Giacin Touts Aggressiveness at Kaiser Electric

Kaiser Electric’s new president and largest stockholder, Steve Giacin, said the building operations and construction industries are going to start seeing a new side of Kaiser Electric. “We never had a marketing strategy before,” he said. “I’m implementing a strategy. We’re going to be more aggressive about building new relationships,” he said.

Giacin became president at Kaiser Electric on January 1, 2009, although he said he really took over running the company a year earlier as the executive vice president of operations. January 1, 2008 was when the Kaiser brothers – Robert, James, and John – sold 70 percent of their stock in the company to Giacin and four other employees. Giacin bought 30 percent of the stock and Michael Lundry, Michael Murphy, Ken Naumann, and Jerry Dorhauer each bought 10 percent. Robert B. Kaiser founded Kaiser Electric in 1952 and passed ownership of the company to his sons when he retired in 1988. Approaching retirement age themselves in 2007, and with no third generation to take over the company, they decided to sell the company to employees.

An early sign of Kaiser’s new aggressiveness was the decision to open an office in Granite City, IL in November 2008. “Established customers have asked us to cross the river with them,” Giacin said. In late 2008, Kaiser had the opportunity to hire three experienced project managers in that market and took it, he said. Naumann then became the vice president of operations of the new Illinois division of the company and Murphy became the vice president of operations of the St. Louis division.

While the marketing of the company is changing, the company’s service will continue to be first rate, Giacin said. “We’re known for our professionalism and our value-added services, and those will continue to be top-notch,” he said. “Our field people are second to none,” he said.

Under former president George Azzanni, Kaiser consistently ranked as one of the top six or seven electrical contractors in the metro area, and generated sales of $30-$35 million a year Giacin said. For the past five years, the company has employed an average of 150 field electricians and 34 staff people, and maintained a fleet of 60 vehicles. Kaiser performs a lot of design/build work, Giacin said, and works mainly in the health care, industrial, and commercial markets.

Giacin said Kaiser has positioned itself to be “on the leading edge” of green building services and energy efficiency, and also expects to see more opportunities for water and wastewater work. “Our office and field staff have expertise in water and waste water projects. It is definitely a specialty, you can’t use a typical electrician on it,” he said.

Giacin’s attitudes towards marketing reflect his roots in contracting…and hockey. Giacin grew up in a contractor’s household – his father was a masonry contractor. Giacin began an apprenticeship in the electrical trades in 1985 and worked his way up through foreman, project manager, service manager, manpower coordinator, and executive vice president to president. He has been with Kaiser for 11 years. Giacin also grew up playing hockey. He played hockey at the Affton ice rink when it opened in 1971 when he was nine years old. His brother Jim played hockey for Culver Academy in Culver, IN in his high years, and was drafted in the ninth round by the Los Angeles Kings upon his graduation in 1989. In college, he played hockey for St. Lawrence University. As an adult, Giacin coached his son Tony and daughter Taylor in hockey. Now 18 and 16, respectively, they both play hockey at Culver Academy.

Whether in hockey or contracting, it is the team that is important, said Giacin. “It is easy to sell, but it is the field staff that delivers the job,” he said. “We have a special group of people here and they are what gives me credibility,” he said.

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