Baker Drywall

Flexibility Helped Lead to Success

By Angelle Bergeron

Almost every building project requires some amount of drywall work.

But surviving in the cyclical drywall industry can be a hang-up unless a firm is willing to follow the market around the country in order to thrive.

That's how Baker Drywall, founded in 1974, survived the lean years of the 1980s and grew into its current $60 million annual volume.

"My father, Bob, started Baker Drywall in 1974 as kind of an accompanying business to plastering," said Stephen Baker, CEO of the Dallas-based company.

Triangle, the plastering company, was considered to be the dominant business and Baker merely a support service. When Stephen Baker graduated from college in 1975, he went to work for both companies as an estimator.

In 1983 during a healthy construction boom, the businesses split, separating the unionized Triangle from the open-shop drywall division.

At that time, Stephen Baker bought out all of the other stockholders so he could establish exclusive ownership.

"I was buying 80 percent of the stock from the other stockholders and we hit the downturn of the late 1980s," he said. "It was tough buying out the stock during a recession in the construction business."

Baker chased down work wherever he could and managed to pull through.

"I think the key to our growth was that we learned how to travel and open new offices," he added. "We went out of town, took state projects and opened branch offices. We followed a lot of Texas contractors to Virginia in 1987, and that proved successful."

While maintaining the Dallas office, Baker set up a branch office in Virginia and worked in the nearby Maryland and Washington, D.C., areas. "We followed Texas contractors to an area that was booming," Baker said. "We learned how to bid and manage a job successfully out of town. We also gained valuable experience in setting up a branch office and establishing good relationships with suppliers and manufacturers."

That experience was useful later when Baker opened branch offices in Austin, Houston and San Antonio. The company now has five permanent satellite offices in the Houston area and three in San Antonio.

Baker Drywall specializes in drywall, acoustical ceiling, insulation and metal-stud framing for hospitals, hotels, sporting and entertainment facilities, offices, malls and theaters. "We've worked in about 15 different states and typically do the larger ground-up projects," Baker added. As examples he named the Lone Star Park Racetrack in Dallas and Reliant Stadium in Houston.

"We've probably done more theater projects than any contractor in Texas," Baker said. "At last count, we had done more than 800 screens, which translates into probably 40 different theaters, including AMC Grand, Cinemark, Loews and United Artists."

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Out-of-state jobs can provide their own set of challenges, Baker said. "We take key employees, a foreman and a crew. If we can't get the other necessary employees locally, we supplement with people from one of our branch offices."

Baker is continuing to remain flexible and follow the market. "We will be opening an office in Baton Rouge, La., soon," the owner said. The company is currently working on a casino project and a courthouse in Shreveport, a medical facility in Lafayette and the new Pinnacle Entertainment casino and hotel resort in Lake Charles.

Baker is working with Houston-based Manhattan Construction Inc. on the Pinnacle casino project, which represents a coming of age of sorts for Baker. The project marks the first time the company is working with unions.

"Since the unions helped to get an agreement passed so Pinnacle could come into the area, the owner decided to go with union people," Baker said. "It's worked well for us because we've been able to get a local labor force that is skilled."

The arrangement has worked so well that Baker says he may partner with local unions in the future. "We've been an open-shop contractor for 30 years, so this is our first experience with the union on the drywall side of it," he said. "They did everything they promised, and this will be a concept that we can take with us in the future."

Industry-wide, safety has become increasingly important. "It has become critical for us to emphasize safety training with new hires as well as on the jobsite," Baker said. "Our safety director in Dallas, Jim Dunn, oversees safety programs throughout the corporation."

Baker said he believes that the right people have remained the primary key to the firm's success. "If you don't have the right people in the right places, the business will suffer quickly," he added.

He's quick to acknowledge longtime employees such as Jerry Smith of the Austin office, who has been with the company more than 25 years, and Clark West, an employee with the Houston office for 20 years.

"Our business is so labor intensive that not only do we need great relationships from office to office, we are really known for what we do on the jobsite," Baker said. "It has everything to do with our trained foremen and the job they do so well. We are only as successful as our people, so we invest a lot in training."

Since contractors typically use the drywall trade to drive other trades, it's imperative to constantly keep abreast of the latest techniques as well as master the organizational and management skills required to keep a job moving, Baker said.

"When we start putting up the metal stud walls, other trades know it's time to start moving," he added. "The contractor uses us to set the pace for the other trades. It kind of lights a fire under them."