Richard Pieper Sr, non executive Chairman of PPC Partners, Inc., a parent company of more than 26 different DBA’s including Milwaukee-based Pieper Electric, is the recipient of this year’s Lifetime Achievement award winner.
The Bravo! Entrepreneur Award for Lifetime Achievement is given each year to a southeastern Wisconsin entrepreneur who has exemplified excellence in business leadership.
“I came in with a vision and stuck to it,” Pieper said. “It was my vision for the business to use a few faith-based principles that have always been true. We are honest, responsible, respectful of ourselves and others, and we have integrity, that’s what is important and that is who we are.”
According to Pieper, his principles were taken from some of the teachings of the Old Testament. He says he knew from the beginning that you could run a business using those teachings.
“Some people would argue that business and your private life and church should be two separate things. I had to say to them, ‘I don’t see how you can separate the two,’ my attitude at 22 years old was one of ‘I’ll show you.'”
The challenge was an extraordinary one, Pieper said. “It demanded excellence so that’s what we did.”
Pieper joined, Pieper Electric in 1959 and became president in 1960. At that time, the family-owned business had eight employees doing $250,000 of business per year. Today PPC Partners, Inc. employs nearly 1,300 people and has annual sales revenue up to the low nine figures.
PPC Partner companies conduct annual employee surveys, and do customer surveys on a regular basis, so they can better listen to their employees and the people they serve, Pieper said.
“We conduct residential surveys after each job, and construction and industrial surveys are conducted annually with the various elements we service them with.”
According to Pieper, customer satisfaction is at 95 percent and employee satisfaction is at a similar level.
“We do a lot of listening, and we respond to what we are told,” he said. “We listen to the employees and ask them what they want to do, and encourage them to do so as long as they do it within the core mission of the company.”
PPC Partners also conducted more than 12,000 hours of continuing education and training sessions for their employees last year, on topics that employees wanted to learn more about.
“We have a lot of thinking people that also help drive the company,” he said.
Aside from leading PPC Partners, Inc. to become one of the top electrical contracting firms in the U.S., Pieper has also served on the board of directors for many organizations including Milwaukee School of Engineering, Boys and Girls Club of Greater Milwaukee, Boelter Companies, Inc., Davis H. Elliot Company, Elecri ’21 Council Foundation and National Electrical Industry Research. He is also the chair of the Board of Trustees for the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership and the co-founder of the Suzanne and Richard Pieper Foundation.
“My servant leadership, and community involvement was really an extension of what I was doing inside the company,” Pieper said. “You have to have a vision strategy and some guiding principles, and then you stick to the program. You have to have a lot of discipline and a passion for it.”
According to Pieper he is surrendering some his roles at the company, but he remains passionate about the company and its mission.
“It’s time to transfer the mission to some other people, I have given them all that I have, and now I’m going to let them take it from there.”
