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Sibling Partnership
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Elspermans’
commitment and cooperation build bright promise at Tarlton.
By Kevin Kipp
If it makes a father happy to see his kids play nicely together,
Robert Elsperman must be elated. His eldest daughter Tracy Elsperman
Hart and only son Dirk Elsperman are getting along just fine at
Tarlton Corporation.
Above: One
of Tarlton’s recent projects was the renovation of the Commerce
Bank headquarters in Clayton.
Hart became president of the 13th largest construction company in
metropolitan St. Louis in September 1999. That’s also when Dirk
Elsperman, three years her junior, became chief operating officer
and executive vice president.
She began her Tarlton career as a project engineer in 1990. “My
background was in marketing,” she says, “and it was important that
I understand what we sell first.”
Dirk Elsperman began his Tarlton career as a project engineer in
late 1991. Since then, he says he’s been “functionally involved
in all phases of project management and at many different levels
of responsibility.”
Her B.A. from the University of Michigan was a double major: English
and communications.
He studied engineering in his first two years at Cornell before
shifting to earn his B.S. in economics and business. He also worked
in the carpenter apprenticeship program in the ’80s, during college
breaks.
“Experience in the field serves me everyday,” he says. “The real
benefit is understanding what people in the field are going through
in order to execute their work. Many of the guys I worked with as
an apprentice are now our superintendents.”
The siblings each own one-third of the company. The third third
is the third and youngest Elsperman: Wendy Guhr, who teaches at
Horton Watkins High School. Her husband, Ted Guhr, works in Tarlton’s
business development.
The Elspermans grew up in Ballwin. Admitting to having been “a bit
of a tomboy,” Hart says, “Dirk and I tromped around the neighborhood
together, playing a lot of sports and outside all the time. He has
always been bigger than me, but I always looked out for him. He
did likewise. We still do.”
Bob Elsperman’s father Art Elsperman and three others returning
from war, revived the G. L. Tarlton Contracting Company in 1946.
“George Locke Tarlton started the company in 1923,” Hart says. “Like
many construction companies in World War II, it went dormant. They
had one open contract.”
Revenues in fiscal 2000, Hart’s first full year as president, came
in at a company record $91.4 million. October 2001 saw $80 million
in revenue.
Hart isn’t overly concerned by the decline. “Anybody can get a job,”
she says, “but delivering it profitably, and keeping the customer
happy is the most important thing. We don’t see that drop as significant
to our company growth.”
She expects 2002 will be a good year. “In construction, we lag the
economy, so we’re pleased we had a good backlog going into the recession,”
she says. “And the economy is picking up, slowly but surely.
“There have been so many layoffs in our industry that I hesitate
to be too optimistic, but the team has remained constant,” she continues.
“I feel confident that work with our kinds of customers will be
strong.”
Tarlton lists some 75 clients on their website. The roster reads
like a who’s who of corporate and institutional St. Louis. Their
largest clients currently include Anheuser-Busch, Washington U.
and Monsanto.
With the economy picking up, Hart also expects to see increased
competition. Asked if that will be an impediment to reaching $100
million in revenue, she says, “If we focus on that, we’re looking
at the wrong thing. Our mantra is service, safety and profitability.”
The Elsperman siblings are evenly spaced three years apart, but
the role of president did not go to Hart by virtue of primogeniture.
“Dad said the decision was up to us, because we’d have to live with
it,” she explains. “But we had help. We have an outside board of
advisors who were invaluable to our transition.”
Dirk Elsperman observes, “Her title is president; mine is chief
operating officer. In those functions she works the outside; I’m
the inside person.”
The advisory board of three included inside-outside in its considerations.
Jim Gould, chairman of wholesale floor covering houses Misco Shawnee
and ColorTile, was a Tarlton advisor for three years ending in 2001.
He says the group helps with both strategic and tactical issues:
“Tarlton’s direction and differentiation in the market, as well
as, for instance, how was the safety program going? What is the
customer satisfaction rating? Whose business are you currently pursuing?”
Succession was the most interesting topic of all, he says. “When
Bob reached the point where he was considering cutting back on his
duties, we looked at two children in the company who were extremely
well qualified. We also looked outside the firm. And we looked at
the company’s top management.
“Very simply,” he continues, “we found in Dirk and Tracy two very
qualified people with different, but complementary skill sets.”
Hart agrees. “My position in the market was on the outside,” she
says. “Dirk’s skills played to operations. We are fortunate that
our skills aren’t the same.”
“We felt the title ‘president’ was more important in the hands of
the one meeting customers, soliciting new business,” Gould says.
“We felt both would share responsibility equally.”
More Gould: “I was amazed...first, to see how smoothly the transition
went, without titles or egos getting in the way. Secondly, I was
delighted with how the employees reacted to the clear definition
of areas of responsibility.”
After the baton passed from Dad to Tracy, Dirk Elsperman didn’t
notice any big changes. “We’ve worked together as a team since ’95
or ’96 to get where we are now,” he says. “Some of it was by plan
and some of it was by opportunity. Tracy and I always knew where
our strengths were and what we wanted to do within the company.
That’s what we’re doing now.”
Bob Elsperman is now Tarlton’s chairman. He does what he wants,
too, Hart says. “He comes in when he’s in town. He serves as an
industry ombudsman, and keeps busy with civic involvement. We want
him around as much as he wants to be, to provide counsel.”
Hart jokes that as COO, Dirk Elsperman’s job is simple: “He makes
sure everything we promise is delivered.”
Ba da’ ba. But seriously, folks...
“He works with managers and our equipment and maintenance facility.
He’s also on top of safety, and he’s our go-to person for labor
jurisdictional issues.”
For the president, she says, “Job one is client care: are we doing
our best? Are they happy with what we’re doing?”
It also means spending time on the job, “walking the project, not
for the engineering, but to see how the relationships are going
with the project. I rely on our project managers and superintendents
for technical input—how does that gizzyfarb [a what?] connect to
the who’s-it. My concern is the people part of the projects ...
asking questions, internally and externally.”
Hart is also in charge of human resources, finance and client contracts.
“It’s also my responsibility to maintain our corporate culture,”
she says, “and make sure we adhere to our strategic vision: ‘Tarlton
builds futures for clients and the community.’”
The Tarlton website further distinguishes the company as “builders
not brokers.”
Hart explains, “Management-oriented firms may have few, if any,
tradesmen. They sub-contract everything. We enjoy getting our feet
dirty and putting the building together.”
Tarlton employs more than 200 “craftworkers” who account for some
40 percent of the labor on Tarlton projects. “For Tarlton, it’s
a better way to control projects...quality, timing, expense,” she
says. “We’re a middle-size firm and rely very heavily on our ability
to serve. Alberici and McCarthy [with nine or 10 times the revenue]
are our competition everyday of the week.”
In addition to Hart and Elsperman, the Tarlton executive management
team consists of John Doerr, senior vice president and David Moore,
vice president of finance. Tarlton employs more than 50 other people
in its corporate office. “Dirk and I are fortunate that we get to
work with some of the most talented people in our industry,” Hart
says. “They are the life blood of our Tarlton family.”
The recent completion of a new $2 million “Tarlton Equipment and
Maintenance” facility—construction of which was supervised by her
brother—helps enormously with the company’s ability to “self-perform”
its work, she says.
Elsperman says, “The TEAM facility supports our field forces, gives
us a flexibility where we’re not dependent on other people. We control
expenses, and we get the quality we need. It’s our basis for providing
the materials, the equipment and the tools for our projects: shipping,
maintenance, fabrication. We own our own fleet of cranes, backhoes
and excavators ... all sorts of gizzyfarbs and what-nots.”
There’s that word again.
The two-level 35,000-square-foot building—16,000 up, 19,000 down—has
one large and five smaller equipment repair bays, with three overhead
cranes.
“Our chief mechanic says he can fix or make anything but a broken
heart,” Elsperman grins.
Besides repairing backhoes, he explains, Tarlton’s TEAM can create
specialized tools ... like the one “for taking up floor tile. We
needed to hold the jackhammer at an impossible angle, so they rigged
a way to put it on a cart that held it at that angle. It saved the
guys’ backs and prosecuted the work more efficiently.”
So that’s a gizzyfarb.
Hart says the TEAM facility location, just east of the Hampton Avenue
bridge over Manchester, is ideal. “It’s 20-to-30 minutes from almost
everybody we do work with. And about a third of our employees live
on the East Side. Their access was important, too.”
Besides their idiosyncratic vocabulary, Elsperman and Hart also
share a commitment to family, industry and community.
Asked about hobbies, their answers rang similar. Hart says, “Raising
two sons is a full-time job. If I have any spare time, I enjoy reading
... self-help, business, fiction.”
Elsperman says, “With two small daughters, most of my free time
is spent with them, helping with soccer and softball teams. Otherwise,
home remodeling.”
Both siblings are active in the Associated General Contractors.
“Dad instilled in us a sense of responsibility for the industry’s
destiny,” Hart says, “and a need to give back to the community in
which we work, a sense of stewardship. He worked with the Salvation
Army among other non-profits, and currently co-chairs PRIDE as the
management representative.”
Pride’s other two co-chairs represent labor and project owners.
“Dad wanted us to stay involved with the industry to shape how we
all do business,” she says. “If you’re not involved in improving
the industry, then it’s like the folks who don’t vote: Don’t complain.
“And there is room for improvement,” she says with a knowing laugh.
But it was about nothing more sinister than “work force development
... getting more people interested in being tradesmen or engineers
or architects. And then productivity.”
Dirk Elsperman’s community involvement includes the “Scramble for
Kids” and the Children’s Miracle Network.
Hart is on the board of advisors for the Family Firm Forum at Saint
Louis University, a business school program designed to work with
family business issues; the South City YMCA; the Carondolet YMCA
and the Metro St. Louis YWCA.
Joy Burns, CEO of the YWCA, says Hart “is straightforward and has
integrity. She’s committed to diversity, and open to considering
a variety of ideas. But she’s also decisive...that makes for a good
president and a good board member.”
Asked if working with a woman president matters to him, Dirk Elsperman
says, “I’m her brother, so I see her differently from the community.
It doesn’t make any difference to me whether she is my brother or
my sister. At work, the relationship would be the same.”
But at play, Elsperman allows, “I have brothers-in-law, and we go
camping and canoeing.”
Kevin Kipp runs Bubble Communications, a creative services and
community relations firm in St. Charles.
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