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Guarantee Electrical Acquires Aschinger Electric

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Guarantee Electrical Company acquires Aschinger Electric Co.

Combined company represents 200 years of electrical-industry experience and leadership

ST. LOUIS, Nov. 16, 2021 – St. Louis-based electrical contracting firm Guarantee Electrical Company announced it will acquire fellow St. Louis firm Aschinger Electric Co. The deal will finalize on Dec. 31, and the merged operations will have a combined revenue that approaches $300 million and 1,000 employees.

Guarantee’s acquisition of Aschinger is a merger of two of the St. Louis region’s largest electrical firms and will leverage their individual strengths.

Aschinger Electric joins the Guarantee platform as an independent business unit and will continue to be recognized as Aschinger Electric, a Guarantee Electrical Company.

Fourth-generation Aschinger owner Emily Martin will join the Guarantee leadership team as Executive Vice President on January 1, 2022 and is the named successor-Chief Operating Officer to Rich Ledbetter, who in October 2022 will succeed Rick Oertli as CEO of Guarantee.

“Emily and I have worked side-by-side for many years on the NECA Board of Directors, as joint-venture partners, and collectively on many of the area’s landmark projects,” said Dave Gralike, president of Guarantee Electrical Company. “She has displayed exceptional leadership in growing a fourth-generation, award-winning business in the construction industry. We are fortunate to have Emily bring her fresh, innovative, and diverse perspective to our leadership team. She is an added catalyst to our company and will help in achieving our aggressive internal and external goals.”

Two of the region’s largest contractors, Guarantee Electrical and Aschinger Electric, have been longtime St. Louis peers, creating mutual respect through association leadership and many successful joint ventures over the years. Having shared an operational footprint in the St. Louis area for more than 100 years, the companies have come to understand and appreciate what each has to offer.

“Our company cultures, markets served, and business styles complement each other well. Coming together as a single force will have so many benefits for our customers, our employees and our community,” said Martin. “The combination of Guarantee’s support structure and resources with Aschinger’s entrepreneurial energy and personal approach to service creates a synergy unlike anything else. We believe in building lifetime relationships through trust and this new partnership will allow us to focus on doing exactly that.”

The companies’ similar values, culture and shared focus on operational excellence – combined with Guarantee’s employee-ownership and governance structure – provides a solid foundation for seamless transition to a combined entity with expanded resources, shared best practices and more opportunities for future success. “Aschinger is an incredibly successful company with a shared vision and sterling reputation in the St. Louis market and beyond. We are committed to integrating our talented teams and preserving the client focus and entrepreneurial energy they bring.” said Guarantee COO Rich Ledbetter.

Guarantee specializes in preconstruction, electrical engineering, electrical construction, intelligent-building-systems installation, and quick-response services. Aschinger Electric Co. offers a wide range of electrical services, including commercial, industrial, data/comm, solar, lighting maintenance, and electric-vehicle-charging expertise. The resulting acquisition will expand Guarantee’s regional presence with enhanced capacity, capabilities, and a focus on serving special projects, service work, and energy solutions.

The acquisition of Aschinger marks Guarantee’s second such transaction this year. In April, Guarantee acquired 100-year-old Berwick Electrical Company, based in Colorado Springs, Colorado – expanding its presence in Colorado, California, and the broader western region.

“Over the past 20 years, our team at Guarantee has developed a unique employee-owned platform for growth, achieved both organically and through acquisition.  I am thrilled that Aschinger is joining our platform,” said Guarantee CEO Rick Oertli. “For a 120-year old organization, I can say with confidence that the future has never been brighter.”

VIEW OUR ANNOUNCEMENT VIDEO HERE!

ABOUT GUARANTEE ELECTRICAL COMPANY 

Founded in 1902 to electrify the 1904 World’s Fair St. Louis, Guarantee Electrical Company is among the oldest electrical contracting firms in the United States. Consistently ranked among the top electrical contractors in the country, Guarantee has expertise in electrical engineering, electrical preconstruction, electrical construction, design-build/design-assist, communications, data, security, life-safety systems and 24/7 emergency and quick-response service.

For more information, visit geco.com

ABOUT ASCHINGER ELECTRIC COMPANY 

Aschinger Electric Company is among the region’s largest electrical contractors and among the largest women-owned businesses, according to the St. Louis Business Journal. It is also one of the nation’s Top 600 Specialty Contractors, according to the industry trade publication Engineering News Record (ENR). Aschinger was founded in 1940 in St. Louis and is in its fourth generation of family leadership in the electrical contracting business.

For more information, visit aschinger.com.  

Missouri Projects Named Some of Best Design-Build in the Nation

The Design-Build Institute of America is proud to announce its 2021 Design-Build Project/Team Award Winners, including two Missouri projects. The Robert A. Young Federal Building in St. Louis and the I-435 South Loop Link in Kansas City have received National Design-Build Merit Awards. These projects will also go on to compete for a National Award of Excellence and Project of the Year to be announced at DBIA’s Design-Build Conference & Expo Awards Ceremony, November 2nd.

At approximately 1 million square feet, the Robert A. Young (RAY) Federal Building is one of the largest office buildings in downtown St. Louis. The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) undertook the $75 million design-build project to provide additional shelter-in-place opportunities and safe exiting for the building’s 3,000 occupants in the event of an earthquake. The early 1930s Art Deco brick and terracotta building is vulnerable to seismic hazards because of its proximity to two seismic zones. The project represented the first use of seismic dampers in a St. Louis building retrofit and the team’s innovation enabled all work to be completed while the building was 100 percent occupied by 3,000 employees from 48 separate government agencies.

Read the full article

Aschinger Honored At ASA Awards

The American Subcontractors Association (ASA) Midwest Council announced the winners of its Friday Night Lights Awards Gala on June 25th, 2021. The award categories included General Contractor of the Year, Outstanding MEP Subcontractors, Outstanding Specialty Subcontractors, and Service Provider/Supplier of the Year. The ASA Midwest Council awarded special safety awards to qualifying ASA members who have achieved work safety excellence in 2020, as well as an overall Safety Cup award given to one ASA member company. Subcontractors were judged on bid ethics and practice, safety policy and practices, jobsite supervision, communication, scheduling coordination, project relations, administrative procedures/paperwork and quality workmanship.

Aschinger Electric was chosen as the Outstanding MEP Subcontractor as voted on by the General Contractor community, and received the ASA Safety Cup award for the most overall improvement in safety practices and performance. Through implementation of new safety practices and increased safety training, Aschinger has reduced its EMR from 0.98 in 2016 to 0.62 in 2021.

Emily Martin, Aschinger’s President/CEO told the Aschinger team, “Thank you for everything you do to make us shine for our customers and to work safely! I’m very proud of our whole team for all their work!” Rob Sherman, Director of Field Operations, added “Both awards are prestigious and differentiators in our market. Thank you for all of the hard work and continued effort at making Aschinger a great company.”

Martin named one of the Top 20 Women In Construction

From CNR Magazine:

As president of Aschinger Electric, Emily Martin manages all operations at Aschinger and also serves as chairman of the board. She has worked in the construction industry for 22 years, but she admits that she did not initially see herself running an electrical contracting business. She began her career as a lawyer, earning her Juris Doctor from the University of Missouri – Kansas City after earning a history degree from Fontbonne University. But an opportunity arose, with its own unique challenges, to enter the family business and advance the next generation of family entrepreneurship. Emily embraced that opportunity, learning the business from her father, Eric Aschinger. Since taking the reins as president of the company in 2007 as the fourth generation of family leadership, revenues have increased by 75 percent as the firm continually adapts to rapid advancements in technology. Aschinger Electric is now the fifth-largest St. Louis-based electrical contractor and the largest woman-owned electrical contractor in the region. Emily counts among her mentors her father Eric, Aschinger General Foreman Doug Noelke, her National Electrical Contractors Association peers and St. Louis NECA Vice President Doug Martin. Inspiring more women to enter the construction industry is a huge priority for Martin. She does so by example and through mentoring and speaking engagements to women and women’s groups, emphasizing the importance of developing business relationships and community involvement as steps toward building a rewarding career in the industry.

To see the full article of all the honored women, visit https://www.dropbox.com/s/9pbfdm5afqv69e3/CNR_ND20_WIC%20Awards.pdf?dl=0

St. Louis-based firms Azimuth Energy, Aschinger Electric launch solar-focused joint venture

Two St. Louis-based companies, Azimuth Energy and Aschinger Electric Co., said Tuesday they’ve inked an agreement to form a joint venture focused on expanding their footprint in the solar energy sector.

The two firms said the new partnership will focus on bidding on and building utility scale and commercial solar projects. The agreement is the “first of its kind in the St. Louis region between a solar engineering and construction firm and an electric contractor,” officials said.

Azimuth, a solar engineering and construction firm, and Aschinger aren’t strangers to each other. The companies have previously worked on nearly 100 solar engineering projects dating back to 2009. Their relationship began as a prime and subcontractor arrangement before becoming more formalized, said Azimuth President Marc Lopata.

“About two years ago, we started structuring our projects as joint ventures so that we could be more competitive and efficient. Then, about six months ago, we decided to join forces on a company basis rather than a project basis,” he said.

The two companies said their partnership will provide them with the ability to more competitively bid on projects and to operate more efficiently by reducing costs and sharing resources.

“In the renewable energy field, you find that a lot of companies are engineering only and hiring out construction or the other way around — they are only constructing but not developing or engineering projects,” said Aschinger President Emily Martin. “To have both of those capabilities with one team allows us to be more competitive and react more quickly to the market. We see a lot of growth in this market coming forward in the next 10 years for certain, but even over the next 30.”

Azimuth and Aschinger will operate out of adjacent office spaces in Fenton.

“We look forward to working even more closely with Aschinger and parlaying our strengths to better serve the community and region,” said Lopata. “I am particularly excited to have Mike Seger aboard as vice president of renewable energy for Aschinger Electric. Mike and I have built hundreds of solar-energy projects together, like the solar roof of the Moonrise Hotel, and Mike is one of the most capable professionals in the industry.”

Azimuth has 12 employees. Clayton-based private equity firm Oakland Capital Partners in 2019 made a majority investment in the energy firm. Aschinger has about 170 employees and is among St. Louis’ largest women-owned companies. It had revenue of $56 million in 2019.

 

Aschinger named in the Top 600 by Engineering News-Record

Engineering News-Record has named Aschinger Electric Company in their Top 600 Specialty Contractors list.