You’ll notice right away that Apple Electrical Contractors is not named after its owner, Eddy Shelt
It all started when Eddy was working part-time for an electrical contractor during his high school and college years. One day the contractor sent the young Eddy to a client repair a very expensive machine at a machine shop. The client sized up the ruddy-complexioned young man and asked him if he was actually an electrician.
“Show me what you’ve got and I’ll show you what I’ve got,” Eddy said with a confident smile. The shop owner allowed him to proceed.
Some time later the client called Eddy’s employer with another job. Not remembering the name, the client said, “I want that apple-pie looking kid.” From that moment, Eddy became Apple to his employer “until the day he died,” he recalls. Having since purchased that company, Eddy still hears that name from those that worked there at that time. With “Happy Days” on TV at the time, he muses that there may have been a reference to Ron Howard’s Richie Cunningham character.
The previous issue introduced the idea that Apple’s team is like the bricklayer who understood he was not sticking bricks together nor just building a wall, but was constructing a hospital to help people. That big picture thinking is one thing that reveals the company’s passion for their customers.
The Apple team calls this “Value Engineering” and the company’s Director of Operations, Alan Navarette, relates one example.
One of Apple’s best customers had a project in Louisiana. Alan, still in the field at that time, went to the location along with another electrician and two helpers. “They had three different contractors in there because they had deadlines to meet,” he says.
The other contractors kept missing deadlines due to poor training and insufficient experience, so the client gave some of their work to Alan’s Apple team. “They were impressed with the work that we did with only four guys as opposed to different contractors with 10-12 guys on the jobsite.”
Before long the client had put Alan in charge of the entire project, who led the team to finish on time. “They haven’t stopped using us since,” he says.
Eddy notes that making deadlines and focusing on the big picture of the job itself is of vital importance to Apple whether they are the primary contractor on a job or not. “So at the end of the contract, we’re the last contractor standing,” in most cases.
Eddy adds that he and his wife, Theresa, who cofounded the business with him, being generally positive people, treat obstacles differently than most. “We see opportunities, not obstacles.” That optimism spills over into the staff as well.
The word “teamwork” echoes often when listening to Eddy and, well, his team. This is not a surprise for someone like Eddy, whose “other” job involves walking among behemoths and defusing situations by admitting that, among them, he’s “the little guy.” Find out more about this and how it helps at Apple in the next issue.
