Small companies winners: GordonDerr, Threshold Group, Northwest Laboratories
Law firm GordonDerr works to prevent lawyer burnout.
By Nick Horton
Photos by Rick Dahms
List of winners in the Small Companies category
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GordonDerr partners Joel Gordon (left) and Jay Derr raise a |
Co-winner: GordonDerr
When Jay Derr meets you at the door to his downtown Seattle offices, there’s no denying it: This guy looks happy. He’s warm, relaxed and unpretentious. He isn’t wearing a tie.
As the managing partner of the Seattle law firm GordonDerr, he might be expected to look at least a little bit stressed—GordonDerr is one of the city’s larger real estate and land use law firms, with clients ranging from Amazon.com to Taylor Shellfish to the YWCA. So why does he look as carefree as a schoolboy?
Because Derr manages what may be the Washington state law firm with the healthiest attitude toward work. In 1979, the founders—Peter Buck and Joel Gordon—set out to create a business that didn’t work its partners and associates into a blurry-eyed stupor. (GordonDerr’s yearly billable-hour target is a humane 1,600 per lawyer, whereas others require 2,000 hours or more.)
“Those of us who started at the outset were attracted to this place because we were interested in doing top-quality work for top-quality clients, but at a pace that allowed us to have other interests, and families, and to survive the practice of law much longer and more successfully than we might have otherwise,” Derr says.
Thirty years later, the continued focus on providing a work-life balance has paid off. GordonDerr’s 48 employees are treated to incredible benefits, including memberships at Seattle Athletic Club, up to $1,000 each year for additional services at the gym (Pilates, spinning classes or personal training, for example) and a generous parental leave policy that doesn’t differentiate between male or female parents.
Add to those perks a regular, casual lunch-hour run on the waterfront—an unofficial outing that anywhere from two to a dozen employees take part in on any given day—and you have a healthy, happy and fit workforce.
“Finding time in the day to exercise is incredibly helpful for breaking the stress and keeping our employees healthier,” Derr says. “It’s fun and it’s team-building.”
Perhaps it’s the post-workout endorphins that inspire the firm’s playful, humorous advertisements, which have become known as the least conventional and most entertaining in town. And Derr says those ads attract seasoned attorneys in search of a better balance, as well as new graduates who don’t dig the stern atmospheres of traditional firms.
“I would hope that our legacy is that you can do amazing work with amazing people and amazing clients, but you can do it and have a life,” Derr says.
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Threshold Group President Ed Lazar (seated), with (left to |
All in the Family
At Russell offshoot Threshold Group, benefits and location keep the staff coming to work happy.
But it’s the non-monetary (and non-dietary) benefits that Threshold’s employees seem to value the most.
At Russell offshoot Threshold Group, benefits and location keep the staff coming to work happy.
The minute you step inside the waterfront headquarters of the Threshold Group—the Gig Harbor-based, multi-family investment advisory firm—you know that you’ve entered a bastion of wealth, quietude and privilege. Underfoot are rustic slate floors; overhead, the structure is supported by massive fir beams—most of which were recovered from windfall in Oregon.
Floor-to-ceiling windows reveal a stunning panorama of Gig Harbor’s shimmering waters, and the company’s private pier—with kayaks, sailboat and a motorboat available for employee use—stretches from the sandy shore out front.
Threshold Group was founded in 2004 by George and Jane Russell—the husband and wife duo behind Tacoma’s Russell Investments—and this family-focused boutique has always treated its employees just as nicely as it treats its clients. And it treats its clients nicely: Threshold’s 33 employees work for just 14 ultra-high-net-worth families. (How high? Try $75 million in investable assets, minimum.) Perhaps that’s why the Threshold crew seems to actually love coming to work, even as the wealth-management field continues to feel the pain of the recession.
“We are pretty fortunate to be here,” says Ed Lazar, Threshold’s president. “We’ve got a great family that supports what we do, and one of the things that we hold up high is how we treat our people. And having a phenomenal work environment is a part of that.”
Threshold Group’s employees enjoy stellar benefits, too, including both annual performance bonuses and long-term incentive plans; a generous life insurance benefit; spot bonuses for exceptional work; flexible, family-friendly schedules; and, of course, doughnuts and beer on Fridays.
But it’s the non-monetary (and non-dietary) benefits that Threshold’s employees seem to value the most.
Lazar and his employees stress that the firm’s core values—integrity, respect for the individual, lifelong learning, teamwork, service and community—are far more than a plaque on the wall. The employee-run Community Service Committee, for example, identifies needy causes in the area and organizes employee volunteer opportunities. And it’s all done during work hours.
And from day one with the company, employees are encouraged to speak freely and openly. “It’s not about who sponsors the idea,” Lazar says. “I think that’s a pretty powerful thing when a brand new person can come into an organization and be heard.”
Powerful indeed.
Third place: Northwest Laboratories
Smiles All Around
At Northwest Labs, benefits keep the staff grinning.
When Patrick Tessier founded Northwest Laboratories in 2004, he set out to create a company that would provide improved smiles for its customers—while also putting smiles on the faces of its employees. Five years later, his Bellevue dental lab—which makes crowns, implants, night guards and other highly-engineered products—is doing just that.
Northwest Laboratories serves as a conduit between American dentists and the world’s largest dental lab, which is located in Shenzhen, China. Simply put, dentists send their orders for restorations to Northwest Laboratories, which then works with the Chinese lab to create high quality, precision restorations at a highly competitive cost. Northwest Laboratories also operates an on-site lab at its Bellevue headquarters to handle any ongoing fit adjustments.
The firm, which began with only Tessier working in a home office, has since grown to employ a total staff of 17 engineers, technicians and administrators, with revenue rising to over $5 million in 2008.
And the company’s employees are rewarded handsomely for their contribution. The firm foots 100 percent of the bill for employees’ health care and dental insurance. It also provides each worker with four weeks of vacation time every year, generous flexible spending health accounts, a $200 monthly health club benefit, and free lunches (cooked on-site) as well as beverages. The result is you’re looking at many happy workers.
But that’s not all. Employees also receive monthly performance bonuses based on a percentage of the company’s net income, flexible work hours to accommodate family or personal issues, and $60 every month for personal cell phone plans.
No wonder Tessier is doing well. His office is full of smiles.