When Mark Schilperoort left a successful custom building partnership to start a new company, the timing seemed less than fortuitous. Schilperoort & Brooks General Contractors opened for business too late to cash in on Seattle’s dot-com heyday and just in time for the shock of 9/11. Despite some initial jitters, though, the company has exceeded the expectations of both its clients and its owners. Much of the credit goes to Schilperoort, who left his previous position because the company had grown too large for the hands-on approach he prefers. At between 20 and 30 employees, the new company’s size allows him to engage fully in the design-intensive projects that are its specialty.
Schilperoort gives equal credit to his partner, Mike Brooks, whose accounting background is a perfect counterbalance to Schilperoort’s construction site expertise. “I do budgets pretty well,” Schilperoort says, “but it’s not the part of the business I thrive on.” And the team has produced. “We hoped to have $250,000 in cash flow in three years. That was one of our goals, because we didn’t want to have to borrow. It actually took about four years to get there.” The company’s volume has tracked steadily upward, from $1.2 million in its first year to $9 million in its seventh. “We want to do work that we enjoy,” Schilperoort says, “and survive.” Make that a check, in both columns.
