THR Enterprises is top performer for second straight year

by Heather B. Hayes
Virginia Business
May 2005

All building projects have their share of challenges, but Terry H. Robinson, president of THR Enterprises, says that his company’s contract to build a 24,000-square-foot welcome center for the Jamestown National Historic Park ranks as one of its toughest assignments.

The site is in an eagle nesting ground, so workers can’t perform any exterior work between November and July when the eagles are building their nests and hatching their chicks. And when employees can work, archeologists have the right to stop construction to inspect any potential historic finds. Meanwhile, the company is up against a hard deadline: early 2007, just in time for the observance of the 400th anniversary of the Jamestown settlement. “That is clearly the No. 1 challenge for this year and next,” Robinson says. “We don’t have a lot of room for delays or problems, but failure is not an option. I mean, President Bush and the Queen of England have been invited for the opening.”

The need to keep the Jamestown project on schedule is just one of the reasons why, after two years of being Virginia’s fastest-growing company, THR Enterprises is ready for a bit of a breather. (THR, by the way, are Robinson’s initials.) The design-build firm focuses on providing construction and renovation for federal government clients. The company has performed phenomenally since becoming a federal contractor in 1999 under the 8(a) Small Business Administration program for small disadvantaged businesses.

Its revenue has grown from just over $200,000 in its first year to nearly $20 million in 2004. Along the way, it has consistently beaten larger construction companies for major contracts with the U.S. Air Force, Navy and the National Park Service.

Besides the Jamestown project, the company’s wins last year included a nearly $6 million design-build contract for a marina at Langley Air Force Base. THR Enterprises also was one of a handful of contractors to win the Navy Demo Multiple Award Contract (MAC), a special type of contract that gives the company the right to compete with the other contract winners in the future for the agency’s demolition jobs and which, at this point, has an unlimited dollar value. Another highlight for the company was its flooring division, which took in a record $1.2 million in gross revenue.

Robinson expects revenue to continue to grow this year but at slower pace. After the blistering growth of the past few years, he’s content to put more emphasis on fine-tuning the company’s service quality, employee skills and client relationships. “There is definitely a danger that comes with growing too fast,” says Robinson, whose initial intent in starting the company was to buy, renovate and sell undervalued or distressed properties. “Quality can go to pieces if you don’t watch, so we definitely don’t want to get to the point where we’re growing so fast that we are unable to respond effectively to a customer’s needs.”

To meet this goal, THR Enterprises, which has 53 employees, recently signed a mentor-protégé arrangement with Centex Inc., a Fortune 500 construction firm based in Dallas. “I’m looking to strengthen our field superintendents even more than they already are, provide them with more technical skills and really sharpen the tools, so to speak, on how to do a project in a timely fashion and take care of the customer,” Robinson says.
Centex will provide THR Enterprises with a variety of educational opportunities, including skill-level training in a classroom-type setting as well as on-the-job training. The two firms are already seeking joint opportunities, and Robinson says that THR Enterprises is negotiating for a three-year deal that will allow it to perform floor work on existing and future Centex contracts.

David Birtwhistle, vice president for Centex, says that his company chose to work with THR Enterprises, in part, because of its reputation for quality work and strong focus on customer service. “We thought that their reputation for the work that they had performed was quite strong,” he says. “We found a number of satisfied customers.”

And even with its stellar performance, THR Enterprises remains clearly eager to better itself, Birtwhistle states. “That sincerity to grow is very much there, and we expect they’ll grab all of the rings that we have to offer such that both companies will benefit.”