MIner Corporation Executives Tread Into Uncharted Waters

With key leaders such as founder and Chairman of Miner Holding Company Phil Miner; President and CEO of Miner Fleet Management Group Jeff Schmeck; and President and CEO of The Miner Corporation David Janssen at the helm, the multi-divisional Miner Holding Company has developed into one of the fastest-growing private companies in the United States.  Now, Miner leaders are poised to make the firm the dominant facilities maintenance company in North America.

By focusing on innovative ways to drive down costs and improve jobsite safety for employers and vendors, Miner has grown dramatically. In the past decade, Miner acquired or created six subsidiary companies which serve nearly 60 percent of Fortune 500 companies on a regional or national basis.

Now that Miner has broken the $50 million revenue barrier (in 2007), company leaders are bracing for explosive growth, expecting to race past a quarter-billion dollars in sales by 2013.

And to capitalize on Miner’s growth, the firm has recently been divided into three separately run businesses- Parent company Miner Holding Company; its international service company Miner Fleet Management Group; and its regional distribution business The Miner Corporation.

The company has four core values that you credit with much of your success: Practice the Golden Rule; Live by the Code of Honor; Always do what’s in our customer’s best interest; Build trust through open dialog and candor. How did those come about?

Phil Miner: The Core Values came from the executive team getting together and talking about our beliefs and things we learned over the years. The Golden Rule, to treat others as you want to be treated, is undeniable. It drives success, whether it’s applied in families, businesses, churches, government organizations or non-profits.

Jeff Schmeck:  Look at any Miner building or office and you’ll see that the Core Values are posted. We tell our people there are going to be times when you are going to be in a dilemma, when you’ll be unsure of what to do. We tell our team to look to these beliefs and be a values-based leader. The core values will tell you what to do. Make decisions based on those values. It really works.

Miner puts a heavy emphasis on making the “right” hires. What do you look for in an employee?

Phil Miner,

Founder & Chairman

Miner Holding Company

Phil Miner: We hire and recruit around the core values. We want people who want to be a hero when they get out of bed in the morning – who come to work for more than just a paycheck. We define those people as “A” players. Who do “A” players like to hang out with? Other “A” players. Half of our new hires are referrals, which I think is cool.

You can have the greatest ideas or best practices in the world or even the greatest strategic plan in the world, but if you don’t have the right people, you’re dead. They’re the ones who are going to execute your vision and help you capitalize on that business concept or idea.

David Janssen: We mostly look for a positive attitude and the ability to communicate with others. We can teach them the nuances of the business but if they lack the ability to work well with other people and our customers, they will not be successful. We also look for Energy. We love high energy people that know when to bring it.

Jeff Schmeck: We’re in the service business, that’s how we add value to our customers. Something that we have talked about is that if you’re in the service business and if you have the right culture, you make money. If you don’t have the right culture, you don’t make money. One of the beauties of our company as we’ve built it is that we created the culture we wanted to work in. There were no bad habits to break.

Our folks are passionately engaged in the service business. We had a customer tell us one time, “Your people are like bulldogs: They grab a hold of a problem and they don’t shake loose until it’s solved.”

What are some of the growing pains Miner has experienced or is going through now?

Jeff Schmeck: Keeping up with the hiring and with the selectivity we do in our hiring. We’re not a company that says hire 20 and keep 2. We don’t cast a wide net. We go through a painstaking interview process. Maintaining the excellent service level, while growing the business, is definitely a challenge. We’re very proud of the fact that we’ve had 100 percent customer retention in our national service company, Miner Fleet, which is now seven years old.

Phil Miner: As the company gets bigger, to retain a culture of teamwork focused on our Core Values is harder because that message has to go through more layers now. When there were fewer than five of us working together, we didn’t have any communications breakdown. There was no misinterpretation of what was being said.

With 140 full-time employees and 150 full-time contracted employees now working for us daily, and with our geographic expansion, we have new challenges. We are now in Florida, and we have offices in El Paso and Arizona, too. We want to make sure that people there still feel like they are part of this company. We have to work at that. So we have quarterly meetings where we bring managing partners here to San Antonio, and Jeff and I travel extensively to the site offices to meet and make sure people are comfortable and know they have regular access to the ownership group.

Is there anything you would have done differently in the past 14 years?

President & COO
Jeff Schmeck
Miner Fleet Management Group

Jeff Schmeck: Looking back, we took some risks. We did things probably before we were ready to do them, and we created as we went along. We were baking cakes, writing cookbooks and cleaning tables all at the same time. That might have been one thing we would have done differently, maybe had the recipe before hand. But some things you have to figure out on your own.

You’ve set ambitious goals for Miner for the next five years. What will it take to get to the next level?

Phil Miner: We have a great culture with value-based decision-making processes and a wonderful work ethic. We have a culture that wants to serve customers exceptionally well, so as we take on new customers, we really work hard to take care of them.

Innovation is an ongoing process. We’re never satisfied and are always looking for ways to improve. That’s one of the drivers of the entrepreneur; you always think you can do something better.

If you walk around this facility (a 16,500 square-foot headquarters in North San Antonio), we’re advanced versus the competition. But no one in the industry has truly perfected the opportunities that exist.  We’re constantly looking for scale in the business through innovation and technology.

Jeff Schmeck: Convincing people to take calculated risk is what Phil and I do every day. We work hard to convince an employee that it’s OK to take the risk if you’ve done your homework. It’s OK to step outside your comfort zone and innovate the business.

By human nature, people don’t like to take risks.  We want them to know that it’s OK to try and fail, because if you don’t try, you’ll never succeed. But we want them to manage risk. We’re a very strong data-driven company. One of our favorite sayings around here is: Step One: Gather Facts.

David Janssen,
President & CEO,
The Miner Corporation

David Janssen: People. The type with a tremendous work ethic, basic business knowledge and a sense of entrepreneurship. The new employees must want to build businesses and grow. Double digit growth is not easy and most people do not want to do it. Seeking out people that enjoy the challenge and the thrill of winning is one of our top priorities.

What pressure have you put on yourselves to see Miner achieve even more?

Jeff Schmeck: The challenge is to really get people to think outside their comfort zone and get them to work in ways they aren’t used to doing. Hopefully over the last 14 years we’ve built a track record of success so when we say we’re going to $250 million, people don’t look at us as if we’ve grown another head.

David Janssen: For me, it’s making sure that every transaction is successful. Whether it’s a one-hour service call or a six figure construction project, we want to see everything go perfectly and the client be completely satisfied.