2024 Economic Impact Awards 36-74 Years in Business Top Honors: Gold Mechanical Inc.

The 2007 book “Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business” by Gino Wickman played a key role in a cultural transition at Gold Mechanical Inc., says president and CEO Ron Bogart.

The Springfield-based mechanical contracting company implemented an initiative in the book that calls for the creation of a business operating system. For Gold Mechanical, that meant identifying core values of top-performing employees and seeking to duplicate those qualities companywide.

Bogart says an exercise by company leadership found employees central to the business are driven, diligent, dedicated and optimistic team players. The word got out about the process, and the qualities began to emerge in additional employees.

“Once we started talking about these values, other people started embodying them,” he says.

The initiative was part of Gold Mechanical’s efforts to become an employer of choice in the Ozarks, says Bogart. An employee ownership plan is another, and company officials say the initiative that started in 2013 hit a milestone in 2023 by distributing $6 million in wealth back to employee accounts.

“There’s nobody in this area that does the work we do that are employee-owned. We’re a standout in that area,” Bogart says. “It changes the way we look at things.”

The company’s employee-first mindset expands from the ownership plan, seeking to give workers a sense of leadership in addition to ownership.

“You’re able to engage everybody, from the lowest level, into the decision-making process,” Bogart says, offering an example. “You’ve got the preconstruction team. They’re the ones deciding what work we do. I’m not making that decision.”

Gold Mechanical’s business approaches are paying off, with the company reporting $51.4 million in 2023 revenue and 170 employees. That’s up from $29.7 million 10 years earlier, company officials say. And it’s a long way from the one man and a truck that started during the company’s inception in the late 1980s.

Facility expansions also have been made. In 2022, Gold Mechanical added a 7,000-square-foot building on Commercial Street to house a pipe prefabrication shop, in addition to its 42,000-square-foot facility in Partnership Industrial Center West.

Gold Mechanical seeks to give back to the community through donations to organizations such as Ozarks Food Harvest Inc., Ozark Greenways Inc. and the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame.

“The heart of the tradesman is that all of us got into this business because we wanted to be helpful,” Bogart says. “I think it’s being around a lot of salt-of-the-earth people. When we can help, we’re willing to help.”