Seymour firm nabs Best Place to Work in Manufacturing honors

Cheryl Hentz

Contributor

November 4, 2024

SEYMOUR – According to the National Association of Manufacturers, the approximately 8,900 manufacturing plants in Wisconsin employ nearly a half a million people.

One of those companies, Fox Cities Builders, was recently recognized by an independent Workforce Research Group survey, naming it among Wisconsin’s Top Ten Best Places to Work in Manufacturing.

Fox Cities Builders CEO and Founder Phil Ullmer said it’s quite an honor for a company that is not quite 25 years old and is still evolving.

Ullmer said he attributes this recognition and the company’s overall success to its core values. 

“When I think about our employees and being voted one of the best places to work, it goes to the testament of what it’s like to be true partners and teammates with each other,” he said. “We can talk about our core values, but this designation goes right down to our employees living them out. They’re the ones who create the environment that they work in every day, but because of our core values, it’s allowing them to live out those values every day and have those positive work experiences every day.”

Core values are cornerstone of company 

Ullmer said he and then-partner Jay Vanden Heuvel started the company in 2001 on four core values:

Hardworking

“That means we dive right in and aren’t afraid to get our hands dirty,” he said.

Trustworthy

“Being trustworthy is the foundation of all relationships,” he said. “Without it, relationships will not survive.” 

Being respectful

“It’s about respecting our partnerships, respecting each other and respecting both our internal and external customers,” he said. “We are all each other’s customers here.” 

Doing the right thing

“This is really like the umbrella over all of the others,” he said. “It’s doing the right thing, not the easy thing. We want to give all that we have to make sure that we’re truly doing the right thing that best represents all of the people involved.”

Ullmer said these core values are the bedrock of every relationship Fox Cities Builders has.

“Our growth and success are built around the people we have,” he said. “We have to have the right people in the right places in the organization. When we look at people to be in our organization, we look at our core value alignment and make sure that anyone (we’re considering) has those same core values. In the interview process, a lot of our questions are built around our core values.”

When the company considers taking on a new client or customer, Andrew Wallace – Fox Cities Builders senior commercial sales leader – said it also focuses on Fox Cities Builders’ core values to ensure those folks have the same kind of values, principles and philosophies.

“A lot of the lead analysis we do when first starting the process with a new client looks at that core value alignment,” he said. “And when we do take on a new customer, we treat every relationship the same. You never know what a relationship can turn into, so every customer, every project, is treated with the same level of respect, consideration and professionalism. They’re all equally important.” 

Wallace said what starts as one small location for a client could someday turn into a multi-million-dollar business with multiple locations.

Or, he said, it could remain a small, one-location business.

But even small businesses, Wallace said, are important to someone and play a major role in the lives of those people.

“When those things are aligned for everyone involved, great partnerships are formed,” he said. “It’s all about the relationship and making sure we’re both headed in the same direction and that we complement each other.”

Ullmer said Fox Cities Builders has turned down projects if it didn’t feel the core values were in alignment.

“Those values are our guidance tools and we use them to make decisions,” he said. 

Unique building process

Besides being highly principled, Ullmer said Fox Cities Builders takes a rather unique approach to commercial construction – a personalized design-build process using a six-step process they’ve created.

1. Lead analysis – In this pre-design stage, Fox Cities Builders does a lot of research, discovery and budget analysis and also makes sure core values are aligned.
2. Schematic design – An initial concept design and estimate are done in this stage, along with preliminary schedules, timelines, etc. 
3. Design development – Here’s where the design becomes more defined, some site analysis is done, which oftentimes, requires the involvement of a civil engineer or others. 
4. Construction agreement development – The formal agreement to become partners happens during this stage and contracts are finalized. 
5. Groundbreak construction – Construction starts at this point, and a monthly schedule is developed for progress updates, invoicing, punch lists, etc.
6. Post-construction occupancy – Occupancy and the warranty period both begin in this stage.

Though the company has used these and other processes during its 23 years in business, Ullmer said nothing was ever spelled out – until now. 

“We’ve really defined the process and simplified it in the last six months, laying it out into a simple roadmap,” he said. 

Ullmer said it’s highly important for Fox Cities Builders to understand its customers may not understand the building process.

“Their job is not to understand how to build a building,” he said. “It’s our job to help coach them through the whole building process journey and provide them with that guidance of what the next step is before we even get to it.”

Wallace said the company leans on past experiences to help support its continual growth.

“We’re very proactive in trying to find solutions,” he said. “The biggest challenge in our industry often comes down to logistical coordination, resource management and project timelines. We try to account for these when starting the design and planning stages. We try to be transparent, very collaborative and our six-step process really helps streamline what we’re trying to do.” 

History and growth

When the company started, the company had one employee in addition to founders Ullmer and Vanden Heuvel.

Today, Ullmer said Fox Cities Builders has more than 90 employees.

He said there were a variety of moments in the company’s history that propelled it forward to where it is today.

One such milestone, Ullmer said, was his brother Travis’s start with the company, which happened in 2003. 

Ullmer said he and his brother recently acquired Vanden Heuvel’s shares in the company and ownership now rests with them alone.

He said Vanden Heuvel remains with the company, with Travis now serving as chief of operations/principal.

“We’re still writing the history of our commercial construction,” he said. “We’re exploring different options and opportunities in commercial construction every day, which is really cool to be able to do.”  

Unique projects

Ullmer said everything can be built by a contractor – but not every contractor can build everything.

A perfect example of that, he said, is agricultural construction – which Fox Cities Builders considers to be one of its specialties and in its DNA from day one.

“We’re all farm kids – we all grew up on dairy farms,” he said. “So, we’ve always had what I call ‘the farming blood’ in us, so it lined up very well with us and how we grew up.”

Ullmer said of himself, his brother and Vanden Heuvel, “It’s about having a passion for helping animals and building facilities for them.”

Fox Cities Builders’ focus on agriculture construction, Ullmer said, helps tie the two together.

“We’ve been very forward-thinking in the agricultural sector,” he said. “The types of projects we’ve done have been a lot of robotic dairy farms. We’ve been an industry leader in that kind of construction.”

Besides robotic dairy farms, Ullmer said Fox Cities Builders has also built several rotary or carousel milking facilities – which, he said, entails working with two different approaches to the dairy sector with the company heavily involved in both. 

“We work very closely with the equipment supplier – in other words, the robotic supplier or the rotary supplier,” he said. “We also have our own internal design team here and they design everything around those units. Basically, they do the whole design, from the ground up, of where the machine or equipment is going to be housed. That includes the concrete foundation and walls, flat work (floors), as well as the buildings themselves.”

Ullmer said a unique project that Fox Cities Builders recently did was take a 100-year-old storage building with little more than dirt floors and turn it into a state-approved, licensed bakery facility.

He said the company also played a role in the construction of the Ariens Nordic Center – the U.S. Biathlon National Training Center in Brillion.

“It’s an Olympic training facility, and we were involved in a few different projects there – from building a ski rental facility and a pump house, which controls their snow-making ability, to the development of a shooting range and then a bunch of overpasses,” Ullmer said. 

Ullmer said the company has also built several TailWaggers Doggy Daycare locations. 

“What’s unique about TailWaggers is we’ve done multiple buildings and locations for them, but because it’s a franchise operation, they’re all individually owned and operated,” he said. “So, we’ve been able to work with the owners doing each build uniquely for the customer, but still working with the franchise (and parent company) to maintain the consistency of what the franchise company’s ultimate standards are.”

Ullmer said Fox Cities Builders’ partnership with TailWaggers goes back several years.

“Some of the TailWaggers’ projects have been us taking an existing building and turning it into a TailWaggers,” he said. “We’ve also built green sites, and one of the more recent ones we did, we incorporated a dog swim pool area in the building, as well, which has been really cool to be a part of.”  

Wallace said one of the unique aspects of company leadership – Ullmer, Vanden Heuvel and then Travis – all have experience in the field, physically doing the work.

“They’re not guys who have just sat behind desks all their lives,” Wallace said. “They have that first-hand knowledge of what it takes not only to build buildings but how to run a crew and what that dynamic is like between a foreman and a new employee. They’ve seen every aspect of construction projects, and I think that provides a unique experience skill set that not everybody has.”

Making an impact

Ullmer said the fact that every project Fox Cities Builders does impacts a community and the people who live there is not lost on the team. 

“The impact we make depends a lot on the scope of the project because we touch so many different areas,” Wallace said. “In one place we could be doing a really large manufacturing facility that will employ hundreds of people. A smaller place, like that bakery, could be making a wedding or birthday cake for a family member. The Nordic Center is training Olympic athletes locally in our communities and the TailWaggers are grooming and caring for people’s pets while they’re working or away.”

Wallace said every project impacts someone – and to that person or persons, it could make all the difference in the world, no matter its size.