Despite public speculation to the contrary, John Allin, the former head of Symbiot Business Group’s snow removal operations, says his departure from the property management company was amicable.
"My commitment to Symbiot, from a transitional standpoint, had come to an end," Allin says. "I have no animosity towards Symbiot and I don’t think it was a parting based on animosity. They have their way of doing things and I have my way of doing things."
Symbiot announced in December plans to consolidate its Erie, Pa. operations group, which includes its snow removal business, to its Utah headquarters at the conclusion of the current snow season.
The move, according to an official statement from the Draper, Utah-based company, increases efficiencies and operational capabilities in three key areas for Symbiot. The reorganization allows Symbiot to meet spiked needs from customers that can occur at certain times of the year, certain points in the business cycle or during certain types of weather events. The move also gives Symbiot greater cost controls and will allow it to grow, as well as provides greater operation integration and execution, increasing its ability to meet customer requirements.
"It is part of our planned effort to leverage and grow our snow services as part of our greater national contract management platform," says Mike Edwards, Symbiot CEO. "Consolidation is a proven post-acquisition strategy to gain efficiencies and improve operational synergies."
There were some conflicts following the November 2004 assimilation of Snow Management Group into Symbiot, Allin says.
"There were challenges with the distance between Erie and Salt Lake," Allin says. "I wouldn’t call it conflict, but there were definite challenges integrating the two cultures and you can’t have two cultures in one company."
Symbiot has offered relocation options to as many as six of its 25 Erie employees.
The option to consolidate the Erie operations had been on the table prior to Edwards’ hiring in July, says Jared Glover, Symbiot’s director of network development. Consolidation came down to a locality issue, Glover says.
"There had been quite a few efforts to get Erie and Salt Lake on the same page," Glover says. "It came down to simplifying the process. It’s easier to work together when you’re 15 feet from each other than thousands of miles apart."
Erie wasn’t the only office to consolidate, Glover says. Symbiot brought its Kentucky business development operations to Salt Lake during the second half of 2005.
In November 2004, Allin sold Snow Management Group, one of the nation’s largest snow-removal firms at the time, to Symbiot. Until recently, Allin remained as Symbiot’s corporate vice president of operations. Allin and Symbiot agreed to a "mutual separation" in mid-December.
"It was what was best for both parties," Glover says, adding he couldn’t comment on Allin’s performance but there were concerns within Symbiot that the snow operations had not meet revenue expectations. However, Glover adds Symbiot did grow the snow operations.
Allin says his main interests remained with his roots in the snow and ice removal industry, and not with Symbiot’s broader corporate mission.
"My interests were not in janitorial or pest control contracts," Allin says. "My interest is in the snow industry and it always will be."
The 2004 merger caused quite a stir in the snow removal community, making Allin a pariah with a segment of snow contractors. Many former SMG subcontractors, unhappy with Symbiot’s terms for payment of snow removal services still owed to them, threatened legal action.
To Glover’s knowledge, only a handful of disgruntled subcontractors threatened or pursued legal action.
There were initial cash-flow problems, Glover says, and Symbiot still owes money to some subcontractors on their SMG contracts. Glover could not comment on the number of subcontractors or the dollar amount still owed, but added Symbiot hopes to clear up any billing matters during the first half of 2006.
Symbiot has spent the last year creating new partnerships with its subcontractors and strengthening its business systems, Glover says.
"We’re on the right path," he says. "But (2005) has been a transition year and we feel we’re heading in the right direction. We’ve worked on a lot of new processes to improve billing and paying in 2006"
Allin, too, says much of the controversy and anger were perpetuated by a small minority of contractors in the snow and ice removal industry. "A small minority of subcontractors can make some pretty big waves on Internet message boards," Allin says. "People either love or hate me, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that we were able to do things no one else had."
As for Allin, in mid-January he began his new job as president of Snow Dragon, a company formed as a partnership between Allin and Park Ohio, a Cleveland, Ohio-based diversified manufacturing company, to develop and build snow melting units for mid-sized snow contractors. "The first production models came off the line three months ago," Allin says. "Since then we’ve built five and sold four, which meets our sales goal for this winter."
Snow Dragon produces a small- and a large-sized contractor snow melter. Allin expects Snow Dragon to be in full-scale production by this summer.
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