Business Spotlight: Electric Slide

Bob Horn and his wife Tina started B and T Electric LLC three years ago by sending letters to contractors about the services they could provide. Now, their small business is producing $1.9 million in annual revenue and beginning to grow outside of Missouri.

Bob Horn’s career began in an electrical supply house when he was in high school, as he followed in the footsteps of his electrician uncle.

“I’ve always been good with my hands, and I kind of got a taste of it,” he says. “I liked it, and I’ve been doing it since.”

At one point, Horn owned his own business, called Diamond Electric in Ozark, but it closed for personal reasons.

“I’m a little long in the tooth. I’m 50-some years old and I didn’t want to go to work for someone else again,” he says.

After parting ways with a business partner on a second venture – A Advanced Lighting LLC – the Horns decided if they were going to make it, they were going to do it by themselves.

Bob Horn began by sending letters to builders and driving around, leaving business cards on properties.

“That’s how I started, just pounding the pavement,” the 30-year electrician says.

B and T Electric’s big break came early when a general contractor out of Tennessee selected the firm for the Dollar General under construction at 216 S. Glenstone Ave.

Through that job, Horn developed a good reputation with another developer, Team Overland LLC, that was building the Dollar General stores in the Springfield area.

In October 2014, Horn connected Team Overland and Rich Kramer Construction Inc., a partnership that’s since produced over 20 new Dollar General stores.

Pryor Bonner, a senior estimator at RKC, says B and T’s speed on the job keeps the shop on the primary subcontractor list.

“Their turnover on the stores is eight to nine days, and that is a quick turnaround time for getting electrical work done,” says Bonner, who works directly on the Dollar General jobs.

Horn says the Dollar General work has helped propel B and T into new areas.

“We’ve got the opportunity to do five stores in Illinois, I don’t know how many in Minnesota, plus Missouri,” he says. “We’re bidding new stuff all the time.”

Upcoming projects include Sola Salon in Kickapoo Corners and Arvest Bank in Nixa. Horn says his nonunion shop completes nearly 20 projects a year. Among them is the Jordan Valley Community Health Center expansion in Republic, two Popeyes restaurants in Springfield and one in Columbia, another Sola Salon on Independence and Itty Bitty City at Kickapoo Corners.

Last year, the company grew its revenues by $750,000 from 2014. The ratio of revenues to staff members is an indicator of efficiency, says Tina Horn, who also works as a project coordinator for RKC.

“At the largest our crew is four to five people, and the amount of money that we do is amazing,” she says. “Our bankers tell us that, as well as our suppliers.”

Bob Horn says 90 percent of the work is new commercial construction.

“Maybe 5 percent is commercial remodel, 3 percent service calls and 2 percent residential,” he adds.

Tina Horn says the key to the quick growth of the business can be attributed to the hard work of B and T’s five-man crew.

“My husband works about seven days a week, 24 hours a day,” she says. “Our team is very hard-working. They’ll go out of town and within four to five days have an almost 60-hour week in.”