Q&A with Jon Loftis -
President of ITAC
How long have you been with ITAC, and what was your career path like?
I’ve been with ITAC for over 20 years. I started in 1989. Previously, I was a Project Engineer with Allied Signal, now Honeywell. My passion was project management (PM). When I joined ITAC, the company didn’t have a PM group, so I was hired to run the Mechanical Design group. I was asked to start a PM group after being with ITAC for about a year, and then I ended up handling the other disciplines, as well.
How have you seen ITAC change, grow and evolve over the years?
We’ve grown pretty rapidly. It’s a big change from 10 guys in a gravel parking lot to where we are today. One thing we try to keep a focus on is our small company feeling and atmosphere. Being able to watch our company and our employees grow is very rewarding. It means we’ve had the opportunity to grow new leaders.
When you think about ITAC relative to its competitors, what sets ITAC apart?
Our employees—their talent and experience. Their depth is however strong ITAC can be. In addition to that, we’ve grown our capabilities. The competition is often one-dimensional; they are very focused on one specific area. ITAC has grown by being diverse. We’ve added capabilities all the way through engineering, being multi-disciplined—and the construction crafts, as well, in house. This means we are very vertically integrated. We can do a turnkey job on an industrial manufacturing site from beginning to end, all the way through commissioning and startup. We find that clients today prefer to have one single point of responsibility. We’ve also seen our clients reduce staffs and internal capabilities. As this has happened, we’ve expanded our capabilities so we can service them throughout a project.
We’ve heard about the “strength of the ITAC family of services.”
What does that mean?
Well, family starts with the employees. We try to treat each other like family. Through thick and thin, we’re working together to figure out how to get a project done and deliver what the client is looking for.
Where our family has grown is not just in our number of employees, but also in our capabilities. Trying to marry construction with engineering under the same roof is sometimes pretty difficult because their cultures are different. But when both are striving for excellence and to deliver the best value for the dollar to our clients, then our goals are common.
If your customers were to describe why they do business and repeat business with ITAC, what would they say?
A couple of things. We get new business because we can deliver a variety of services through a single point of contact and responsibility. However, the reason we get repeat business has to do with our performance. We’ve been able to develop relationships with our clients, and ITAC has a track record of being very dependable. We are also known for meeting and exceeding our clients’ expectations. This is critical in today’s competitive climate. There’s always someone who wants to take your business away. We earn our business every day by making commitments and living up to them.
What project or business venture are you most proud of?
Over 23 years, it’s hard to pin it down to a single venture. I am most proud of the organization we’ve built here at ITAC. Being able to consistently perform well for our clients is key to the company’s growth. I can think of a few projects back in the early 90s that really stretched us. We were a small organization trying to be bigger than we really were. Clients entrusted us with bigger jobs than what we had done in the past. This forced us to grow, both as an organization and as individuals.
ITAC is a company that cares about the community. What are some of the ways you all give back?
It’s true—we feel very strongly about having a community outreach and connection. Our founder and CEO, Sidney Harrison, took the first leadership step with Habitat for Humanity about 15 years ago. Since that time, we’ve been a real partner with Habitat. Over the last few years, we’ve expanded our community service role by partnering with the YMCA, as well. We like these two organizations because they make a real impact on the lives of those in the community. Both organizations have a mission that is consistent with our culture and values here at ITAC.
What are some examples of how ITAC has been a true innovator—a first-mover in the marketplace?
The easy answer is bio-energy. But it really goes way before that. We started ITAC with the concept that we wanted to develop a model of design/build turnkey work—a single source of responsibility that clients could come to for all of their engineering and construction needs. In the late 80s and early 90s, we were a little ahead of the times. Clients were skeptical about placing that much responsibility on one firm or one contractor. It took us a while to establish our model to the point that clients felt they were still in control of a project even when we had so much responsibility for the details. So ITAC has been a real innovator in how to make the model of design/build work successfully for the clients.
Another way ITAC has been a real innovator is by championing “minimal essential engineering.” Before joining ITAC, I worked at an organization where engineering was very labor and detail intensive. Minimal essential engineering is a different approach, in that you develop excellent engineering at the least cost. It minimizes the design time and paper associated with engineering, but it still performs optimally. We believe we’ve done some great things to establish this approach in the marketplace.
What awards or industry recognition has ITAC received recently?
In addition to numerous awards for safety, we’ve been repeatedly recognized for our growth. One award that meant a lot to us was the “Progressive Business Award” given by the local Chamber of Commerce. It recognized our achievement around our motto of “changing the way things are done.” It’s a simple idea, but it embodied what we were trying to do in the marketplace. We wanted to change the way projects get executed for our clients—to make them more cost-effective and efficient.
In addition, we’ve been honored by the Richmond chamber as part of the “Rising 25,” which highlights 25 of the area’s fastest-growing companies. ITAC won it and then returned to the list five more times in the ensuing decade. To be able to sustain that kind of growth is quite an accomplishment. We’ve also been recognized nationally by the ZweigWhite organization for professional and architectural engineering for our growth. And in ITAC's case, it’s been organic growth, rather than through mergers and acquisitions.
ITAC has several cutting-edge affiliate companies: Wood Fuel Developers, C02N. How do you view those relationships, and how do you partner with them?
Five years ago, we took a hard look at what was happening to our industry and where the growth opportunities would be. We recognized that we were significantly wed to the industrial markets on both our engineering and our design/build sides. We also saw that for many of our clients, business was declining, so we looked for growth industries. Bio-energy—specifically, ethanol—was and still is a booming business. We’ve also gotten involved with the wood pelletizing business and entered the biodiesel area.
We developed quite an expertise. With our investment in Wood Fuel Developers, we recently engineered the largest wood pellet plant in the nation. Through our partnership with C02N, we’ve spent a considerable amount of time developing the right kind of technology for biodiesel. We’ve focused on these areas because we recognize that the U.S. needs to develop sustainable and renewable sources for fuel. This is something we want to be part of, so ITAC has invested a considerable amount of resources and time.
What is ITAC doing to be an eco-friendly company?
We have a lot of confidential documentation that we pay an on-site shredding company to come in and recycle. We learned last year that we saved 347 trees. It’s the right direction. Our next step is to become a zero-waste site. This means that all of the trash our office and fabrication shop produces will be put through a recycling process instead of going straight to a landfill. Lastly, as cars in our company fleet come up for replacement, we are looking for the most fuel-efficient cars that can serve our needs.
What are some of the milestones you’d like ITAC to reach under your leadership?
We’d like to fill this building up! I say that in jest. We’ve moved five times in my career—from trailers, to an office building, and finally here. Each time, we’ve thought we’ll never need to move again. We built our current facility, and it’s large enough to house an engineering and construction management office of about 260 people, and we’re at about 60% capacity right now.
What this means is growth, and growth means opportunity for employees. ITAC is a place people can come to not just for a job, but for a career. We hire a lot of “A” players. If you do that, you have to keep them challenged, and you have to give them a future. We’d like to provide that for them here at ITAC.
If you think about leaving a legacy here at the company, what does that look like?
The company is stronger than when I was here. If I am doing my job right, it means we are developing leaders who will take this company to a new level—a place that I may not be able to take it.