November 4, 2005
- Boston Business Journal
When the owners of Group One Inc,. a Boston based multidisciplinary architectural/interior design firm, decided it was time for a change at the top, they entrusted their legacy to not one person, but three.
With one-half of the firm’s original founding team, Bob Shackelton, 71, now retired, and the other half, Paul Bonanno, 63, set to phase himself out over the next three years, the future of this 35-year-old form, which was officially named Group One Partners, Inc. in June 2004, rests in the hands of a trio of fresh young upstarts: Mary Faria 37, Kevin Mullin, 43, and Harry Wheeler, 32 - who’ve been on staff for 16, 12 and nine years respectively.
The impact of this structural change isn’t merely superficial: With only a year under its belt, the Bonanno/Faria/Mullin Wheeler combo has helped steer Group One toward a 225 percent increase in overall billings; its revenue has jumped from $1.17 million in 2003 to a projected $2.63 million for 2005.
From an operational perspective, the firm’s employee ranks have doubled from 12 to 24. And its once largely New England-based clientele now encompasses 450 accounts, with projects in 15 states. At the same time, Wheeler, who has become the reconceived outfit’s de facto spokesman, has ramped up its marketing expenditures, from nearly zero dollars to about $60,000. The tightrope the team now walks is sustaining that momentum in a highly competitive market, where at least 40 other local firms are targeting the hospitality market - which has been Group One’s primary focus since its inception.
"The numbers that we’ve done this year and the year before aren’t going to happen every year, and we can’t keep thinking we will," says Wheeler. "We don’t want to grow, and then lose everything that we’ve had." As equal equity partners and principals, says Wheeler, the new Group One team isn’t just sharing the leadership - they’re also sharing the financial burden of that leadership. When the low-seven-figure deal for the buyout was finalized last year, in part through a remortgaging of the office building the founders own at 21 West Third St., the new partners had agreed to contribute about 10 percent of their own financing and to reduce their salaries by about 20 percent for a two-year period. "We were willing to take that risk...to commit ourselves to the tough learning period, and the "pain period," as we called it, for the first year or two,: says Wheeler.
The strategy, going forward, Wheeler says, is to dial back the explosive growth, in terms of both projects and new hires, of the past two years. The firm will complete close to 60 projects this year, from about 35 projects in 2004 _ and Wheeler says that number will likely remain a baseline for the next couple of years. "It’s been a double-edged sword" he says. "You need the projects to get people, but you need the people to do the work."
The firm has entitled Wheeler’s former instructor Charlie Cimino, an associate professor in department of architecture at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, to act as a business adviser. "What the new ownership will bring in is more diversity" says Cimino. "We do a lot of hospitality work, but I think there’s room for this firm to get into other areas, such as wellness."
To wit, the Group One team is now branching out beyond the hospitality sector, which represents about 80 percent of its project base, into two related markets: assisted living and multifamily residences. About 10 of those projects were completed last year, compared with only two in 2003. At the same time, the firm will continue to look to differentiate itself by offering a sort of one-stop shopping experience for clients - performing not just exterior, but interior design, as well as the purchase of fixtures, furniture and equipment. About 65 percent of its total revenue currently comes from architectural work, with remaining 35 percent from interior design and purchasing services.
Steven Bodi, a principal of Old Bayside Partners LLC in Boston, which has engaged the firm’s services both pre-and post-management transition, notes, "The things that Bob infused in the firm were a sense of cost-efficiency and a sense of an operating knowledge of the hotel industry. I think he passed those traits onto Paul, Mary, Harry and Kevin. But it’s more of a collective wisdom now."