GREAT ARTICLE IN THE TAMPA BAY TIMES ABOUT KIMMINS PROTÉGÉ-MENTOR PROGRAM.

LINK TO ARTICLE :  KIMMINS PROTÉGÉ-MENTOR PROGRAM

Williams Landscape Management Company was founded 30 years ago with one employee.

Today, it boasts more than 20 employees and last year brought in an estimated $800,000 in revenue.

After three decades in business, Williams is well-regarded for its services and is routinely selected as a subcontractor for major construction projects.

So why was this successful, veteran business selected for an inaugural mentoring program?

Because there’s still much more growing to do, said Williams’s vice-president Brawnell Simms.

“Business is all about relationships,” Simms said. “Having our name mentioned in these circles gives us a certain amount of credibility.”

For the last six months, Simms, along with the owners of Quick Construction Solutions, LLC, and City Wide Paving, LLC, have met biweekly with Kimmins Contracting Corp. executives to discuss ways to improve their businesses’ operations.

The program is a collaboration among Kimmins, Aerial Business Group, and Strategic Property Partners, the Jeff Vinik-owned company planning a $1 billion development near Amalie Arena.

The Kimmins Protégé-Mentor Program’s agenda reads like an MBA crash course. Topics include the bidding process, insurance and bonding, financial management, and safety compliance.

Williams Landscape Management exemplifies the type of companies the program is designed to help: smaller companies poised to move to the next level, but perhaps needing help fine-tuning processes like tracking costs and estimating, said Kimmins president Joe Williams.

But the program is much more than just reviewing basic business practices, he said.

Mentors are fully engaged with the companies outside of the scheduled monthly meetings with phone calls and other communication, Williams said.

“Ours is a much more personal, one-on-one” program, he said. “The whole goal is for these folks to grow their businesses and be really good at what they do.”

At a meeting earlier this month, Quick Construction Solutions owners Marisela Linares and Jorge Castro shared the ups and downs that come with staff expansions.

“We’re training more guys,” Castro said. “We’re firing more guys too.”

“It’s hard to find the right people,” said John Zemina, Kimmins vice president of operations. “Get the right people on the bus or get them off. There’s always going to be some bumps in the road.”

The conversation later switched to complying with regulations from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a task that is keeping the owners at Quick Construction Solutions on their toes, Linares said.

“OSHA arrives every week like, ‘Surprise!’,” she said. “The guy was taking pictures of the electrical outlets, everything.”

Keeping safety a top priority in the company makes achieving compliance easier over time, Zemina said.

“We constantly talk about safety,” he said.

Mentorees who complete the program should walk away with a much firmer understanding of all the intricacies of business, said Ali Glisson, vice president of marketing and communications at Strategic Property Partners.

“Hopefully, they’re taking away a lot of knowledge from Kimmins,” she said.

Contact Kenya Woodard at hillsnews@tampabay.com.