A Very Good Sign
RP Signs creates and installs signs throughout the Southeast and beyond
![Wiring a channel letter assembly in the RP Signs shop.](storyassets/carolinas/feature_stories/F20_NC_FS5_A-Very-Good-Sign/F20_NC_FS5_Interior1_530x370.jpg)
Wiring a channel letter assembly in the RP Signs shop.
![The leadership team at RP Signs (left to right): Gary Ferrell, Director of Operations; Jamie Neely, CEO; and James Neely, Director of Project Management.](storyassets/carolinas/feature_stories/F20_NC_FS5_A-Very-Good-Sign/F20_NC_FS5_Interior2_530x370.jpg)
The leadership team at RP Signs (left to right): Gary Ferrell, Director of Operations; Jamie Neely, CEO; and James Neely, Director of Project Management.
Whether you require a large, exterior lighted sign to brand an office tower or small interior signage, RP Signs of Charlotte, North Carolina, can meet your needs.
Founded in 1987 as a division of Recognition Plus, also in Charlotte, RP Signs provides a full range of consulting, fabrication and installation services. “We design, manufacture and install any signage you can imagine, from interior ADA-compliant signage to monument signs and building letters,” says James Neely, Director of Project Management. “We can provide wayfinding consultation, permitting and engineering, if needed. So, we can basically control the whole process.”
Says Gary Ferrell, Director of Operations for RP Signs and James’ boss, “Our clients have a lot on their plates. We like them to be able to hand us their sign projects and know we’ll take it from there and handle it for them. They can trust us to get it done and meet their deadlines. The signs will look great and will be a quality product.”
James, 32, is the son of RP Signs CEO Jamie Neely, and the grandson of Roy Smith, who started Recognition Plus in 1984. Roy is the corporation’s sole owner. Recognition Plus provides awards and promotional products, including plaques, trophies and all kinds of wearables such as shirts and hats. In addition to his father and grandfather, James’ grandmother, Linda Smith, is President of Recognition Plus and works in accounting; his mother, Leigh Ann Neely, runs the awards part of Recognition Plus; an uncle, Reid Smith, is a Graphic Designer for RP Signs, and his sister, Whitney Johnson, is a Project Manager. The eventual goal is for James to step into executive leadership and ownership.
With a little over 30 employees, RP Signs is headquartered with Recognition Plus in a 25,000-square-foot facility that houses project managers, graphic artists and production staff. James not only handles his own projects, but also oversees the other five project managers. RP Signs provides signage mostly in the Southeast, James says, “but we have done projects in New York, Iowa, California and Hawaii. We did a big hospital in Texas, the Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas.” The hospital added a new emergency department and needed the full scope of interior and exterior signage, James says, including ADA patient room signs and wayfinding.
A Niche in Health Care
Health care is a big focus area for RP Signs, James says, “but we are diversified. We have commercial real estate, retail and property management clients.” He would like to see the company do more work in retail development, like shopping centers. “That is a big thing in Charlotte right now, retail development and mixed-use,” James says.
Clients and notable projects in the Charlotte area have included Tryon Medical Partners, Novant Health Presbyterian Medical Center, Queens University and the Discovery Place Education Studio. Other examples include Acts Retirement-Life Communities projects throughout North and South Carolina and jobs for Imua Family Services in Kahului (Maui), Hawaii.
“But if we had a niche, it would definitely be health care,” Gary says. “We pride ourselves on knowing our health care clients’ terminology. Sometimes we know better than they do what kind of signage they require. I think it’s just another way we can lighten our clients’ loads and provide a valuable service to them.”
RP Signs’ biggest project, which is currently underway, is the brand conversion of Carolinas HealthCare System to Atrium Health, James says. “It has been two years running, and this year alone we were assigned over a hundred locations to rebrand for them,” he adds. The project includes interior and exterior signage. All the name changes at numerous locations are tied to specific dates. The signage has to be converted by those deadlines or Atrium Health can’t bill patients and file insurance claims, James says. And while there is pressure on RP Signs to meet the deadlines, “we haven’t missed one yet,” he says.
Carolinas HealthCare System, now Atrium Health, is the client that actually launched the sign business for Recognition Plus and led to the creation of the RP Signs division.
According to James, Recognition Plus started getting calls for doctors’ name plates because at the time the company was located across from the largest hospital in Charlotte, Carolinas Medical Center. James’ sister had just been born, and his father, Jamie, who was working on the SWAT Team for the Police Department in Rock Hill, South Carolina, figured it was a good time to switch careers. So, Jamie returned to Charlotte to take over leadership of the signage business from his father-in-law, Roy.
The sign division has grown exponentially over the years. “We have actually had that same hospital client since our inception and it has continued to be one of our largest clients for over 30 years,” James says.
Tackling Difficult Projects
But as James points out, RP Signs has done and continues to do work for clients in a lot of other sectors. One of the company’s most complicated projects involved installing signage on the Charlotte Plaza building for the now defunct Charlotte School of Law.
“It was a full-glass building, so there was no solid surface to attach anything to,” James says. “We had to involve two different engineering teams, one to engineer the sign components and one to engineer the attachment to the glass curtain wall system.” Engineering support was provided by Sinclair Pratt Cameron, P.C., of Virginia Beach, Virginia.
RP Signs also worked with Precision Fabrication, Inc., of High Point, North Carolina, to create a series of steel braces and aluminum framing to support the sign’s weight. Subcontractors, “basically an extension of our operation,” James says, bolted through sections of that storefront system to attach the sign to the building.
Another layer to that project was hanging a sign off the parking deck located at the back of the facility. The parking deck had prestressed cabling running through the precast concrete panels, James says. “We had to X-ray the parking deck to locate the rebar and the prestressed cables,” he adds, “to make sure that when we attached the sign it wouldn’t fracture those members.”
Supporting Community Organizations
RP Signs also supports philanthropic groups in the Charlotte community. Jamie is on the board of Matthews Free Medical Clinic, and RP Signs supports the organization financially. The clinic provides health care and access to physicians for underinsured and uninsured individuals in Mecklenburg County. The company also does school supply drives for Classroom Central (an organization that provides free school supplies to teachers in underprivileged schools), and makes donations to Atrium Health Foundation as well as provides signage at no cost for about six fundraising golf tournaments a year for the foundation.
One thing that differentiates RP Signs, James says, is the team’s attention to long-term customer service. He adds, “You’ve got a lot of companies out there that focus on the big projects and just want to be hitters on those before moving onto the next one. But, we feel like we are a company that you can call back if you just need one sign added to your project. We are not going to abandon the customer after the initial large project ends.”
Long-term employees also contribute to RP Signs’ success. “We’ve got folks in the back who have been here 15-20 years, and we have had some who have been here 10-15 years and retired,” Gary says. “It tends to be that way, which I think is kind of a testament to the company as well.”
Gary, who has been with the company about 28 years, believes employees like the company’s family atmosphere. “I’m not a member of the family, but I feel like I am,” he says. He also enjoys the diversity of projects in the signage industry. “You never know what is coming around the corner. Every day is a different challenge and that’s the type of job I enjoy having.”
James also thinks the company’s workplace environment is a plus. While they all take their jobs very seriously, James says, they also just like to have fun. “We just enjoy being around each other. We are here with each other all the time, so we might as well enjoy it,” he adds.
Regardless of the scale or range of services a signage or wayfinding project requires, James says he wants people to know “that we are reliable, and we take their projects seriously because we want them to succeed.”
![C. Grant Jackson](storyassets/contributors/CGrantJackson.jpg)