2000 Fantastic 50

Fantastic 50 - Service Winner
Small Private Companies on the Vanguard of Growth
Complete listing of the 2000 Fantastic 50

It helps to know when to cut grass

By Leila Marija Ugincius
Research Editor
lugincius@va-business.com

For Nicholas Masucci, the key to fast growth can be something as simple as mowing grass by the highway. To be sure, Masucci —founder of the transportation engineering firm VMS — has bigger tasks. But by digging into a rich skill set for doing management tasks efficiently, he can decide the best time for chores like mowing the grass. That cost-conscious approach impressed Shirley J. Ybarra, the state’s secretary of transportation. "Instead of saying, ‘Mow the grass eight times this summer,’ we say we want it to be at a certain height at all times. VMS makes decisions on how to do it and when to do it."

VMS president Nicholas Masucci turns
road maintenance into a private-sector
venture. Photo by Wayne Scarberry

Such performance has been a big boon for 5-year-old VMS, which is based in Richmond. The company grew 125 percent in four years, making it a leader among service companies in the Fantastic 50. Not only does VMS oversee work for Virginia, it helps Texas, Utah and South Carolina maintain their roads. Expanding abroad, the company is working on proposals in New Zealand, Argentina and Morocco. Masucci sees the company quadrupling in the next five years — "at least according to my plan," he says.

Masucci believes that asset management is the transportation industry’s ticket to the future. His strategy is simple: Treat highways as financial assets that can yield returns. For years, for example, states have used multiple contractors to handle multiple tasks. One firm may be responsible for clearing dead animals, another for snow removal, and yet another for patching potholes.

Such a strategy lacks efficiency, Masucci says, and eventually costs more money. It is similar to simply building a road and forgetting about it. "You build it, forget about it and in 15 to 20 years you have to rebuild it," he says. "It’s cheaper to build the road to last longer." Making roads last longer is the selling point for VMS. "We want that road to last a certain amount of time," Masucci says. "We work backwards from that goal — at a fixed price." That way, any financial risk is transferred from the government to VMS.

The approach has worked. When the firm began in 1995, it had just one employee — Masucci. Now, VMS has 650 workers and offices in Virginia Beach, Texas and Utah. One key member of the VMS team is Robert Bourdon, a kindred spirit and 30-year veteran of the Florida Department of Transportation. Masucci hired him in 1995, and later that year the duo submitted an unsolicited proposal to the Virginia Department of Transportation pushing private highway maintenance. The timing was perfect. VDOT was already exploring the idea, but wasn’t far along. VMS’s timely pitch "moved us along a couple of years faster," Ybarra says.

VMS won a $131.6 million contract for five and a half years to maintain portions of Interstates 95, 81 and 77. Masucci says that under that contract VMS has saved the state $22 million. The contract is soon up for renewal. If VMS keeps up its pace, it is likely to win that one and many more.