Morse Electric: Award-Winning Family Business Moving into New Frontiers

Business leaders have long recognized the importance of shifting focus from cost-cutting efficiency strategies to emphasizing the importance of planning and diversification. Morse Electric, ranked one of the top 50 contractors in the US by EC&M, is no exception. A leader in commercial, industrial and utility markets, the company has grown by 38% during 2007. CEO Don Morse attributes this success to strategic planning, market awareness, and investing in human capital.
Don’s father founded Morse Electric in 1944. When he passed away in 1959, Don was in college pursuing a degree in electrical engineering. He decided to help his mother run the family business. After completing his apprenticeship in his early thirties, Don Morse took over the company that at the time grossed about 1 to 2 million dollars in annual revenue. Since then, the company has worked on many large projects for clients such as Chrysler, General Motors, Target, Wal-Mart, General Mills, ABC Supply, Kraft Foods, Home Depot, Lowes and Frito-lay, just to name a few.
The 1999 Family Large Business Award Winner has taken a proactive approach to business, diversifying their projects, reaching out to new geographical areas and hiring the best self-motivated people in the business. “Hire the best - they want to succeed,” stresses Morse. The company prides itself on investing in their personnel and in state-of-the-art equipment to maximize its diverse portfolio of services to meet and exceed the demands of chosen markets. “There was a perception at the beginning,” explains Morse, “that effectively reacting to the changing markets was sufficient - ‘we are electrical contractors and this is what an electrical contractor does.’ We’ve moved away from that. Instead of thinking ‘this is going to be a bad year so this is what we should do’, we think ‘it’s going to be a bad year unless we change or preemptively take action’. There is no reason to allow these business words - bad year - to dictate what business will actually be like. We have become very proactive.” This model for success has allowed the family company to reach a milestone of over 100 million dollars- in annual revenue, which will probably be over 150 million dollars this year.
“Some companies wait for business to come to them. In our case, if the work isn’t where we are, then we go to where the work is or find something new,” says Don Morse, “we were the first in the area in peaker plants, for example.” Currently, Morse Electric is moving into new exciting markets such as renewable environmentally friendly wind energy. “This market will take us to a whole new level.”
The next step for Morse Electric will be getting into solar energy. Morse Electric prides itself on providing professional, specialized services to the highest standards of quality, operating throughout the United States, and will be expanding into other countries in the near future.