TRANSFORMATION CASE STUDY
Growth forgives a great deal of mess. A wind-down forgives none of it.
Scaling an $8 million business to $72 million, and closing it clean. BLB Resources, a HUD and GSA federal contractor, 2010 to 2023.
Scaling Growth
$8M to $72M in roughly 18 months
Workforce Growth
4 to 525+ people, 200 employees and more than 325 contractors
Risk Contained
Zero claims in the three-state wind-down that closed the business
Strategic Operations
200 employees and 325+ contractors
Multi-State Compliance
13 states
Culture Builder
65 of 100 employees with a decade of tenure
The situation
In July 2010 BLB Resources had four employees, no handbook, no policies, and no systems of any kind. It held property management and disposition contracts under HUD and GSA, which meant the work arrived as awards and the staffing had to arrive with it. I was brought in on a fractional basis to build an HR function, and stayed 13 years across five successive roles.
Within roughly 18 months revenue went from about $8 million to $72 million. A company growing at that rate does not have a hiring problem. It has an infrastructure problem that shows up first at the hiring line, and if you solve only the visible half you build a business that cannot survive its own growth.
What had to be built
The foundation
2010 to 2012
Employee handbook, policy framework, job architecture, onboarding, performance management, compensation and benefits programs, and the federal contractor compliance structure. Built from nothing while also serving as the translation layer between the founding CEO's direction and the project managers delivering the work.
The systems
2012 to 2015
Deployed the company's first HRIS and payroll platform, negotiated to 50 percent of the vendor's original proposal and managed through go-live. Time-to-fill fell 45 percent, onboarding 40 percent, and leadership had workforce metrics for the first time. Restructured benefits through a PEO model, saving roughly $50,000 annually and reducing per-employee medical premiums 30 percent.
Scaling capability
ongoing
Delivered 35 hires across two new state operations in Texas and Michigan within 60 days on an emergency contract award, executing a $295,000 recruiting mandate at roughly $98,000. Built leveling and salary banding that reduced pay variance 12 percent and raised internal promotions into leadership 25 percent, so the company could fill its own supervisory roles instead of buying them.
The operating seat
2015 to 2021
Took the Chief Operating Officer title alongside Chief Human Resources Officer. Took responsibility for revenue performance, labor and subcontractor cost, indirect costs, utilization, and contract margin, working with Finance on indirect rates, fringe and overhead pools, budgeting, and forecasting.
The workforce model, and why it mattered
What separated this business from a mid-market company of comparable revenue is that most of its labor was never on the payroll. At scale the workforce was 200 employees alongside more than 325 contractors, staffed against the contract pipeline rather than open requisitions. That model carries co-employment exposure, classification risk, and a capacity problem that resets every time an award lands or a contract ends.
It also meant the hourly compensation structure had to be built on Service Contract Act wage determination guidelines, with labor categories mapped to SCA classifications across a multi-state footprint. Getting that wrong is not an HR error. It is a contract cost error and an audit finding, and it compounds quietly until someone looks.
What held under pressure
- Zero findings across every OFCCP, DOL, and EEOC audit for the full 13-year tenure, with 100 percent on-time EEO and affirmative action reporting.
- Voluntary turnover below 5 percent through the peak growth period, when the company was absorbing more new people per quarter than it had employed in total two years earlier.
- 90-day new hire retention from 82 to 95 percent, achieved through a structured manager development program rather than changes to recruiting. Most of the performance problems handed to me were leadership problems first.
- 10 rounds of reduction in force driven by contract losses, executed without a claim.
- A full COVID-19 conversion of a multi-state field organization to remote operations, with federal contract delivery uninterrupted.
- Two years of continuity through the CEO's extended absence from 2019 to 2021, working the operating decisions with the President.
Closing a company cleanly is a harder test of operating discipline than growing one.
How it ended
In 2021 the business wound down across three states. I ran the workforce communications, separations, final payroll and benefits, compliance filings, and record retention. Zero claims were filed. I stayed on retainer through 2023 to manage California post-closure employer obligations and statute of limitations exposure, and to evaluate acquisition targets on revenue, margin, EBITDA, labor economics, overhead structure, customer concentration, integration cost, and synergy potential.
Growth covers weak process because revenue is arriving faster than the problems. A wind-down exposes every shortcut at once, in front of regulators and former employees who now have nothing to lose.