Building leaders: Everyone propels Mark Richey Woodworking forward

At Mark Richey Woodworking, we spend most of our time building next-generation leaders. Everyone leads here; no exceptions.

Why creating woodworking leaders matters

Executing highly complex projects at scale is an enormous task, and dealing with monumental projects with iconic companies is something to which we want everyone on our team to aspire. We work in highly prestigious spaces, preserving the old and creating the new.

We have one shot to make it right. We work in a way that accounts for everyone else’s tolerance levels, which means we don’t have any. "Everyone on the team has to be a leader. For our business to grow, people must be constantly working themselves out of a job so they can grow into a new one.

"Even in the Apprenticeship Program, people have to seek out the work; they have to be motivated to do it, to look for opportunities, to see what’s next," said Greg Porfido, Mark Richey Woodworking's Chief Operating Officer.

Leaders embrace risk and invent processes

“The only thing worse than starting something and failing is not starting something.” –Seth Godin

The technical challenges our team has to figure out and the processes they have to invent are the most exciting parts of our job. "An example is the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, where we really stretched ourselves to develop new techniques that hadn’t been used before. We used 3D modeling and building information modeling before it was typical in our field. It was used in manufacturing and in the aircraft industry, but not in ours," explained Greg.

Fun, risky projects give us the confidence to keep innovating. We may not know how to do something, but we figure out new methods. That's what our leaders do. "The team we've built feeds on this kind of work. It energizes us," said Greg.

What makes woodworking leaders effective?

"One of the things about our business is that there’s a sort of black and white nature to the results. The result is either right or wrong, so you have to maintain very high standards. You must seek perfection," said Greg.

It’s about always trying to do better in a fairly complex business with ever-shifting variables.

We try to make the straightforward things as simple as possible, leaving bandwidth for the complex things. We’re constantly working to do better. We want to instill that in everybody; that’s the work.

Our current team of leaders

The department leaders and the people out in the shop are passionate, collaborative, and respectful of one another. It's a culture where people deeply understand the mission and are headed in the same direction.

Usually, businesses have a project manager driving every aspect of a project. We have those too, but we also try to put everybody in the game, on the task, taking ownership. Departments share a tremendous amount of information and are responsible for meeting their own milestones within the context of project schedules.

Leading by example

Our owners lead by example, especially when it comes to making an impact on the larger world. Mark and Teresa Richey are going to Ghana in the coming weeks to attend the opening of an eye clinic on which Mark consulted for the Cure Blindness Project.

Mark has been helping with design and construction decisions, inspecting progress, and handling project management.

If you want to learn more about Mark, Teresa, and their work with the Cure Blindness Project, we explain the details here.

What it takes to build woodworking leaders

Learning the craft and building from there

Within woodworking, learning the craft itself, really understanding that craft, matters above all else. Our team members build on a foundation of basic woodworking skills, tools, and hand-cutting and shaping, learning how wood moves and its properties, how wood works with glue, and how joinery is done. Everything is built on top of that foundation, that core knowledge of woodworking skills and properties.

On the business side, we preach staying true to the basics of what we’re trying to accomplish. Meeting customer expectations and doing it in a predictable way. The better we do that, the more desirable we become. Our clients want quality and reliability, and those are things our leaders work toward.

Always looking to increase capacity

We know it's important to keep growing.

Developing and strengthening our team members, helping them develop into leaders and experts in our business—woodworkers, finishers, estimators, and project managers—is our primary goal right now.

One of the things we’re really sought out for is our management skills, which ensure complex setups arrive correctly and on time.

We look for people who want to lead and help build other leaders. Would you like to join us?

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