Kathy Albarado - Corporate Culture for Community Change
If one were to work an average of 8 hours a day, 5 days per week, from the age of 18 to the age of 65, one would spend over 90,000 hours of their lifetime in the workplace. For Kathy Albarado, President and CEO of Helios HR, that’s 90,000 hours of potential. While many employees across America find themselves begrudgingly sitting down at their desks each morning and eager to leave when the clock strikes five o’clock, Kathy has dedicated her life and energy to the transformative power of corporate culture. “My personal passion has always been to make an impact through the creation of a corporate culture in which an employee’s life is not checked at the door, but is rather enriched and enjoyed within the walls of their workplace,” she explains. “When you can create a place that people love to be a part of, that enthusiasm spills over into the community.”
Helios celebrated its tenth anniversary in September of 2011, and throughout its first decade, it racked in outstanding success. It grew forty percent in 2010 and is on track to grow another fifty percent this year, supporting between 80 and 100 customers at any given time. Despite Kathy’s obvious proficiency as a leader and affinity for what she does, however, she reports that she never had a burning desire to be an entrepreneur. She served as VP of Corporate Services at PriceInteractive, a rapidly growing speech application service provider, for four years before launching Helios. “As an employee there, I felt productive, engaged, and like we were really building something,” she remembers fondly. When the owners sold Price to a publicly traded company based in Boston, however, everything changed. “I couldn’t stand to see the culture we’d built unravel so rapidly,” she explains. The deal was completed in February, and she resigned in May.
Kathy then found herself confronted with the age-old question: What next? Thoroughly engrossed in her work with Price, her professional network had lain dormant for several years. Undeterred, however, she began reaching out as she examined whether she would return to the corporate world or whether starting her own business was a better route to take. She invited people to coffee, bought them lunch, and asked how they’d started their companies, how they’d grown them, and what needed to be considered throughout the process. “They were all very gracious and eager to help, and I realized that I couldn’t get excited about accepting another corporate opportunity because the culture we’d had at Price was so special,” she reports. “That’s when I realized that, if I could engage in an intentional focus on corporate culture and then share that vision with other executives and CEOs, I could help them as they grow and scale. I realized that I wanted to start a company that would help these leaders implement and maintain the right infrastructure to attract, retain, and engage the best workforce in the best place to work.”
In preparing to launch Helios, Kathy polled her network extensively but took each pearl of wisdom with a grain of salt, careful to review its applicability to her own unique situation. One trusted friend and business owner recommended that she keep her day job at Price until she had lined up her first customer, but Kathy decided that this wasn’t the right path for her. At the time, she was the single mother of her young daughter, Amanda, which had taught her the importance of perseverance. “As a single mom, you just do what you have to do to move forward,” she affirms. “You don’t complain or whine, you just do it.” Her own childhood, as well, had taught her the value of independence and following one’s own path. “After my parents got divorced, my mother remarried into an abusive relationship that lasted for seven years,” she says. “I’m a firm believer that, if you’re in a bad situation, you leave and hold out for a good one. Do what you have to do, and don’t settle.”
After taking several weeks to realize that her dream was to build incredible company cultures for organizations throughout the Washington Metropolitan area, Kathy’s mission became very focused. She launched the company in a home office basement, and she remembers nights when Amanda, at a spunky eight years old, would offer to make grilled cheese for the two of them while Kathy worked. Kathy also recalls with gratitude the support of her husband, Kevin, who was patient and supportive throughout the long days, nights, and weekends it took her to launch and grow the company. Helios’s original model has evolved over the years since that time and now provides human capital management, consulting, outsourcing, and recruiting solutions for a phenomenal client base focused on evolution and forward motion. For smaller companies of a hundred people or less, Helios often serves as a fully outsourced HR function that provides a team approach. “Whether our clients need someone focused on compliance, someone who can conduct a compensation analysis for them with some benchmarking, or a technology expert to advise on what system to use as they scale, we provide them with access to all these resources, whereas if they hired one dedicated person to fulfill their HR function, that person probably wouldn’t have as broad of a background,” Kathy points out. Alternatively, for midsize and larger organizations, Helios does consulting work specializing in organizational development. In this capacity, it advises on growth management, reporting structure changes, role clarity, and adequate training and support functions, among others. Finally, Helios provides recruiting services across all professional services positions through an hourly model which saves an average of 30 percent on contingent search fees and on the placement of HR professionals on a competitive retainer. Helios’s consultants are unique in that they rarely serve more than four clients at once, whereas many of its competitors use models in which a hundred clients can be assigned to one account manager. Helios consultants are thus extremely involved and visible within client organizations, providing CEOs and leadership teams with comprehensive and in-depth strategic advice and counseling. Kathy has also recently begun to leverage her extensive commercial network to begin organically building into the Federal sector in response to the market’s expressed needs. “I love that my access to these executives allows me to help them find innovative solutions to their challenges, which are often very similar from one company to the next,” she remarks.
One such opportunity came in 2007, when Kathy was struck with the idea to launch the Apollo Awards through Helios. Though some advisors told her that Washington already had enough awards, she received positive feedback as well and decided that they’d put out a call for nominations in March of 2007 for an awards program that met in May of that same year. 188 people attended the first ceremony where 4 winners were chosen amongst 12 finalists, and all the CEOs of those finalist companies attended. “It was amazing to see all that energy and goodwill created in the community,” Kathy marvels. “People want to see how they stand against other companies in their size category, and we create a white paper to then distribute the findings. People love to be around like-minded executives, and the event is about collaboration and camaraderie— everything that Helios stands for and seeks to promote.”
Born in Alexandria, Virginia, Kathy has spent her whole life in the area. As a child she didn’t have a specific end career goal in mind, but was instead quite flexible and opportunistic. In college at George Mason University, she changed her major four times but ultimately settled on Psychology, which permitted her to intern at the Northern Virginia Mental Health Institute for 18 months. Working intimately with a wide range of patients in this capacity taught Kathy that all people are people, and that one had to be purposeful and unrelenting in their composure and intentions in order to be taken seriously. It also taught her the critical importance of pulling one’s own weight on a team, as failure to do so could result in serious injury. “As we progress down our careers, it’s interesting to see how experiences teach you what you do and don’t want,” she reflects now. “I learned from that one that I didn’t want to go into clinical work. It’s important to remember that there’s always an opportunity to reinvent who we are and where our story is going.”
Kathy waited tables through college and managed a women’s sports retail store afterward but soon realized she wanted to head in a different direction, so she started personnel management classes and discovered an acute passion for the burgeoning field. She then began interviewing around town and was given a position at a company called Dewberry, where she developed a solid foundation in HR with the help of top-notch mentors. Within her first six months, she coordinated a program to consolidate the company’s 20 different vendors to optimize their savings and mass volume discounting. She was also coached extensively in the importance of strong writing skills. “You have to be able to write in order to think through complex issues and articulate them effectively, and a mentor at Dewberry would redline my memos to help me learn those skills,” she recalls.
After Dewberry, she worked at ITC Learning, where she was challenged to truly stretch her limits and venture beyond her comfort zone. Her boss could tell that she was capable of more than her skill set and background implied, and he pushed her beyond HR by having her report to him directly on the business’s operations and sales force. “He was a visionary, and I helped him to execute those visions,” she explains. “Now, as I implement my own visions, I’m confident that I don’t have to have all the details figured out before launching a project. Even if I only have 80 percent of things ironed out, I continue to move forward, accept feedback, and adjust as I go. I don’t overanalyze things, and my decision may change from one day to the next because of that, but each decision is a better decision than the one that came before.”
In advising young entrepreneurs entering the business world today, Kathy echoes the popular sentiment that there’s no replacement for experience. “When you assume a position, be humble, appreciative of the opportunity, and aim to show them what you’re capable of,” she urges. “Having a strong work ethic and being able to understand and manage expectations is a skill set you only gain with experience, so understand that you need to develop that track record.”
Beyond this, Kathy echoes the entire philosophy upon which Helios is built: that success is never achieved in isolation. It takes a network of compassionate, supportive, collaborative people to help build a company. It takes a team of enthusiastic, driven, fulfilled employees to keep that company afloat. It takes collaboration between leaders and consultants to develop the kind of corporate culture that enables such a team to persist. And it takes the work of all social institutions to build better societies, whether they’re public or private. “There’s so many things leaders can do to impact the community, whether it’s providing employee time and support for volunteerism or educating people about community needs and solutions,” Kathy points out.
Despite Helios’s certain accomplishment, Kathy feels that one of her greatest successes is ultimately personified in Amanda, who is now 18 and a co-founder of Collective Change, a charity that provides easy ways for communities to come together, promote awareness, and raise money for important causes worldwide. Kathy fondly remembers the night of the organization’s first fundraiser, when her daughter directed the event to raise money for Haiti with exceptional poise, grace, and conviction. “I believe every person and every company has the privilege and obligation to give back,” says Kathy. “What I love most about Helios is having the opportunity to impact our client companies and to then connect these clients with the greater community to leverage that momentum. Amanda is an exceptional example of how that momentum can embody real change, and that, to me, defines success.”
− By Gordon J. Bernhardt, CPA, PFS, CFP®, AIF®
About Gordon J. Bernhardt President and founder of Bernhardt Wealth Management and author of Profiles in Success: Inspiration from Executive Leaders in the Washington D.C. Area, Gordon provides financial planning and wealth management services to affluent individuals, families and business-owners throughout the Washington, DC area. Since establishing his firm in 1994, he and his team have been focused on providing high-quality service and independent financial advice to help clients make informed decisions about their money. For more information, visit www.BernhardtWealth.com and Gordon’s Blog.
John Langan - Learning and Leading by Example
Astonished, the woman stared at him for a moment.
“You actually read this stuff?” she queried.
John Langan nodded the affirmative. Working an entry-level job at the prominent accounting firm Arthur Andersen, John was not particularly challenged in his position. “I put on a suit and make copies,” he had told his family when they inquired about the experience. He soon discovered, however, that though the job entailed largely menial tasks, he could learn much from reading the papers that passed through his hands, trying to understand the more detailed inner-workings of the enterprise. Now, after approaching the senior in charge to ask about the documents, the surprise at his initiative shone on her face. Of course, after the initial shock wore off, she was happy to detail the context for him.
Not only did John seize the opportunity as a chance to learn more about the business, but he also often observed his colleagues and managers to learn more about successful habits and practices. “I would watch how they managed their time and interfaced with the clients,” he remembers. “I would watch people who were good at what they did as they moved up the rungs, and I would watch those who were bad at what they did so I could learn what not to do.” Now the Principal in Charge of the Washington, DC office of LarsonAllen LLP and of the company’s Nonprofit and Government Services Group as well, he still recalls the lessons he learned through this careful observation and weaves such considerations into his own leadership style as he in turn strives to lead by example.
LarsonAllen is a public accounting firm established and headquartered in Minneapolis but currently boasting a strong national presence with offices in twelve states. It draws approximately $230 million in revenue a year, which can be subdivided into the various industries of healthcare, nonprofit and government, manufacturing, construction, financial institutions, and auto dealers. With eighty-five percent of their business concentrated in compliance expected service, they hope to strengthen their consultative opportunities in the future. The current state of the economy has also helped to shape their focus, challenging them to streamline efficiency through their Enterprise Excellence Initiative. Based on the Toyota Lean Model, the initiative focuses on eliminating waste and increasing value through process through modifications on how accounting services, tax returns, and audits are delivered.
Prior to his arrival at LarsonAllen in 2006, John had worked at Arthur Andersen as an auditor for three and a half years. Working in the commercial group at the company’s DC office afforded him an eclectic collection of clients that included accounts with Mars, Inc. and Marriot International, Inc. With experiencing spanning the spectrum from a large private company to the transparency and openness of a large public company, augmented with several nonprofit, governmental, and government contracting jobs, he considers his time there as an incredible education for someone just emerging from school. It was also here that he first met Cindy Parks, another auditor who caught his eye and captured his heart.
The company did not permit spouses to work at the same location, so upon his engagement to Cindy, John resigned his post and set about determining his next step. “I felt I could start my own initiative and do well and be more fulfilled,” John explains. He entertained a brief stint as a controller but knew after four short months that the highly technical nature of the position did not suit him. Self-identifying with the creative and human aspects of his industry over its quantitative nature, he readily admits that the technical side of the business has never been his passion.
“My passion is in the relationships,” he explains. “It’s in building a business and bringing skills like communication and time management to the table.” His future success stemmed in large part from this intuitive and honest understanding of his strengths and weaknesses, which allows him to embrace his fortes instead of attempting to force himself into a shape that just doesn’t fit. His flair and verve instead shine through his people skills, allowing him to forge strong connections and engender trust in others. “Public accounting is the language of business, and we are the translators for our clients,” he explains.
With this understanding in mind, he launched Langan Associates, PC, in 1988, which would develop a skilled specialization in nonprofit outsourcing long before the term “outsourcing” was even used. Observing how the nonprofit world was growing ever more complex and required competence in closing books, reporting, and auditing, he found his niche readily identifiable. “The disconnect between the level of competency in the financial management systems of nonprofits and the audit firms that came in to review the work was undeniable,” he recalls. “Outsourcing was a natural fit and solution.” Langan Associates thus built on its base competency in outsourcing by adding an audit and tax department in 1994, as the demand for those services had increased for local and regional firms when the Big 4 walked away from all but the largest national nonprofits. Overall, this platform was used to grow a $7 million revenue base over an eighteen-year period that included audit, tax and outsourcing service lines.
Despite its ranking in the top thirty of local DC outsourcing firms, the road was not always easy for Langan Associates. Competing for talent against firms that were three times their size presented considerable obstacles that were compounded by their nonprofit niche. “Working in a specific vertical like nonprofits does not make sense for everyone,” John concedes, “though it is a very fulfilling client base. So the ability to attract, retain, and develop talent was always our number one issue.”
This challenge was countered by the company’s introspective edge, which left them ever open to new and innovative opportunities to expand their processes. After doing an internal strategic plan to crystallize the firm’s next ten years, it became clear that, in terms of the opportunities enmeshed in their market niche, they were only scratching the surface. In an attempt to mine their prospects, they put together a firm profile in 2005 and met with other firms in the area to develop strategic alliances. LarsonAllen, which was little known on the East coast at the time, was one such firm, boasting strong potential because of its parallel specialization in the nonprofit industry. John appreciated that the firm’s employees felt that they had influence over the destiny and direction of the enterprise, lending them a sense of empowerment and commitment. Langan Associates operated with the mindset that outsourcing was a year-round business, demonstrating to LarsonAllen that that they couldn’t serve outsourcing with the same talent base reserved for audits.
While most entrepreneurs would say that pursuing their own business posed a considerable risk, John felt otherwise. With his CPA license, he was simply an individual out offering a professional service. However, he knew early on that he wanted to build a legitimate and scalable business rather than pursue a solo and boutique-style practice. “The risk, then, comes over the years as you grow and take on employees, office space, and management,” he explains. One risk was in turn followed by another, in which John transitioned over to LarsonAllen.
Fortunately, this risk was met with the most desirable of outcomes—reward. While other industries have suffered with the recent economic downturn, LarsonAllen was among the few national firms with any internal non-acquisition growth. “When times get tight, people can’t afford to maintain a status quo in which they aren’t getting timely and accurate information with which to make good decisions. The margins are too skinny; they can’t accept anything less than knowing exactly where they stand and where they’re going from a financial standpoint,” he describes.
John credits Susan Stevens, the former Principal in Charge, for her vision, which cultivated LarsonAllen’s Nonprofit & Government Group into the firm’s second largest industry group and effectively drove home how important and profitable the practice could be. While determining her replacement, she looked to John for both his inherent skill and his prior experience building a business of his own. Known throughout the company as a consensus builder among its leadership, John communicated the vision of the organization effectively and worked well with others.
John’s ability to connect people perhaps stem from his childhood, when he grow up as the youngest of four brothers and a sister. He was somewhat of a late bloomer, with his progress and focus stunted by low self-esteem. His brother, Rick, became a tax lawyer and was always very supportive of him, encouraging him to apply himself and achieve his potential before it was too late. After high school, he attended college at the College of Boca Raton for two years and decided to take Rick’s advice. After making the Dean’s List upon graduating with nineteen A’s and a C, he describes himself as a big fish in a small pond, finally willing to apply himself and do his part in achieving success. This newfound motivation landed him a scholarship to attend Florida Atlantic University, where he was drawn to accounting for its promise of flexible and professional prospects upon graduation. Though math was not his passion, Rick explained to him that he had the human skills necessary for the career and could still learn the language and use a calculator. “I liked the idea that it was the foundation of a business career,” he recalls. “I was passionate about building a business, so it was a discipline I really needed to know in order to thrive and survive.”
Of the challenging job market of today’s young entrepreneurs, John advises an expansive and well-rounded repertoire of skills to remain competitive. “You’ve got to be everything—technically competent, good at interpersonal relationships, with strong written and oral communication skills and a constant drive to deliver your services more efficiently,” he urges. He also details the fundamental importance of building a strong foundation in which you develop your core skills and perform an honest self-assessment to determine your ideal work path and work environments. “If you’re honest with yourself about what you’re good at and what you need to work on, you can thrive in an array of environments.” John’s advice stems not only from his own success, but also from applying his learn-by-example mentality to his own father. Amidst serving in World War II as well as raising and educating six children through professional programs, he maintained a lucrative career as a businessman and remained largely debt-free. The obstacles along our path may seem considerable, but John reminds us of the tremendous support we can derive from others, either through direct collaboration or through the indirect lessons we can learn from simply observing them. “Nobody does it on their own,” he stresses. “Look for help, because it’s there.”
For additional information about this profile and case study, please contact:
Gordon J. Bernhardt, CPA, PFS, CFP®, AIF®
Bernhardt Wealth Management, Inc.
2010 Corporate Ridge, Suite 210
McLean, Virginia 22102
(703) 356-4380
www.BernhardtWealth.com
Dean Matt - Designing Your Destiny
Throughout grade school, Matthew Dean had always excelled effortlessly at mathematics. One can thus imagine his surprise and horror when his ninth grade math teacher recommended him for the second best math class instead of the best. High school had raised the bar somewhat in terms of demand and standards, and the boy’s diligence had not yet escalated along with it. Though the packs of football pencils given out as prizes for elementary school math competitions were a thing of the past, Matt found a brand new source of motivation—his own willpower, and his own destiny. Determined, he asked Mr. Burns what he could do to maintain his status in the highest class. “You must ace the second half of this school year,” the teacher said. Matt rose to the challenge and excelled with flying colors, and true to his word, Mr. Burns changed his recommendation.
From this experience, Matt drew so much more than just a renewed drive for math, which carried him through to receive his master’s degree in engineering later on. Beyond the specific skill, the challenge cemented in him something he had always known in his soul but hadn’t actually firmed into a concrete guiding principle. “Nobody’s going to give you anything or carry you. You’ve got to get out there and do it yourself,” he confirms. Now the President of MARKON Inc, a government contracting and consulting company specializing in management solutions, Matt could not have gotten to where he is today without this revolutionizing conviction in personal agency.
MARKON is a spinoff of MKI Systems, which has since been purchased by L-3’s Command & Control Systems and Software (C2S2) Division. Matt assumed employment at MKI, a full-service professional organization focusing in the needs of the Marine Corps, in 2005 to help diversify the company into the intelligence community market. He started his division as a one-man show which grew to nine team members by 2007 when L-3 decided to purchase the enterprise. The new ownership wasn’t interested in an intelligence division, and Matt was not interested in the new ownership, so MARKON was born. When they first spun off, they specialized in providing consultant services to the intelligence community and were earning $1.2 million in revenues. Just a few short years later, they are now over forty employees strong and have amplified revenues to $7 million, fanning out across industries through the translatability of their knowledge base.
Being the professional services company that it is, MARKON essentially sells time and manpower to federal government organizations with the goal of improving functionality through the use of professional resources. The feature tool in this arsenal is project management, and MARKON’s ability to capture key processes and replicate them across subjects has played a vital role in its success. “Our business model has been to serve across government agencies because our method is translatable,” Matt explains. “The Army, Marine Corps, CIA, NSI, DIA, DNI, etcetera—the same types of skills are valuable across all these markets.”
MARKON’s real value lies not in its method, however, but in its matter. “The motivation of our people to succeed is what truly makes us unique,” Matt acknowledges. His team, which is monitored by seven managers, understands the intricacies and nuance of the business that allow them to play the game with unparalleled expertise and offer exceptional service while still balancing the business aspects of the work.
The fascinating thing about Matt’s success is that it doesn’t stem from outside influence, but rather from a strong internal locus of control that marked his comportment even at an early age. Throughout his youth, he doesn’t remember being pushed or micromanaged when it came to academics or athletics. It was always expected that he and his three brothers should maintain good grades and attend college, but his parents, who divorced when he was ten, did not actively talk about the future. Matt’s mother had chosen to focus on her family and her children instead of pursuing her career, and this fact serves as a strong source of motivation in his life and work today. “My mom chose not to take her career into her own hands as a sacrifice for us kids,” he remarks. “If I don’t take full advantage of the opportunities in my life, I’m wasting what she gave me.”
Matt’s first handful of jobs were acquired throughout his high school years and revolved around construction, most notably for Cates Electric. The manual labor was intensive, with one particular instance standing out in his mind in which he was required to dig holes and insert grounding rods for a major electrical system. His first rod took him eight hours of backbreaking labor to install due to the ground’s impenetrable quality—a disheartening end product that only hinted at the effort required to obtain it. When he reported his single accomplishment to a coworker later that day, the man shrugged his shoulders knowingly. “Yes, you will work hard, but it never really amounts to anything,” the laborer told Matt. This remark emblazoned into his mind a strong resolve to do well in college, taking pains to ensure that he set himself up for a professional journey instead of a professional dead-end.
After starting college at Virginia Tech, Matt acquired a job in database building assistance at the World Bank’s Facilities Group. “I wore a shirt and tie to work for the first time,” he remembers. “It was my first chance to experience a real office job.” When he graduated in 1991 with an Industrial Engineering Degree, he found the job market somewhat barren. After a slew of interviews, he was finally offered a government position with the Department of the Navy as a program analyst in a cost analysis shop. In this capacity, he served to assist different Navy programs in mapping out current costs and predicting future expenses. This was essentially his entrance into the government acquisition and support world while also giving him first-hand training in the client service environment as he worked to develop relationships with different customers.
Though he would receive frequent accolades on his performance excellence, Matt was barred from promotion because he didn’t have seniority, and he was turned off by the lack of control over one’s own destiny that the atmosphere engendered. Not only had he reached the kind of dead end he had vowed to avoid, but his personal learning and evolution had come to a standstill. “I realized I wasn’t going to be gaining any additional skills after the first five years, and I didn’t like the resigned attitude that the system is the system,” he recalls. “Realistically, I knew I couldn’t change the system, so my only option was to take my career into my own hands.”
With that, he left to enter the Big Six management consulting world through employment at KPMG Consulting, which became BearingPoint in 2002. Throughout his nine years of employment there, Matt served as a management consultant in a wide variety of industries. The experience allowed him to see how many skills can be translated to different markets and environments, honing his insight for his later leadership with MARKON. BearingPoint’s decrescendo commenced in the early 2000’s with its transition from a partnership model to a public company model. Aware of the writing on the wall, Matt left for MKI Systems in 2005 before BearingPoint’s collapse and eventual merger with Deloitte Consulting.
Despite its impressive evolution and diversification, MARKON’s story is far from complete. “We’re still a new company and haven’t finished setting the foundation yet,” Matt says. True to his upbringing, which focused on a general striving for accomplishment rather than a specific micromanaged path toward success, he remarks, “I don’t feel like I have to hit a certain figure in revenue to accomplish a given goal. Rather, I just focus on making good, smart decisions.” Not only does this approach lead to reasoned judgments and solid returns, but it heightens team morale by instilling sound confidence within MARKON’s employees.
Now, as the company’s past performance record and reference list grows, Matt and his team are working on building the company’s accounting system and overhead infrastructure as they begin to aim their targets on bigger fish. “The sky’s the limit,” Matt says lightheartedly. “I’m particularly excited because it gives opportunities to our employees to expand their skills, almost as if they’re running mini MARKONs themselves.” This mindset showcases the leadership philosophy that drives the enterprise—one of interconnected fates and genuine interest in the success of others. “It’s all about the team approach,” Matt explains. “I truly believe that the best way for me to be more successful is for my employees to enjoy this success as well.”
In advising others along this quest for collective success, Matt urges the kind of openness and awareness that has kept him in perpetual evolution over the years, both personally and professionally. His method echoes what seems to be a current trend in American society toward life-long personal skill strengthening and diversification. “I remember reading an article that explained how, for generations, people thought it was risky to change jobs,” Matt recalls. “But now, at least in our industry, staying in the same job allows your skills to get stale.” So, where his role was once in contracts, security, finance, business development, and recruiting, he has incrementally yet steadily shape-shifted into the strategist and broad-scale leader he serves as today.
It is safe to assume, then, that the future of Matt’s role as President of MARKON is far from set or static. In this light, he also emphasizes the crucial part that long-term planning and vision plays in success. “The big thing I’ve learned recently is that I’m in this for the long haul, and my decisions are reflecting this realization,” Matt remarks. “Investment in training, going out of our way to hire good people, getting into new markets even though they may not make money this year—all these are an automatic yes for me now. Maximizing my 2010 income would be at the expense of my 2015 income, so I’m not going to do that,” he explains.
Inherent in this recipe success, however, is a certain fascination and will of character. “Be a sponge. Soak up everything,” Matt insists. It’s how we keep life fresh. It’s how we stave off stagnation, keeping the self on a perpetual journey toward betterment. And it’s how we put our future back in our own hands, molding something truly remarkable and unique from the raw material of status quo.
For additional information about this profile and case study, please contact:
Gordon J. Bernhardt, CPA, PFS, CFP®, AIF®
Bernhardt Wealth Management, Inc.
2010 Corporate Ridge, Suite 210
McLean, Virginia 22102
(703) 356-4380
www.BernhardtWealth.com
Michael Croxson - Faith in Human Goodness
As a pioneer in the for-profit credit counseling industry, Michael Croxson’s business philosophy is perpetually optimistic and forward-thinking. “What do I want to do next?” and “What needs to be done?” are the axial questions he continually asks himself as he works to streamline the process of debt-relief. His work focuses on how to best align these two questions so that they can be answered with clarity, like an image that gains substance and detail as the distance between a person and their goal disappears.
While Mike has many responsibilities as the President of CareOne Services Inc. and the COO of the Ascend One Corporation, his most fundamental function is that of “culture police.” Aside from his roles as the operator of CareOne’s sales, a contributor and leader in public policy and community relations decisions, and as part of founder Bernie Dancel’s executive team, Mike’s primary efforts remain focused on making sure his company maintains the same energy and concentration that first attracted him many years ago. But, in order to understand Mike’s value system and talent for value recognition, one must first understand the company which he works to preserve.
Ascend One was founded by Mr. Dancel after a personal experience exposed him to the need for a service which, at that point, did not exist. In his early twenties, he went through a difficult divorce and, though he had always identified himself as financially astute, found that this unexpected change in his life had wrought similarly unexpected financial consequences. After exhausting all of his options, Bernie didn’t know where to turn for help and was advised to meet with a traditional credit counseling associate. When he called to make an appointment, it was scheduled for a date two weeks in the future. When he arrived at the meeting, he was informed he was not in possession of the correct documents, and his meeting was delayed another two weeks. These wasted weeks were crippling, and Bernie was forced to declare personal bankruptcy per the advice of an attorney.
Credit counseling began as a service in the 1950s, but had remained stagnant as a business paradigm until the early 1990s. After his unsatisfactory experience, Bernie committed himself to finding a way for people who are struggling to know that there is a resource immediately available to them—a resource that would reach out to them by means that were regarded as unconventional at the time. He started a company that introduced the use of phone and fax to its business model, foreshadowing the focus on technology that would lead to so much success throughout its evolution. The organization grew to 300,000 customers within four years, making it the largest in the industry. However, in 1997, Bernie decided that in order to best serve those affected by crises similar to his own, he must step away from the traditionally non-profit credit counseling model and become a for-profit technology, processing and consulting company that would serve the entire credit counseling industry. This is the company—Ascend One—that Mike Croxson joined in 1999. The Ascend One family of businesses currently includes Amerix, which advises credit counseling agencies on back office and technological strategy, and CareOne, which provides consumers with a host of solutions and education for debt management issues.
Though Mike thrives in his current position, he could not have predicted his future career path when he first graduated from the University of Virginia back in 1986. His initial plan was to work for several years after his graduation and then to go back to school. He received multiple offers from New York banks and banking entities and planned on taking a position with Morgan Stanley, but before doing so he accepted a dinner invitation from the head of Human Resources at First Union Bank, Sid Tate. Mike’s interests were more directed to human resources, and Mr. Tate offered to create an associate program for him that would allow him to work in HR at their Charlotte office. This offer had special implications for Mike, since his family lived in Charlotte as well, so he embraced it.
Fully immersed in his new role, Mike found himself a profound interest in the behavior of those around him. This innate ability to observe can be traced back to Mike’s parents, who were both behavioral scientists at heart. His mother worked as a clinical social worker, school counselor, and eventually as the manager of all the counselors throughout a school system, constantly exploring what makes people “tick.” Mike’s father, in turn, served as an Episcopal priest and was an excellent role model for Mike.
“I saw my father at the forefront of instituting change in society,” Mike explains. “My parents focused on doing things the right way, and for the right reasons.” During the Vietnam War, his father was a pioneer in the unification of dissentious citizens at his church. It was the first time people of different races, sexes, and demographics had lived together, seeking shelter at the church in commandeered Sunday school rooms. His father taught him that there is no reason to limit the meaning and impact of any given opportunity, claiming that an individual should be welcomed in his church regardless of their political views. During such a politically charged time, this was truly progressive thinking. Correspondingly, Mike’s mother imbued him with extreme optimism, especially as it related to people. She taught him to focus on what was “right” about an individual’s perspective instead of what was wrong, pointing out that each perspective has something valuable to offer. Today, Mike finds himself employing these lessons constantly in the workplace and in business settings, asking those around him to describe their thought process in great detail and nuance.
The bilateral nature of Mike’s philosophy that later compelled him to team up with Mr. Dancel was informed by a seminal experience in his youth when, as a college junior, he served on the board for a single-sex boarding school in Lynchburg, Virginia. Mike’s father had served on this board before his passing, and so Mike was asked to serve on in his stead. The school had recently transitioned from a single-sex to a co-ed environment and was struggling to identify a path for the future. “How do you take everything the alumni loved about the school and use it as a springboard for the future?” was the question on everyone’s mind. After being immersed in the tradition of the school as a head counselor and member of the Honor Committee, Mike worked ardently to help lead others through the difficulties that came with change, and although there were hard transitional times, the school came to flourish in its modernized form.
“At the end of the day, people’s willingness to tolerate change is a function of their trust in you,” Mike explains. This timeless advice, tested through his experience with the boarding school, is now paramount to CareOne’s business premise. As he describes, “If we brand ourselves directly to our consumer to portray what we bring to them as unique, and if we continue to deliver on that brand, then when that consumer is out of debt, they will recognize that we were in the foxhole with them and brought them to the brink of being debt-free.’” Mike reasons that this loyalty will allow CareOne to evolve one step further by developing services to help newly-debt-free consumers decide what comes next for them. “Whether it is retirement, or financing a college education, we will tell them how to get there,” he explains. CareOne’s goal, then, is to never give a client away, even after their debt has been eliminated. It also hopes to maintain the CareOne brand through innovative services like third-party deliverables. Although the financial supermarket concept is yet to be properly executed, Mike believes that CareOne has a unique opportunity to realize this dream since their customers come to them in times of great need. He also notes CareOne’s exceptional reputation in an industry known largely for an overwhelming proportion of “bad guys.” Whereas other companies aren’t known for customer concern, CareOne focuses exclusively on the needs of the consumer and what is most important for them without conflict of interest or hidden agenda.
This philosophy, which serves as the foundation for all that the Ascend One Corporation hopes to accomplish in the future, is precisely the culture that Mike strives to maintain and promote on a daily basis. It is a culture centered on the conviction that human beings are fundamentally good at heart, and that the human spirit will persevere when given the right tools. “Financial troubles are rarely the fault of the consumer,” Mike explains. “More times than not, the consumer that comes to us has incredible ingenuity and has figured out how to juggle an incredible number of balls before something unforeseen happens and knocks all the balls out of their hands, leaving them without an idea of which ball to pick up first.” In helping individuals piece their lives back together to form solid futures, Mike’s work enables him to make these ingenious people feel like valuable members of the community again. Always open to new thoughts, always interested in new perspectives, and ever able to see the good in people, his work ensures that the corporation remains true to its original values even as it expands toward new horizons.
For additional information about this profile and case study, please contact:
Gordon J. Bernhardt, CPA, PFS, CFP®, AIF®
Bernhardt Wealth Management, Inc.
2010 Corporate Ridge, Suite 210
McLean, Virginia 22102
(703) 356-4380
www.BernhardtWealth.com
Bernie Dancel - Remapping the Realm of Possibility
When Bernie Dancel divorced at age 23, he considered his options. He had only completed one year of college at the University of Delaware and had spent some time in the military in the hopes that he could pay for his remaining schooling while supporting a young family. With the burdens and bills from his marriage and separation adding considerable girth to the already pressing expenses of daily living, he quickly found himself amidst mounting debt and dwindling hope. When he sought the advice of an attorney, he was told that filing for bankruptcy was his only option. Though his financial liability slate was wiped clean, filing for bankruptcy left personal and emotional afflictions that persisted, casting a troublesome shadow upon his sense of self-worth.
The professional path that he pursued in the wake of these trying times is a testament to a conviction Bernie had felt in his soul all along—that people are inherently good, knowing the difference between right and wrong and generally striving to do what’s right. With his feet back on the ground, he began a career in financial services, achieving lucrative positions as he learned how to assess investments and manage excess cash flow. The more he learned, however, the more he yearned to transition into a role that would help people who were struggling financially instead of those with excess. He dreamed of helping people who were more like the figures of his childhood—people who were trying to persevere amidst imperfect circumstances. The youngest of two boys raised by a single mother who worked odd jobs for restaurants, farms, and canneries, his passion for struggling demographics rested close to home. Thus, he leapt headfirst into the credit counseling business in 1992.
At that time, the credit counseling industry was stiflingly homogenized. All the organizations were nonprofit entities funded in large part by creditors, which created a conflict of interest that left much to be desired. The services were only revealed to consumers sporadically and usually not until a creditor had attempted debt collection and failed. Furthermore, Bernie felt as though the industry’s leadership consistently missed the big picture because they had never been consumers of the services themselves, oblivious of the kind of financial stress they sought to assuage. After several months of industry exposure, Bernie couldn’t take it anymore. But, rather than jumping ship and pursuing a less frustrating career path, he took a decidedly different approach: transforming the industry altogether.
Funded through his new wife’s line of credit, he opened a shop with just himself and a phone. In the next five years, the one-man show evolved into Genus Credit Management and quickly became the largest nonprofit credit counseling agency in the country, earning over $100 million in revenue and instigating industry-wide change. The company owes its success in large part to its consumer-centric approach—a revolutionary shift from the previous model that was managed, controlled, and governed by the credit-granting community. Contrary to traditional protocol, they advertised and marketed their services readily. These advertisements used very specific and direct messages so people knew if they were qualified to call and had the option to seek help regardless of the depth of trouble they were in. Striving to eliminate common barriers, Bernie instituted a call center so people didn’t have to take time off work and weren’t forced to suffer the social stigma of walking into a credit counseling office. If a consumer was up at 2 AM worrying about how they might make ends meet, Genus Credit Management would be there to answer their call.
Perhaps the most inspiring aspect of this story is the fact that Bernie and his team were never acutely aware of their success, even as it mounted. As he reports, “We didn’t know we were the largest at the time because we just had our blinders on. How do we help more people? How, how, how?” The company was continually streamlining their processes, improving their training, and exploring different channels of communication to spread the word. While delivering real and concrete help to consumers used to take six to eight weeks, Genus Credit had whittled the process down to forty-five minutes. Leveraging technology and building strong, informed relationships with creditors allowed Bernie to act as a responsible, compassionate, and positive mediator between creditor and consumer.
With Genus Credit Management growing as fast as the rest of the industry combined, Bernie took it upon himself to get out in the field and talk face-to-face with top creditors, banks, and collections departments. He hoped to acquire a more nuanced understanding of the players in his business so that he might better serve both them and their debtors. After this venture he resolved to transition away from Genus Credit, leaving it as a nonprofit in the hands of the management team he had put in place, and to launch Amerix Corporation in 1997. Through this new endeavor he aimed to advise credit counseling agencies, teaching them a new business model and providing the technology they would need for implementation. By assimilating these core competencies into the industry, he was able to reach more consumers and instigate even more widespread change than before.
And yet, it was not enough for Bernie and his corporation to affect change in the industry alone. When he next set his sights on establishing a for-profit credit counseling agency, he found that many states had difficult barriers in place for that kind of business. Instead of throwing in the towel, he set about changing legislation state-by-state, building an environment in which he could operate objectively and without conflicts of interest. Thus, CareOne Services Inc. was established and affiliated with Amerix under the Ascend One Corporation family. 3Ci, a business designed to market the CareOne brand, was also formed under Ascend One. Today, CareOne offers credit counseling while also partnering with other professionals to provide access to resources on bankruptcy and debt settlement. It maintains a unique flexibility, able to thoroughly examine the consumer’s needs to make recommendations that are truly in the best interest of a person in need. Instead of taking the traditional one-size-fits-all approach, they run individual analyses on their customers. In this sense, it is truly more than the sum of the services it provides, taking a holistic approach and providing the consumer with options. Their results are truly a testament to this approach, with a significant percentage of clients able to pay back the entire sum of their debt.
One other riveting aspect of Bernie’s business model is his utilization of the consumers themselves as resources. Because credit counseling and debt management relies so heavily upon behavioral modification throughout the plan’s implementation, advice and support is especially critical. Consequently, Bernie’s company facilitates communities of consumers who can come together and share tips and stories. “We turn to our customers as the experts because they’ve been doing this,” Bernie explains. “They come up with solutions because they’re forced to or else they won’t be able to make it through the month.” Not only does this provide a valuable support structure for the consumer, but it eliminates the traditional expert vs. debtor dichotomy that was so prevalent in the industry before Bernie’s influence. Whereas credit counselors would oftentimes talk down to consumers in the past and do further damage to their self-concept, the consumer is now positioned as a respected and valuable perspective in the credit counseling process.
This unbridled willingness to collaborate is a key ingredient to Bernie’s success as an entrepreneur, allowing him to assemble answers from many diverse sources into coherent and comprehensive solutions. “I don’t need to have all the answers myself,” he says. “I know there are answers out there and I’ll look anywhere it takes to find them.” Relying on the input of his executive team, his management style hinges upon collaboration and, above all, upon trust. “They trust each other completely,” he says of his team members. “Whatever it is they’re doing, it’s for the greater good of the organization. This allows them to have important disputes and great discussions.”
The passion at work behind Ascend One’s leadership is undeniable, providing a firm foundation for the organization as it continues to revolutionize and redefine the credit counseling industry. It is staggering to think that the passion fueling their continued growth and success today is the very same passion that was present at the humble kitchen table all those years ago where Bernie first began his crusade. It continues to fuel his conviction in the face of certain discouragement, giving him the persistence to keep asking questions until every answer is found. Recalling many occasions where he was told his goals were impossible, he advises future generations with the kind of optimism one can have faith in. “Believe you can do anything you want to do,” he urges. “Mistakes are lessons. Successes are even more lessons. Failure doesn’t bother me. I believe in where I’m trying to go so much that it’s real.” His greatest piece of advice to young entrepreneurs is to find this same passion within themselves—that wellspring of energy and excitement that brings happiness and contentment regardless of how profitable it is. Transform it into a career and use it to carry you through failures and setbacks, which there surely will be. “There’s nothing that’s impossible,” he reminds us, living proof of the empowering words he speaks.
For additional information about this profile and case study, please contact:
Gordon J. Bernhardt, CPA, PFS, CFP®, AIF®
Bernhardt Wealth Management, Inc.
2010 Corporate Ridge, Suite 210
McLean, Virginia 22102
(703) 356-4380
www.BernhardtWealth.com