Article By: Emma Behrmann | Business Journal | View the original article.
England-Thims & Miller has been a staple in the Jacksonville development community, and now it’s working to establish a local-like presence in both Orlando and Tampa as well.
The driving force behind the local infrastructure and development consulting firm’s expansion is an organic one — its commitment to its clients, who hire ETM when they have a complex infrastructure or development need.
ETM, founded in 1977, first expanded to Orlando a little over 10 years ago in an effort to say no less, President Tyler Mathews told the Business Journal. As clients began to grow across the state, they asked ETM to help them on new deals in cities like Orlando and Tampa. Previously, the answer was no, but the firm decided to extend its philosophy of being the client’s competitive advantage across the state.
Now, it’s working toward establishing an office in the Tampa Bay Area to best accommodate the clients who brought ETM to the region. Tampa isn’t a new frontier, though, Mathews said. The expansion is more of an organic movement down the interstate to take care of clients.
“It’s not like we’re pioneering to Texas and just planting a flag and saying, ‘Let’s get rich and go make more money off these guys in Texas.’ We’re just organically following our relationships as they’re taking us into new markets,” Mathews said. “You don’t go from not local to local overnight, but we’re running this network of Florida relationships, and that’s taking us all around the state naturally.”
As consolidation merges privately-owned and local firms into corporate entities, ETM remains one of the few privately held firms.
“Every one of our competitors has sold to some private-equity-backed enterprise, and we believe that clients and employees deserve a local option that is Florida-based, Florida-owned,” Mathews said. “They call me on my cell phone, and I’m here, and it’s home — we care about this place, as opposed to the consolidation of the world.”
As a Florida-owned and led firm, ETM can act like a local even in newer markets like Orlando and now Tampa.
The Orlando office has about 50 employees. In Tampa, there’s one employee who is in South Tampa, and an office space is in the works as ETM continues to hire more talent, but the firm has been serving projects there for the last few years.
The expansion isn’t deliberate. The company has grown at 20% a year on its own without actively spending large sums on marketing campaigns. Client relationships are what has led the firm to where it is now.
For decades, Mathews said, ETM has worked outside of the Orlando and Jacksonville territory, partnering with local firms on projects like Gainesville’s Celebration Pointe and the Tanger Outlet Mall in Pooler, Georgia. As the firm grows and hires more employees, it can bring more of those services in house.
ETM’s clients run deals statewide due to the simplicity of dealing with the same set of regulations like tax codes and the water management district. So, as the firm decides to set up offices as it expands, it decided to stay in Florida, where its clients are.
“We’re growing and adding team members dramatically so we can keep up and serve our customers,” Mathews said. “The most important point is … we’re privately held and everybody else is reporting to either Wall Street or corporate out-of-town, and once that happens, it’s just driving the narrative differently, driving your decision making differently.”