Wrecking Ball 2.0
How a Washington Demo Firm Grew Through Expansion and Training
Sam Newland acquired the Everett-based Wrecking Ball Demolition LLC in 2005. About five years later, he fell into a rut. The small demolition company was only bringing in around $2.5 million annually. “We were doing ok; not getting rich,” Newland recalls. “We had zero growth in the business and we knew we had to do something different.”
Wrecking Ball Demolition (Wrecking Ball) was established in 1998 by family members of the long-standing Newland Construction Co., a commercial general contractor that’s been serving western Washington since 1940. Wrecking Ball was created because the three Newland brothers, Sam, Si and Matt, saw opportunities in a profitable niche market: demolition.
In 2005, Sam Newland bought out Wrecking Ball to branch out on his own. He says the timing was right because his father, George Newland, who was at the time President and Owner of Newland Construction, was getting ready to retire. The brothers agreed to buy out their father and separate the companies. Today, Si and Matt continue the Newland Construction legacy as its leaders.
When Sam Newland took over Wrecking Ball, it already had a strong client base thanks to its ties to Newland Construction. So when the Great Recession hit, Wrecking Ball survived because of those clients that kept calling on the company to push out projects. The recession served as a big wake-up call for Newland to regroup and figure out how to move forward.
“I was about 45 at the time and I thought to myself, ‘what is my end game?’ and ‘how can I do it?’ We had to know what direction we were headed, which is why we came up with our Wrecking Ball 2.0 strategy,” he says.
Wrecking Ball 2.0
The first part of Newland’s strategy involved hiring a chief financial officer consultant, David Lightfoot of David Lightfoot CFO LLC, to help with finances and internal logistics. They examined each quarter to determine when the firm was making money and when it wasn’t. That’s when Newland discovered the business was far more cyclical than he realized.
Newland had a goal of 20% annual growth; he understood that to reach this lofty figure, he had to rebuild the business plan. He hired Bruce Gagnon, a 20-year construction professional, to manage day-to-day operations so that Newland could focus on preparing a big-picture growth strategy.
Newland carefully reviewed every detail of the business to pinpoint areas that could be improved. His assessment showed that, to grow the operation, he needed to develop his service areas more fully. To attract new business and meet additional project needs for existing clients, the company expanded into more specialized services: high-rise building interior strip outs for tenant improvement projects, asbestos abatement, structural demolition and debris trucking.
“We’re averaging almost $10 million in annual sales now,” he tells us. “What began as a small demolition company serving only Snohomish County is now one of the largest demo companies serving all of western Washington, from Bellingham to Olympia.”
The company’s not planning to slow its momentum anytime soon. “Our five-year plan is to reach $15 million by 2020; the ultimate goal is to reach $20 million by having each of our four service lines hit the $5 million mark,” says Newland.
Expanded Services
As part of Wrecking Ball 2.0, Newland works to strengthen the company’s brand. This includes the rollout of a new corporate slogan, “Cleaner. Safer. Faster.” Company leadership believes that sweeping, cleaning and organizing debris at the end of each shift creates a positive work environment—no one likes to start the day with a mess in front of them, Newland says. What’s also important is that Newland, with his family’s background in construction, can easily anticipate the needs of general contractors. “We understand the importance of staying on schedule, streamlining paperwork, and being professional in the office and on job sites,” he says.
Newland calls the tenant improvement division the “bread and butter” of the company’s core business. “When we first started performing tenant improvement work we ran into asbestos on a lot of projects. We realized that we needed to add an asbestos division to capitalize on the opportunities these projects offered. So, we got licensed to perform the work ourselves,” he explains. Then he hired Cody Chestnut to manage the new division as Abatement Division Manager.
The trucking division transports large cans of debris from Wrecking Ball’s own demolition projects, and can also haul debris away for clients. Newland says the firm bought its first set of cans for only its own projects, then later added dumpsters to leave on site for the duration of clients’ projects. “That, in turn, pushed us into the structural demolition division,” he adds. To reach its annual revenue goals, Wrecking Ball’s leadership recently bought a new excavator (a total of three excavators are now at the company’s disposal), as well as concrete shears and steel shears to help process concrete and steel on the job sites to increase productivity.
Employee Retention
Today, the company is largely filled with staffers who have worked their way up from within, which is important to Newland. With a comprehensive benefits package including health insurance for employees and their families, holiday pay, paid time off and a matching 401K program, employees feel engaged and valued.
Between 1998 and 2008, Newland says the firm tended to lose younger employees after they worked only a year or two on the job. In response to employee retention challenges, the Wrecking Ball 2.0 strategy added a comprehensive in-house training and safety program.
“The internal training program includes promotions and pay raises after 1,000 hours of training. These incentives show employees that there is room to grow at the company, which motivates them to stay with us and become more knowledgeable and proficient in their job responsibilities,” Newland says.
A new, non-experienced employee starts as a Demo Tech 1. After 4,000 hours of onsite training, combined with 13 classroom training sessions at the home office—ladder safety, lead/asbestos awareness, aerial/scissor lift training, to name a few—the employee will finish at the Demo Tech 3 level. This program allows employees to see a career path, be trained in the type of work they like, and understand that they are part of an organized team.
Community Service
One way the company supports employee bonds is by focusing on giving back to the community. One of the big events that the staff looks forward to is an annual auction to support the Puget Sound Kidney Center. This nonprofit has served the Puget Sound community for more than 35 years by providing a comfortable, high-quality care environment for dialysis patients. The Gift of Life dinner and auction are sponsored to raise funds for the facility and program enhancements that benefit patients directly. The demolition contractor also supports Snohomish Girls Lacrosse, local high school sports teams, and the local Boys & Girls Club.
Wrecking Ball may not be part of that larger family company anymore, but Newland banks on the sense of family created in the workplace and in the community to help the business thrive and expand.