Thursday, August 22, 2024

Content Courtesy of the Sacramento Business Journal

Alessandro Electric strategically adds workers to keep up with revenue growth.

Mark Anderson

The first job Clint Alessandro got when he started his own electrical business was working at a school. That has set the tone for the company.

Alessandro Electric Inc. has gone on to work on government, education, and military projects throughout Northern California.

But it's done a lot of work at schools.

"That has been our specialty," Clint Alessandro said.

Founded in 2005 with Alessandro working out of a pickup truck from his home in Citrus Heights, Alessandro Electric has grown to 130 employees based out of a 16,000-square-foot building the company owns in Rancho Cordova.

Recent jobs include work locally at Sacramento City College, American River College and Rio Americano High School.

Much of the growth in employees has been in the past three years, when the company more than doubled its employee count, he said.

"For us, we are always strategically adding key players when we need them," he said.

Part of the company's growth is a result of more jobs in recent years that included not only the electrical in a new building, but also work on solar photovoltaic and battery backup on those jobs.

Alessandro said the company is cognizant of the pressure growth puts on a company, so it always pays attention to details around its capital, abilities and administration.

"We don't grow past our infrastructure," he said, adding that in addition to adding electricians, the company pays close attention to its office and administration staffing and its capital resources.

"We work hard to keep the horse ahead of the cart," he said. Alessandro said that much of the detail is overseen by his wife Colleen, co-founder of the business, its chief financial officer and 50% owner of the company.

Clint Alessandro went through the training and apprenticeship program of the Western Electrical Contractors Association. That program requires 8,000 hours of on-the-job training, and it is where he tends to find many of his new hires.

"You might get lucky with a new hire," he said. "The company is careful to supervise new hires and make sure they are a fit with the company.

He said he realized he was good at what he was doing when he was made a supervisor at a local electrical firm while he was still a third-year apprentice.

He attributes that to a strong work ethic instilled by his parents.

Another eye-opener for him was as a result of getting injured on the job, which put him into the office temporarily rather than the field, and he got a sense of the business side of the job and the work of estimating.

One thing he didn't like about being an electrician when he worked at another company was being assigned to far-away projects.

"We used to joke that we'd high-five each other when we passed each other on the freeway going to jobs," he said.

"When we started, it was all young families. It was important for us to be close to home to be able to get back to the kids," he said.

With his firm, which employs workers from Yuba County to Modesto, Alessandro maps out where employees live and where the jobs are so that they can, when possible, work closer to home. Most of the company's jobs are within 90 miles of headquarters, he said.

The Essentials

Rank on the list: 43

2023 revenue: $24.58 million

Three-year growth: 40.1%

Business founded: 2005

Founders: Clint Alessandro and Colleen Alessandro

Employees: 130

Headquarters: Rancho Cordova

Read the original Sacramento Business Journal article here (article is behind a paywall unless you are a Sacramento Business Journal subscriber.)