THE TURNAROUND TEAM - Skanska

THE TURNAROUND TEAM
How one Skanska Company Made a Dramatic Comeback
Chad Mathes, VP/Estimating Engineer; Joe Nogues, CFO; Eric Taylor, Senior VP; Jock Yeager, VP of Plants; Tony Bagheri, VP/Operations Manager
In December of 2005, Yeager Skanska was
losing $1 million a month in equipment costs.
The company, which had once been a family
business with a strong local reputation,
had been struggling under the combined
leadership of seven different owners. Morale
was low and even long-time employees
were ready to quit. Then in January 2007,
the company started reporting a profi t – and
those numbers show no sign of changing.
Johan Karlström recounts how, in early 2006, his belief in the
Riverside team led him to boldly tell a group of stockholders
that Yeager Skanska would break even for the year. At the
time it seemed like a long-shot. Later, at the 2007 USA Civil
management meeting, Johan thanked the team for not only
proving him right, but for exceeding all expectations.
At USA Civil West’s California District, they unanimously
recall the day that Stu Graham positioned David Eastwood at
the helm. Although it would be easy to attribute the turnaround
to one man, it took everyone to bring about the change. As
Senior VP Eric Taylor, who is now leading the division, says
“Who’s the most valuable player on the team? Th e team.”
COAST TO COAST EXAMINES FIVE DIFFERENT BUSINESS
DECISIONS THAT WERE KEY IN THE TURNAROUND
CHOOSE YOUR PROJECTS CAREFULLY
One of Eric’s mottos is: “Not having a job is better than
having a bad job.” It’s a lesson his team learned the hard
way. In 2004, Yeager Skanska bid on 140 projects. As VP/
Estimating Engineer Chad Mathes recalls, “We were bidding
on anything and everything – with an average contract value
of 3.6 million.” Th ey were bidding on projects outside their
geographical area, outside of their core expertise, and for
which they did not have the right staff .
Changing the way the company approached future bids
was critical. In 2005, the company bid on only 40 jobs with
an average contract value of 9 million. “It takes the same
amount of staff to build a 3.6-million-dollar project as it does
a 9-million-dollar project,” says Chad. “With a limited number
of qualifi ed project personnel, we get a better bang for our
buck. We’ve become smarter in the way we look at our jobs.
We are more organized and have processes and procedures
for estimating and bid reviewing. We also joined the rest
of USA Civil in using the estimating program from Heavy
Construction Systems Specialists (HCSS).”