Rooted in History
Courtesy NYSE Euronext
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In 1909, Morris Rosenberg of San Francisco invested $4.50 to buy a bucket, a sponge and a mop to start a window-washing business. In 2009, Rosenberg’s son Ted celebrated the company’s 100th anniversary by ringing the bell on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. That window-washing business had become ABM Industries Inc. (ABM), a $3.5 billion enterprise. Now based in New York City, ABM employs 91,000 people and provides commercial cleaning and maintenance, security, parking and engineering services to Fortune 1,000 clients throughout the U.S.
The company, founded while businesses were still recovering from the Panic of 1907, reports that it is thriving in 2010. CEO Henrik Slipsager says ABM weathered the current recession as well as previous economic downturns because “there is a culture here of sticking to our roots.”
Ted Rosenberg, a former member of ABM’s board of directors who recently passed away at the age of 101, recalled buying the first share of the company stock and said that going public in 1972 is what helped fuel growth. “We raised working capital that allowed the company to grow free of debt,” he said. “And we provided stock for the employee stock purchase plans that have helped ABM recruit and retain thousands of exceptional managers and staff.”
He said the company needs to continue to move forward even in a tough economic environment. “It’s always a good idea for companies to be cautiously optimistic by neither giving up — nor betting the farm — on growth,” Rosenberg said.
One of the toughest challenges the company has faced, however, was not economic but personal: On Sept. 11, 2001, ABM, which had 850 employees working for its largest client, the World Trade Center, lost 17 workers in the terrorist attack.
ABM window washer Jan Demczur emerged as one of the heroes that day when he freed himself and five others from a stuck elevator in the North Tower using his squeegee. The squeegee handle and Demczur’s uniform are now parts of the September 11 collection at the Smithsonian Institution.
“We learned how to deal with a lot of things that day that they don’t teach you at Harvard Business School,” says Slipsager. “The episode made the company stronger, and better as a team.”
Slipsager says ABM is relying on its strengths for growth. “We will continue to focus on what we know best,” he says. “I can’t predict what it will be like 100 years from now, but if I go forward five, 10 or 15 years, we will be a strong international player in facility services. We’re in a good position to grow, with very little debt, and looking forward to the future.”
