and proper weep screed, which allows
moisture out of the wall should it enter. Kimmet
maintains that the 3/4-inch cement
stucco is going to be a much more durable
product than EIFS, yet can also achieve the
same appearances EIFS can, incorporating
stone applications, precast detailing, and a lot
of different textures, including acrylic finishes.
In terms of the interior, Kimmet says, “Plas
ter makes a very beautiful wall—hard, flat,
durable, easy to keep clean. To someone who
knows what he is looking at, you can tell plaster
from drywall simply by looking at it. And
when it comes to ornamentation, plaster
products are far more versatile than drywall.
We get involved with many very difficult
ornamentation situations in custom homes,
with vaulted and barrel ceilings, intricate
domes . . . and we are always called in for
things that can’t been done with drywall,
such as circular staircases; we’re always getting
a call for those.”
The problems associated with EIFS, have been a boon to CS.
“We’re doing a lot of remediation with hard coat and acrylic
finishes,” Kimmet says. “We’re nearing the end of a project of
85,000 square feet of EIFS removal, in 18 separate housing
units.” While Kimmet maintains that cement hardcoat is more
durable than EIFS, he agrees that most of EIFS’ bad reputation
comes from poor application than from the product itself “The
problems we have seen with EIFS are more application than
product performance-related,” Kimmet says. “But, given the
situations, many homeowners don’t want EIFS because it won’t
be covered on their insurance.”
Yet EIFS troubles, which have benefited CS in one respect, have
also brought increased competition. “About 10 years ago we
had only a handful of competitors, so we were in a very comfortable
position. But in the past three to five years we’ve gotten
a lot more competition. There were always a lot of EIFS
installers, but many of them have gone away, and in their place
are those applying cement stucco, which is making a come-back.”
In terms of the interior, Kimmet says, “Plas-
Many of those folks work out of a garage and a pickup truck,
so they’re able to charge considerably cheaper prices than CS
does. Yet Kimmet doesn’t disparage these small competitors:
“There’s nothing wrong with what they’re doing, and they can
make a good living at it. And I believe most of them are very
good mechanics.”
They Make a Difference
But if Kimmet doesn’t accuse these many smaller competitors
as being fly-by-nighters of dubious skill, how does CS differentiate
itself from them, especially since the smaller contractors,
with much less overhead, are able to charge much less!
The answer, Kimmet responds, “is how we set up and manage
job sites.” He explains that Ron Gorter is the “office guy,” who
handles the books, inventory, and provides the overall direction
to the company. The other members of top management,
though perhaps having some specific duties—such as Steven
Gorter, who handles all the scheduling—all have their own
clients, and, instead of simply handing the jobs over to their
foremen, they retain responsibility for the work and are constantly
on the job sites themselves.
The nature of their custom work, Kimmet explains, means that
much of it is not on the blueprints. He explains: “We believe
it’s important that the top people in our company are in constant
touch with the architects, designers, contractors and owners,
so we can solve the problems as they come up. They know
that if something goes wrong, five years from now, they know
just who to call. Our customers get to know us very well, and
this is very attractive, especially to builders.”
Each of the top management members might visit a half dozen
sites a day. “It’s very important that we be there at the start, and
it’s also very important that we check on the progress, but what’s
most important is that we be there on the last day,” Kimmet
says. “We don’t let the workers leave until we’ve given our final
approval and the site has been perfectly cleaned.”
The last 5 percent of the job is the most critical, Kimmet says.
When asked whether there are actually that many changes that
have to be made at the end, he responds, “It happens alot. I’ve
sometimes had the foreman tell me that the owner loved it, but
we’ll make changes, once in a while even a big change, because
it has to meet our standards. We’ve built our reputation on our
good work, so we’re not going to take any chances.”
The result of such thorough quality measures, Kimmet says, is
that builders and contractors love working with CS, with the
result that repeat business in continual. “That means, Kimmet
says, “we don’t have to go searching for business. We just pick
up the phone when it rings.”
Know Your Limitations
A natural tendency with this demand might be to keep on
growing. But Kimmet says that this $5 million-a-year company
is perfectly content to stay at the level it’s at. “We know our
limitations and that we can’t afford to spread ourselves too thin,”
Kimmet says. “People working with us have gotten to know us,
and that builds expectations that we will be right there for them.
I know that when there’s too much work, I begin to feel the
strain, and there’s not enough time to pay attention to detail,
so that’s the time to back off.”
Kimmet adds that the furthest the company has gone in what
is usually considered efficiency is to have crews specializing
either prep, finish or some other aspect, but they have found it
best to have one crew do an entire job, from start to finish, with
one top management executive overseeing the same project,
again from start to finish. Kimmet adds that the fact that all the
top people have had considerable hands-on experience is also
an important factor.
Finding the skilled employees able to do this exacting work is,
Kimmet acknowledges, “very difficult. We are constantly look-ing,
and talking to different prospects. More often than not we
are disappointed. We will bring in a subcontractor and have
him go out on an established crew, and keep a close eye on him.
If the match is there, it will often take six months ofworking
with him to see the comfort level is there, and that he looks at
the work the same way we do.”
Once the company finds a good employer, it does everything
it can to keep him. “We’ll sometimes take lesser margins on jobs
to keep our men working all year long,’ he says. “But that’s not
a problem now. This time of year is extremely busy for us, sometimes
seven days a week.”
And that’s what brings us back to where we started with this
story: Most business owners strive to be successful but try to do
it better than everybody else. But some find a niche in which
few others are interested, and they become the best in that arena.
Belonging to the latter category is CS Stucco & Plaster, our
Contractor of the Month.