Our CEO, Brad Konik, recently sat down to discuss and reflect upon our 50th Anniversary. Looking back, he shared stories about our founding years, our highlights throughout the years, and how our culture will drive us into the future.
So, the founding story of our company starts with my father, George Konik. He graduated from the University of Denver with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering. After college, however, he moved into professional hockey and ended up playing for almost 12 years. During that period, he took his first job about seven years into his hockey career with Honeywell. While at Honeywell, he was approached by the Minnesota Fighting Saints to sign a new contract for the following year. He told them, ‘Too bad, I’ve started my career with Honeywell as an engineer and I’m not available for hockey.’ They offered him a deal to play only in home games, allowing him to continue his day job.
While at Honeywell, an individual approached him and asked, ‘George, would you like to go into sales?’ He responded, ‘Selling what?’ They said, ‘Engineering Services.’ One thing you need to know about my father is that he was an extreme extrovert, loved socializing and networking, so I don’t know if engineering was ever going to be his cup of tea. He took the opportunity, went to work for a company called Possis, and after several years of success, his entrepreneurial spirit kicked in. In 1974, he hung his own shingle and started George Konik Associates.
I joined the company in 1997, the same year PrimeStaff was founded by Kathy Carlson and Troy Harper. Then, in 2000, I acquired the company from my father. Fast forward to 2009, I was able to bring Tom Goettl back as a partner in the company. In 2012, we implemented EOS traction, which was a huge step for our company, providing us with a roadmap for our plan for one, three, five, and even ten years. So, Tom joined in 2009, we implemented EOS in 2012, and in 2017, we ended up acquiring PrimeStaff, which was a direct competitor of ours, coincidentally founded in 1997, the same year that I joined George Konik Associates. Fast forward 20 years, and here we are, acquiring them as one of our direct competitors. At that time, we essentially doubled our size internally and revenue-wise.
And now, here we are in 2024, celebrating our 50th anniversary milestone. These are some of the key milestones that have contributed to the success of Konik. At Konik, we strive for a very healthy, collaborative environment. I think one thing that’s very special about our organization is the personal connections among our internal employees. A testament to that was when we took our entire company to Cabo with plus ones. If anyone had the opportunity to be around our team and see how much fun we had interacting with each other, and how well we got along, they would understand. One of the nights, we did a rock star theme, so we all dressed up in wigs, tattoo sleeves, and earrings, and everyone bought into it. We had an absolute blast. Everyone around the resort was coming up to us, asking, ‘What’s going on here? What are you guys doing?’ We explained we were here for our 50th anniversary. It would be a stretch for many to guess it was a work thing. They probably saw the energy, the spirit, and how much fun we were having and assumed it was a birthday party or a wedding.
A critical part of Konik’s success and longevity has been the relationships we’ve forged with our clients and our candidates. It’s something we pride ourselves on. My father always emphasized relationships and building those personal connections with people ahead of even revenue and profit. ‘If you do the right thing and keep people’s best interests in mind, the results—and the profits—will follow,’ he would say. A testament to that, and one of my favorite stories, is about a time my father placed a contract employee at a company who was struggling with chemical abuse. After treatment, the person came out and contacted my father, saying they messed up and probably hurt his reputation. Knowing him and having that personal relationship, my father called him into the office, looked him in the eye, and said, ‘You’ve done what you needed to do to get back on track, and I’m going to give you a second chance. I’m putting my reputation on the line because I believe in you.’ This type of personal connection that my father made with his clients, candidates, and our internal employees embodies who we are as a company.
Our areas of specialty are engineering, manufacturing, and AEC, which includes architecture, engineering, and construction—more on the building services side of things. As far as staying ahead, we are tracking news reports, the census, the job market, and the most critical way that we stay on top of the trends is actually through open and close communication with our clients. Going back to establishing those personal relationships, being able to contact a client and have dialogue around not only what they are currently seeing but what they are anticipating for their needs heading into the next quarter, into the next year, into the next decade, and having that close relationship and personal connection with the client allows them to open up and share what their strategic plan looks like, what their hiring strategy is, what they are anticipating as far as their hiring strategy over the next years. Staying in close contact with our clients is by far our number one source for staying on top of trends within our industries.
One of the things that I think draws clients and employees to Konik is our involvement and passion for making an impact on our community in the Minneapolis and surrounding areas. We’re partnered with five amazing nonprofit organizations: A Vivo, Hope for Youth, Cookie Cart, Washburn Center for Children, and Beyond the Yellow Ribbon. It’s just a great spectrum of organizations, and I think that the passion we have and the time and money commitment that we make to our partners is something that absolutely draws people to our company, both clients and employees.
People ask all the time, ‘What’s your environment like? What’s the culture you’re after?’ One of the ways that I share with them as far as the culture that I’m going after is I talk about one of my biggest fears in business—one of the fears I have is that my employees would be stressed and not want to come to work on Monday. I go out of my way to make sure that we create a culture that’s safe and healthy and provides a great opportunity for our employees to be successful, not only personally but also professionally. So, when we talk about a culture being safe and healthy and also emphasizing personal connections, I think a great example of that is an event that we host annually called Konik Fest. Every year, we bring in catered food, we have a live band, it’s set up in the courtyard of our office building, so it’s outside, so it’s a great venue. We invite all of our clients, all of our contract employees, all of our charitable partners, and friends and family. It’s sort of this collision of all of our worlds, and it’s all in this fun, safe, entertaining environment, and to me, it just epitomizes the emphasis and the priority we put on personal relationships.
I think one thing that Tom and I talk about a lot is that we’re not here to try to take the world over. We don’t need to be a hundred-million-dollar company. It’s something where we want to do it the right way, and I think that that is part of—it’s a big part of my vision is creating an organization where again, it’s safe, and it’s healthy, but still provides a great opportunity to find success personally and professionally, and I just think that’s very unique within our industry which again can tend to be a bit cutthroat. I want to find that perfect balance where we deliver amazing results, where our employees find great financial success, that we help our clients grow, that we help our candidates find great opportunities, and we do it in a safe and healthy environment. Looking to the future and thinking about our goals, to me, it’s pretty straightforward. I think that we have something pretty unique here and the opportunity to positively impact so many people’s lives. Again, I know it’s a little bit redundant, but it’s clients, candidates, community. Our goal is to double in size over the next three years, and what I’m excited about is that’s going to double the number of opportunities that we have for internal employees, but it also doubles the impact that we’re going to have on our clients, our candidates, and our community.
My father created an amazing foundation when he started the company in 1974, helped build it up for many, many years, and the past and current employees have been instrumental in not only us surviving but thriving, and I think that along with the acquisition of Prime Staff and being able to carry on their legacy, I’m just excited. I’m excited to put the company in a position where we can hand it off to the next generation of employees who can hopefully carry it on for another 50 years. As we celebrate 50 years, I want to recognize and appreciate the company history, the longevity, certainly the community impact that we’ve had, the culture that we’ve created here, and also the exciting future that lays ahead.