Skilled-labor service builds Reno business

Everyone watches workers compensation costs closely these days, but few executives watch them as closely as Noel Wheeler.

As president of Renobased CLP Resources Inc.

a $100 million company looking to quadruple its business in five years Wheeler oversees a network of 45 offices nationwide that place skilled construction workers into temporary and long-term jobs.

On a peak day, this means CLP has as many as 3,000 carpenters, electricians, plumbers and others in the skilled trades working at hundreds of construction sites across the country.

And CLP is responsible for the workers compensation coverage on each of those employees a cost that Wheeler watches more closely than any other.

The company's close management of workers compensation claims and its heavy investment in safety-training programs for its employees reflect this reality: As long as it can manage that cost well, the road appears clear for CLP to reach its goal of $400 million in sales by 2008.

To get there, the privately held company 70 percent owned by investment bankers and 30 percent owned by its managers will continue to open four to six new markets a year.

This year, Charlotte and Atlanta are on the list.

Last year saw a push into Salt Lake City and Las Vegas.

"We don't rush out to open 20 or 30 branches in a year,"Wheeler said.

Instead, CLP moves conservatively, financing new operations out of existing cash flow and knowing that a new office typically will take a year to become profitable.

The company's growth is methodical, too, because Wheeler's team wants to be sure it has the right managers in place before it opens a new branch.

Each branch recruits skilled tradespeople it doesn't work much with unskilled laborers and offers them steadier work than they're likely to find elsewhere in the construction business.

Less than half the applicants make it through CLP's screening process.

Those who make it, however, stick around.

More than 30 percent of CLP's employees have been with the company more than two years.

Employers, meanwhile, turn to CLP for services ranging from a one-day fill-in for an absent worker to long-term assignments.

Increasingly, the Reno-based company pitches construction companies on the idea that they can blend CLP employees with their own forces, allowing them to take on more jobs simultaneously.

CLP works exclusively with nonunion contractors; union shops arrange for help through the union hall.

CLP's niche skilled trades keeps it out of the tough competition that is common among agencies that provide construction laborers and other low-skill jobs.

While much of the growth at CLP will come from a widening net of branch offices,Wheeler's strategy calls for the company to build sales vertically as well.

A simple tactic:Widen the reach of an individual branch office.

Commonly, Wheeler said, branch managers are stronger in one trade plumbing, for instance than others.

Keeping them focused on the full range of trades opens new opportunities.

The company looks for growth, too, in institutional markets such as hospitals and universities that use skills tradespeople for maintenance and renovation project.

Another possibility, the Australianborn Wheeler said, is expansion into international market.

And for the moment, CLP's growth is driven by the national economic rebound.

After dipping along with national construction activity since 2001, CLP's samestore sales have exceeded figures from a year ago for eight consecutive months.

The company was launched in the East Bay region of San Francisco in 1987, moved to Reno in 1994 and was acquired by its current owners in 1998.

Its headquarters office in Sierra Corporate Center in south Reno manages human relations and benefits, marketing, accounting, information technology and management functions.