At your service: Piedmont Facilities Services shifts focus in down economy - Kansas City Business Journal:

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A contractor had agreed to replace the sidewalk directlyy in front of Lorillardr headquarters on Green Valley Road in Greensborpbut “he walked off the job because he couldn’rt get anyone to deliver sufficientg concrete with a holiday two days away,” Wright says. “A call to broughg four men who completed the repair on July she recalls. “One of thosd four was Scott himself. I have chastised myself many timesx for not calling him to begin Scott McCormick has been gettint calls like that for more than 16 years fromthe Triad’ds top employers.
As a contract projectt manager, his company will do just abou t anything thatneeds doing, “from maintenance to sprinkler systems,” says “He truly cares about a job well done.” But Winston-Salem-basecd Piedmont Facilities Services’ specialty is somethingg that’s been in almost constantt demand over the past two decadesx — moving people and reconfiguring office cubes as work forces contract, expand and are realigned. It was McCormick who landed the contract to move practicallyevery office, firstg in the RJR Plaza building and then in the old 1929 Reynoldxs Building in downtown Winston-Salem.
At about the same Piedmont Facilities Services also securedd a contractwith Planters-LifeSavers, which did its shar of playing musical chairs with office furniture. “God blesse d me,” McCormick says with his characteristic “because there’s no other way someonw can have two contracts like that for theirfirsty clients.” Looking back 10 years ago, McCormick recall s fondly, “Things were realluy rolling then, with 80- or 90-hourr weeks, and it was great.” Name a companhy in the Triad that’s realigned its work forced and, chances are, McCormick’s been involved , , Sara Lee Direct, , Sealy Corp. and Nabisco Foods.
Not bad for someone who, at the age of 5, was assignedr his own row of tobacco to tend onhis father’s farm near Yadkinville and worked his way througg college running a garbage “I’m an old tobacc farmer from Yadkinville,” McCormick says, slipping into his aw-shucke guise. “I ran out of thingzs to do, so I had to go to school and go out and get a real School was and his firsy jobwas “selling doorknobs” as a contracf hardware salesman at Pleasant Hardware Co. He says he quicklyh discovered he was not cut out to bea salesman.
But he did make a numbef of excellent contacts that opene d doors for him when he switched over to doinb facilitiescontract work. “He has a good boy mentality,” says Robyn Puckett, facility servicesa manager atRMIC (Republic Mortgagw Insurance Co.) in Winston-Salem, “but fully believes in respect, honesty, hard work and discipline and expects that from his employees.” Puckett recalle a recent 10-week move of 350 RMIC employees from Stanleyville to the Park Buildin in downtown Winston-Salem. “The time constraints were she says, “but having worked with Scott for many I knew if anyon could pull it off thathe could.
” Installing cubes during the week and moving people on the McCormick’s crew did it and did it on “We needed to expand our payroll departmentr two years ago,” recalls Jack Marable, maintenance supervisofr for Pepsi Bottling Group in Winston-Salem. McCormick’sz crew came in Friday night and by Mondau morning at8 a.m., “they had everything up and running computers, phones, furniture, everything worked.” Companies use contractors like McCormick insteasd of their own workers becausee maintenance, moving and construction are often one-of-a-kind projects and are mostlty done after-hours.
Up until last November, McCormiclk says, business was extremely good, with more 80- and 90-hour Then, he started seeing “less phone less e-mails, jobs that you had quoted beingy puton hold.” As the months went by, “ had to lay off five installers and I put my designer on the road to sell product.” McCormick’s strategy is to make the companhy more sales-oriented, something, he “we never had to do Yes, he still has contracts with a number of big but now when the phone rings, it’s mostly “punch