Address: N8 W22195 Johnson Drive, Suite 160, Waukesha
www.stierconstruction.com
Industry: Building/Construction
Employees: 10
Fred Stier, president and founder of Stier Construction, Inc. in Waukesha credits great clients and a hardworking staff for the company’s success throughout the Great Recession.
“I consider us very lucky,” Stier said. “We have incredible clients that had projects going and just kept finding more work for us.”
Stier Construction works in commercial building, and relies mostly on repeat clients and referrals for business.
In the last several years Stier Construction has seen an uptick in projects related to elderly care and housing. Stier expects that trend to continue as more and more baby boomers reach retirement age.
“All of our employees are certified in hospital construction,” Stier said. “It’s not our only specialty, but we do expect that area to be a growth area for us.”
Stier and Dan Scheibe, vice president of Stier Construction, run a very lean operation, with only ten full time employees on staff.
“We never hire an employee that we don’t think we can keep on and keep working at least 40 hours a week,” Stier said.
During the recession, the company froze wages, but did not make any layoffs. Stier compensated his employees by making sure everyone still got 40 hours a week, and by giving bonuses once they knew the company was profitable.
“Our employees are great,” Stier said. “They understood what we were going through, and as long as we’re honest and fair with them I think they appreciate that. I don’t believe we have one mediocre employee on staff. They are all exceptional and we like to treat them that way.”
Steir Construction pays 90 percent of its employee’s health care costs, offers paid vacation, provides company t-shirts and jackets on the worksites and regularly treats the staff to a company fishing trip.
“We try to make this some place our employees want to be,” Stier said. “They give back to us ten-fold in the work that they do day in and day out. We’re very appreciative of the staff that we have.”
