Where Knowledge Translates into Success

The Sack Company
Written by Jessica Ferlaino

The Sack Company is a turnkey multi-trade specialist serving the Southeast United States that is positioned to take full advantage of the growth that is taking place in and around the Port of Savannah.
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Founded as a small residential contractor in 1945 under the name H.A. Sack Company Incorporated, the company grew slowly through its formative years, eventually diversifying its offerings into mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems installation.

When the company’s founder, Mr. Harry Allen Sack Sr. passed away, the company was sold to his brother-in-law, Albert Roesel, and his business partner at the time, Gene Dawson. Mr. Roesel would later assume full control.

Together they grew the business, taking it away from residential projects in favor of larger commercial, institutional, government, military and industrial projects for both private and public clients. In the 1970s, millwrighting, rigging, programmable logic control and maintenance services were added to complement the company’s existing offerings to drive a new era of growth.

In 1995, Sack Company Maintenance (SCM) Inc. was established as a separate entity to provide HVAC, electrical, plumbing, piping, process controls, rigging and millwright services to better support its customers’ manufacturing and processing systems. Mr. Roesel stepped down in 2006, succeeded by his sons who joined the company many years ago: Paul who serves as president and CEO, and Philip who is tasked with overseeing special projects.

In 2015, a decision was made to amalgamate SCM, Inc. and H.A. Sack to become what is now The Sack Company. The integration of the two resulted in the creation of a fully integrated design- and hard-bid turnkey construction company that could perform multiple trades on projects simultaneously.

As demand for the company’s multi-trade service grew, so too did its market footprint as demonstrated by the investment outside of its Statesboro, Georgia headquarters. In addition to its second location in Dublin, Georgia, The Sack Company recently opened a new office in Lexington, South Carolina to better address demand, something the team is very excited about.

“The reason for us doing that is because in the last couple of years, we have found that close to half of our work is being done in South Carolina,” explained Madison Roesel, who is not only Paul’s daughter but is also tasked with marketing and business development for the company, making it a true family affair.

“We wanted to actually be able to call South Carolina home. A lot of employees live there already and we’re working on projects there so we wanted to create a place for them to be able to work beyond the jobsites,” she said.

This has reinforced the company’s place in the market with vendors, customers and prospective talent alike because each of these entities knows that The Sack Company is serious about doing business in South Carolina.

“It just shows contractors and vendors and South Carolina that we expect to be a permanent fixture there,” President and CEO Paul Roesel explained. “That’s very helpful in attracting employees and vendors there. They know we want to establish connections and build ongoing relationships with them rather than just coming in and doing a job and taking work away from people they typically do business with,” he said.

While the South Carolina market is growing, in Georgia, activity and growth at the Port of Savannah has led to increased work in distribution and warehousing facilities, projects that exceed a million square feet. Another strong market has been the education sector.

A recent project that demonstrates The Sack Company’s ability to deliver multi-trade results is the $29 million, 300,000 square foot Daniel Defense project that would see its Black Creek, Georgia and Ridgeland, South Carolina operations consolidated into the new state-of-the-art Black Creek facility. “They increased the size of the facility, they centralized their operations and they brought in new equipment so they can meet the product demand needs of the federal government from the private sector,” noted Madison.

“Sack Company has several trades and we love when we’re able to complete more than one trade on a project, so not only were we able to do all the electrical on the new Daniel Defense factory, we were also able to move all the machinery from the South Carolina facility to the new one in Georgia,” she explained.

In addition to being multi-trade, another one of The Sack Company’s strengths has been proactively responding to the needs of the market, fostering an innovative approach to growing the business’ capabilities and resources to do so.

A source of pride for The Sack Company is its new Virtual Design and Construction Department, a team of four people that leverage construction technology and innovative building information modeling (BIM) construction methods to ensure coordination and success on projects regardless of whether it is performing one trade at a time or many.

Through this department, The Sack Company offers clients the ability to fully design, model, coordinate and fabricate project results using the latest in industry standard CAD software platforms such as Revit and AutoCAD. This also helps to attract talent, those who want to take advantage of state-of-the-art technology that will drive the industry forward.

Because of this continued investment in its capacity, there is no shortage of opportunity at The Sack Company. In fact, there is so much opportunity that the volume of available work far exceeds the ability to satisfy demand.

“Right now we have more work being thrown at us that we can even do, no matter how many initiatives we do to improve upon the employees that we have. There is still more work to be done and we don’t always have the people to do it,” explained Madison, a problem that is plaguing companies in various industries across North America.

As a result, the culture at The Sack Company has become one of learning and development. The company not only promotes from within but creates clear paths to career advancement and provides the resources required to ensure that both its employees and the company as a whole have the chance to grow with opportunities in the market.

“What we’ve found in the past few years is that, if the talent is not out there, then we’re going to have to create it ourselves and that’s one of the things that makes Sack Company special; we are all about training our people to be better and move up the ladder,” Madison noted.

One such effort is the addition of an employee liaison at The Sack Company, a position that was developed to help employees build a future with the company through a system of reporting and accountability that establishes a sense of belonging with the company and affords it the opportunity to retain employees with experience and tenure.

“His responsibility is to visit every job site to get to know every single employee we have and try to help them establish a future vision for being part of Sack Company: what they would like to become, what they would like us to help them achieve as individuals within our company and also to tell them what Sack Company is doing big picture,” said Paul.

The employee liaison ensures clear communication company-wide and not only advises employees of the opportunities that are available at The Sack Company, it provides a viable path forward, a timeline and a plan to engage employees to achieve their goals, be it a move to management or the desire to cross-train in various trades. These opportunities exist.

The Sack Company also offers Department of Labor-approved apprenticeship programs, as well as introductory, monthly and quarterly training sessions to ensure safety and quality on all projects. It works with clients, contractors, competitors, and the industry as a whole to help attract the next generation of workers.

“We’re all doing what we can to get in high schools and technical schools to help promote the construction industry overall. There is more work to be done out there and we need more people to come into the construction industry,” Madison explained.

“We want them to continue to grow in knowledge and to feel valuable and not complacent. We don’t want people to get bored. We want people to be eager to come to work every day and grow as we grow as a company,” said Madison of its employees.

The Sack Company invests greatly in employee safety and for its efforts, it received a Top Safety Award from BB&T, its insurance provider, which recognizes continued diligence to reduce injuries for employees overall. The key to safety is a knowledgeable workforce.

“One of the biggest goals we have is to enhance the knowledge of our workforce and to attract new team members to our workforce so that we can continue to grow with our current and prospective customers and meet all the opportunities that we have available to us. We’ll grow along with our workforce growth,” said Paul.

With an emphasis on continued growth, The Sack Company remains dedicated to employee attraction and development, and to providing the education, the resources and the means for everyone to be successful.

If you are interested in building a career with The Sack Company, or if you are interested in learning more about its multi-trade services or project portfolio visit: www.hasack.com.

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