Benchmark Electrical Solutions hits the mark in just three years

FORT COLLINS – Just three years ago as the recession roared through the country at full tilt catching up businesses and tossing them like so many trees in a tornado, Dave Aguiar started Benchmark Electrical Solutions. And quietly began to succeed.

From year one to date, Benchmark Electrical Solutions increased its project count from one to two in 2008, four projects in 2009, and 20 projects and numerous service clients in 2010. In the same time period staffing at Benchmark increased from one to 25 employees. Profit margins doubled from 2008 to 2010, and revenue grew from $150,000 in 2009 to $2.2 million in 2010.

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That growth placed Benchmark at the top of the Mercury 100 list of fastest growing companies in Northern Colorado this year.

“We’ve been smart,” Aguiar said. “We aren’t using profits to get the best furniture in the office. We’ve been using it for tools.”

Aguiar is philosophical about the timing of Benchmark’s beginning. “It was the right time in my life, just the wrong time in the economy,” he said.

The timing was right for him because his kids were in middle and high school. He’d worked the bulk of his career as a project manager for Sturgeon Electric in Denver. Following that job, he worked as a consultant for a renewable energy company, Range Fuels, as the electrical and instrumentation control lead helping with plans for a $300 million plant in Georgia.

With nearly 20 years in the business, Aguiar said he felt he’d amassed enough experience to go out on his own. That meant providing the same sorts of services larger electrical companies do such as pre-construction, construction, maintenance and servicing. He hired exceptional workers.

Encourage innovation

“The scope of our work is typical of larger electrical guys like Sturgeon,” he said. “In addition, we encourage innovation. We’re process-oriented in operations. We work on building relationships.”

He said that Benchmark’s ability to diversify to work with public projects such as schools as well as private jobs such high-end residences has helped his company grow. “Industrial jobs and servicing were the balance we needed to stabilize in tough economic times,” he said.

Benchmark is serious about service. When an industrial facility in Berthoud wanted to swap out all its lights to energy-efficient florescent bulbs, Benchmark also helped the company obtain available tax rebates and incentives, so that it would see a return on the investment.

Sometimes, a client company knows what it wants to do, but isn’t sure how to get there. In the case of Sundrop Fuels, a solar gasification-based renewable energy company with corporate headquarters in Louisville, Benchmark worked nearly daily for six months with company engineers to get the job done.

The Sundrop project was a good example of what Benchmark can do, Aguiar said. Benchmark installed a fully automated feed stock production system and heating expansion, as well as upgraded electrical utilities.

“With renewable energy, we are building while design is being done,” Aguiar explained. “It’s more of crystal-ball construction. There was lots of interfacing with engineers, sometimes a few times a day. We had to ask a lot of questions to make sure nothing had changed. Most of the time it had. We worked in hazardous locations where explosions were possible and everything was urgent.”

Benchmark’s resume includes well-know public and private companies throughout the state and into Wyoming including the Poudre Valley REA administrative offices; the Federal Center in Denver; buildings in the Weld County School District; The Abby of Saint Walberga; Our Lady of the Valley; East Morgan City Library, and the Pierce Wastewater Treatment facility, just to name a few.