Q: What about this business excites you the most?

A: I love the construction business. I was an English major at UVA—as far as you can get from construction in my mind. When I went out and got a job, I worked for a construction firm and saw that there was this great sliding scale of people I could work with, and more importantly, enjoy working with. It’s very interesting and a lot of fun.

Q: Where does Peris succeed and other leading firms fall short?

A: Unmatched customer service, versatility, value, integrity, and superior workmanship have been our absolute cornerstones since our inception in 1991. I knew that was what it would take to capture a niche in Washington, D.C.’s high-end office renovation market of demanding law firms, lobbyist, corporations, and architects. They were looking for a firm that could meet their high expectations reliably and with as little hassle as possible, by offering them proactive budgets and scheduling, with minimal disruption to their normal business operations, and the desire to go the extra mile, we could deliver a defect-free finished product a competitive price.

Washington’s commercial office interiors market is huge – a couple billion dollars. Our jobs are relatively short in duration. We’re in and out in about six to eight weeks. As our customers expand or contract, or when there’s any type of change inside their office buildings, we’re there to help them meet their needs – all kinds of different things. We deal with clients on a repeat basis, so we’re developed some great relationships that we like to maintain.

Q: What range of market values are you talking about?

A: The typical job falls in the $200,000-$300,000 range. Several are multi-million dollar jobs; we’ll also open up a couple hundred service jobs every year that are sub-$50,000. So, over the course of a year we’ll probably do about three hundred individual projects—new job numbers—in all ranges, but the meat of the market for us is that $200,000-300,000 range.

Q: What makes Peris different?

A: I think our success is driven by the fact that we close projects out. A lot of people can get in and sell in the beginning—be really enthusiastic when a job starts. But where we excel is in wrapping up a project. Our project managers and our superintendents on the jobs stay throughout the course of the project, so we don’t switch people in and out. They’re incentivized—bonused, based on a checklist of ten separate items – both the project manager and the superintendent. The most important thing is: Are you closing the job out? Are you getting the punch list done within a week? Are you getting all your paperwork done within a couple of weeks? Are you closing out with your project manuals and all the literature that has to go to the owners so that somewhere down the road if something happens. If a customer wants to know what color paint that was, they can pull out the book. So we bonus our people on getting the job finished – not just from our perspective, but from the customer’s. Our timeframe is short—we want to get out of your hair so you can start using your space.

Q: And incentives are a major part of your strategy?

A: Yes. In order to get the most and the best out of our people this is a key part of our HR practice. Our business strategy is to really focus on getting the job closed out with all the bases covered—and we pay our employees bonuses to do that.

Q: Describe, generally, the evolution of your company’s scope of work since you founded it back in 1991?

A: I founded Peris thinking, “Hey, I could do this much better myself.” And so, on that platform, I ran my new firm as the project manager, the superintendent, the laborer—whatever it took. My little laptop with its tiny hard drive held all my budget estimates, my billings and contracts.

When I said I could do it myself, I realized, “You can’t do it yourself.” So I started hiring some former associates from my days at Glen Construction back in the ‘80s and started to build a staff. From just one in 1991, that staff has grown to forty people, and the size of our projects has grown from our first $5,000 cut and paste job to an $8 million project for a major downtown law firm. So our projects are a little more sophisticated than they used to be and, we continue to grow with each other. We’ve grown from “grab anything you can and hope for the best” to thinking strategically about every project and relationship we enter. I talk about this with the rest of the staff: Who are the people taking part in the project?—the architects, the owners, the building managers, the client. Is this something that can be a productive, long-term relationship? If we decide it’s a viable opportunity, we’re going to go after that project aggressively and try to cement that relationship.

Q: What does Peris bring to the table that suits this unique market so well?

A: The market can be low-end, it can be medium-end, it can be high-end. There are a lot of players who will play at the low-end and a lot who will play at the medium level. We’re at the high end. We are positioned to do high-end work for very sophisticated clients. These clients understand that it takes good project management and a lot of smart professionals to look out for their interests and anticipate their needs. Other firms who want to play in this space can’t or just won’t do that. We’re not just looking at the job at hand—we’re looking at the long-term relationship with the client.

Q: So your clients understand quality. How do you define quality from a Peris perspective? How do you maintain it?

A: We want to execute the vision of architect. The architect wants the space to achieve a level that fits a specified dollar amount. We know in our heads that if it’s a $20 per foot space, it’s pretty basic. If it’s a $50 per foot space, it’s basic with some elements of high-end. If it’s a $100 per foot space, then we know it’s strictly high-end.

From the outset of a project, we help the architects create a budget to match their vision, establishing a price point so everyone understands what the expectations are for that project. Everything is taken into account, from executing the contract to making sure the carpet seams are nice and tight. Quality can be something as simple as having no overspray on the doors and screws that are tight and flush. It’s extremely important that every building block is physically correct.

Q: In closing, does Peris have any special strengths you haven’t mentioned?

A: We really care about the customers and we aren’t just saying that to sound good. We don’t care about just one part of the project—we bring it all together, and that begins and ends with our customers and the expectations they have. Again, we have five or six parties to a given commercial interior project and relationships with the companies are part of the process, the architect, the owner, the property management, the building engineer, as well as with the people who are there at six in the morning to let us into the space. These different interests need to be managed; I believe we do an excellent job of this.

We want to make sure that their lobbies, hallways and elevators stay clean because these buildings remain working spaces throughout the time we spend there. They don’t want to see construction guys stomping through the dirt on their shoes. The worst thing in the world would be to get a phone call from the building engineer saying, “Your guys are messing up the building.” Our strategy recognized that building engineers and property managers are stakeholders in the process. That’s why our people are incentivized not only to close out jobs on time and on budget, but also to answer questions like “Was the job clean?” and “Will we retain that client?” emphatically in the affirmative. So, the strength of our company is that we want to build a lasting relationship; we want to stay with you and help you grow. We have projects that were started at $5,00 feet ten years ago that the tenants have outgrown at 80,000 feet. We want to stick with our customers—that’s an absolute.