Negocios Now

www.negociosnow.com 6 Octubre 2021 By David Steinkraus S pecialty Consulting Inc. is a growing company — really growing. "We hired five people in the last two weeks and 20 in the last year," says Arturo Saenz, president and CEO of the Chicago engineering company. "And I currently could use another five." The company now has a staff of more than 60, he said. Most of those people are in technical jobs, but others fill business operations jobs such as finance and marketing. Key to this growth has been the company's partnership with ComEd, Saenz said. "What this has done for the firm is that it has allowed us to build specialized utility experience, ser- vice capabilities, and staff capac- ity. Not a lot of diverse firms have that opportunity," he said. This Hispanic-owned company offers four core services: environ- mental engineering, industrial hygiene, safety consulting, and structural engineering. Essen- tially, Saenz said, his company helps clients manage their risks and protect human health and the environment. For ComEd, Specialty Consult- ing provides a diverse range of environmental services for vari- ous projects. For example, the company provided soil analysis and other geotechnical engineer- ing for an extensive project to lay fiber-optic cable connecting ComEd facilities for better com- munication. Another example, company staff will make sure spoils produced during construc- tion are properly disposed of. FIRST IN COLLEGE Saenz was born in Mexico and immigrated at age 5 with his family to Elgin, Illinois, where his father worked in a foundry. He was the first in his family to attend college and earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from North- ern Illinois University in 1988. For about four years after col- lege, he worked for other com- panies. During that time, he and friend Guillermo Garcia were the first employees of a startup com- pany. They did every job because there were so few people, and that experience, Saenz said, taught them what it takes to start a com- pany and build it. In 1992, he and Garcia founded GSG Consultants Inc., a general engineering firm in Chicago. In 2018, Saenz and Garcia decided to pursue different busi- ness interests. Saenz bought Specialty Consulting to focus on ComEd and the utility industry. Utility work is very specialized, Saenz said, and doing a good job requires having staff who can focus on building and maintaining a par- ticular detailed expertise. It takes time to build such expertise, and that's why it's important when a larger company partners with a smaller firm, Saenz said. Long- term contracts, like the one Spe- cialty Consulting has with ComEd, are valuable because they provide stability, he said. Stability enables a business owner to make invest- ments, especially in talented people who will be attracted by competi- tive salary and benefit packages. LESSONS Marketing is a key to building a business, Saenz said. He learned that when he worked for the startup. You can have the best engineers, he said, but if there's no work coming in, the business won't survive. Hard work is key as well, he said, as is being in the right situa- tion: finding a client who will take a chance on you and is willing to establish a long-term partnership. Having a good reputation is important, too, he said. It helps attract clients, and it helps to attract good people. Saenz and his team recently saw exactly how beneficial their ComEd partnership has been. They made a presentation to an out-of-state utility, a potential client. When they were done, he said, the people from the util- ity asked how such a small firm could understand a utility's needs so well. "I said, 'We've been doing it'" Saenz said. There are other work specialties that he wants Specialty Consult- ing to do, Saenz said, and ComEd has offered to mentor his com- pany to help it develop experience in those technical jobs. "This opportunity with ComEd, in the next three, four, five years could really produce tremendous growth for us," he said. PartnershiP brings growth ComEd support helps Specialty Consulting gain experience Arturo Saénz, presidente and CEO of Specialty Consulting Inc. Foto: Abel Uribe

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