Another key to a smooth transition, as amicable as it was, was each party using their own set of accountants, attorneys, etc.
“You want to keep that all separate through an acquisition and don’t necessarily rely on, ‘OK, well, the old owner’s accountant said the company’s worth this or this is what you ought to do.’” Goetz says. “Have your own set of professionals in there looking out for your best interests.”
Divvying it up
When the principal or main owner leaves, you have to reassure your clients, he says. You don’t want to them to feel orphaned — where they’ve dealt with someone for years and all of the sudden that person is gone and the client is wondering who to talk to.
“We divvied up clients, so to speak, and gave our clients new project managers, new contacts here to make sure that that would not happen, and they wouldn’t feel abandoned,” Goetz says.
TA has been around for more than 20 years, so through normal business dealings, clients had already gotten to know other employees at the firm. The founder also made introductions as needed, helping put faces to names.
Today, TA has spread out some of the managerial duties among the shareholders. For example, Goetz is the CEO, but the COO is more immersed in the personnel issues, and they each oversee one branch office.
“I’m finding it’s more than a one-person job to look out over all of this,” Goetz says.
Because Goetz enjoys project work and talking to clients, he wants to keep that — working in the business — as part of his job, even as the CEO. While he manages some aspects of the company, he wants the other shareholders to be working on the business, too.
“I couldn’t stay on top of all my project work and oversee the day-to-day operations of the company solely myself; I know I couldn’t do that,” he says.
Goetz says as soon as they thought they had a track that worked, Uber would find another scenario that hadn’t been covered.
The project schedules were fierce because of the aggressiveness of the autonomous vehicle race, which added excitement to the office.
“Part of our success with Uber is our willingness to listen and engage 100 percent in their mission,” says F. James Prisk, COO. “We share our technical expertise and think outside the box to support Uber’s goals. We do not dictate specifications from our past project experience since what we are undertaking here is the future for transportation.”
