CBJ's Largest Privately Held Companies 2018
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
GreatAmerica Financial Services<br />
6<br />
TONY GOLOBIC<br />
CHAIRMAN & CEO<br />
GreatAmerica Financial Services passed the quarter-century<br />
mark last year, but it hasn’t lost the lean,<br />
hungry attitude that propelled it from an upstart in<br />
the commercial equipment finance business to a major<br />
player.<br />
The Cedar Rapids-based company’s assets have<br />
topped $2 billion, up from $1.8 billion in 2016 when Great-<br />
America placed fourth on the CBJ’s <strong>Largest</strong> <strong>Privately</strong> <strong>Held</strong><br />
<strong>Companies</strong> list. In the meantime, the company has increased<br />
its employee base from 460 to 516 and broadened its information<br />
technology capabilities,<br />
Chairman and CEO Tony<br />
Golobic said.<br />
GreatAmerica aims to<br />
grow an average of 10 percent<br />
per year, but it doesn’t<br />
meet that goal by focusing<br />
solely on dollars, Mr. Golobic<br />
noted.<br />
“We want to be the best at<br />
helping our customers be more<br />
successful. Revenue growth is<br />
important, and it has always<br />
followed – year over year since<br />
inception – our strategic objective<br />
of being a business without<br />
competition.”<br />
GreatAmerica is “planning<br />
for a more IT-centric future<br />
that provides a frictionless environment for our customers,”<br />
Mr. Golobic added. “Though we are still in the primary business<br />
of financing equipment and software for our resellers’<br />
customers, we want to strengthen our online presence for customers<br />
and prospects who need answers to questions beyond<br />
financing and more about running their businesses.”<br />
Recruiting and retaining talented employees and maintaining<br />
a strong corporate culture have been strengths from<br />
the outset. GreatAmerica shares that expertise via its human<br />
resource consulting arm, which helps clients with the selection<br />
and training of personnel in sales, information systems, managed<br />
services and other areas.<br />
The company’s Collabrance and Portfolio Services business<br />
units have also “grown nicely,” Mr. Golobic said, adding that<br />
jobs in those areas require emerging skillsets in IT, database<br />
management and systems analysis.<br />
Collabrance provides managed IT customers with U.S.-<br />
based, live-answer service desk and network operations functions,<br />
including private label programs that allow clients to<br />
have customer calls answered as if by their own company.<br />
Portfolio Services allows clients such as banks, equipment<br />
leasing companies and solar finance companies to outsource<br />
contract servicing at reduced costs and with fewer operational<br />
barriers. That allows them to concentrate on their core strengths.<br />
Other value-added services include FleetView, a remote<br />
monitoring system for printing devices on a network, and Info-Zone.com,<br />
a secure network that gives proprietary access to<br />
customer files and details of individual leases.<br />
The widening focus has led GreatAmerica to increase its<br />
hiring of beginning to mid-level IT specialists over the last two<br />
years, and change its<br />
recruiting strategy to<br />
include more social<br />
media engagement<br />
and greater use of online<br />
tools such as Indeed,<br />
LinkedIn and<br />
Google. Internal employee<br />
referrals have<br />
gone from about 40<br />
percent of hires to 50<br />
percent, Mr. Golobic<br />
said.<br />
Despite the challenges<br />
of continuous<br />
growth, GreatAmerica<br />
has elected to stay private<br />
rather than access<br />
public markets to raise<br />
additional capital.<br />
“Being public has<br />
some pluses and many<br />
drawbacks,” Mr. Golobic<br />
said. “Publicly-held<br />
companies tend to face<br />
THE TEAM<br />
EXECUTIVE TEAM<br />
Tony Golobic, Chairman & CEO<br />
Stan Herkelman, President<br />
David Pohlman, COO<br />
Joe Terfler, CFO<br />
BOARD OF DIRECTORS<br />
Tony Golobic, Chair<br />
Stan Herkelman<br />
Doug Olson<br />
Paul Rhines<br />
Emmett Scherrman<br />
Doug Sedlacek<br />
John Smith<br />
SUPPORT TEAM<br />
Bank of America<br />
Deloitte<br />
KPMG<br />
Simmons Perrine Moyer<br />
Bergman PLC<br />
Wells Fargo<br />
quarterly pressures<br />
that put short-term<br />
results ahead of long<br />
term objectives. The<br />
ultimate direction and future of publicly owned companies is<br />
subject to pressures from different ownership groups.”<br />
Fortunately for GreatAmerica, “our profitability has enabled<br />
us to generate our own capital for growth and buy out our investors,”<br />
Mr. Golobic noted. “We now have the luxury of being in<br />
control of our future by being a family-owned private company.”<br />
— Emery Styron<br />
16 CBJ’S LARGEST PRIVATELY HELD COMPANIES <strong>2018</strong>
Change language