Rafn’s teenage years saw many internal changes as we sought to find the right mix of work, the right operational structure and the right employees to successfully manage our evolving presence in Seattle’s construction market. In this decade the organization saw several landmark milestones chart the course for its future. In a nutshell you could say “We got some class”. Our service mark evolved from an odd, disjointed, blocky letterhead to an award winning marbled emblem on the way to becoming today’s clean easily recognizable logo. We worked with selective consultants to assist us in improving and formalizing our operational structure while coaching us through personalysis exercises to enhance teamwork. During this period we also honed Jack’s visionary ideals into a mission statement that perfectly reflected the aspirations and values of the organization.
The office went from a few computerized workstations for converting green sheets of penciled estimates to a computerized accounting software to a Mac on every manager’s desk (except Greg Moller, who kept his under his desk in the box). We migrated away from hand held Dictaphones and secretaries to learning to type ourselves. We also learned the woes of fax machines with disappearing ink and the suitcase sized telephonic leash that would eventually shrink into today’s smart phone. Only the actual construction technology seemed to remain in static as we cruised through the 90’s.
The Rafn Company grew from $20 million in annual revenues to a record $85 million. Some of that growth was good, some of it carried very valuable lessons. The good parts of the growth ferreted out the personality of those who would become long-term employees and the values of those who would become long-term customers. The challenging parts resulted in a relevant tool that we still use today - our Golden Rules.
We went from a staff small enough that everyone’s birthday was celebrated with a cake in the conference room, to an all-time high of 150 people. Many of those people are still here today – Randy Wood, SPG Superintendent, and Mark Ahart, Journeyman Carpenter, just celebrated 25 years with us and Tom Perrault recently was able to enjoy retirement after a long productive career. Heather Bunn joined as junior PM and is now a VP, Anne Schuessler came on board as a carpenter – foreman and proceeded to lead our vault into the heart of the sustainable construction frontier. Today our 18 Superintendents have over 340 years of collective experience with the Rafn Company – an average tenure of 19 years. As we began doing business with more than just Jack Rafn’s friends, we began to seek out the clients who possessed the values that would be a good fit for our culture. We discovered how crucial trust and integrity were to successful ventures and how important it was to work with like-minded people. We discovered a niche working with non-profit clientele and also with committee based and faith based customers. Our strong focus on managing the budget and our intolerance of failure combined to bring a dependable and relatively risk-free result to our work.
Rafn’s good people partnered with great customers produced a rich and interesting profile of projects during the second decade. Retail projects included the original South Lake Union Chandler’s Cove and the Pioneer Square National Building. We built the large Kirkland office park at Crown Point and we rebuilt old strip centers like the Redmond Bear Creek Mall. For Lorig we got to tackle a couple of historic office conversions - medical office at the old Lake City School and government office at the Thurston County Courthouse. We enjoyed a long run with Country Clubs from the Olympic peninsula south to Olympia and north to Whidbey Island. In 1996 Rafn built the initial phases of Starbucks Headquarters after completing 40 retail stores for them. We added Bellwether, Canlis and Filson to our list of great customers. And last but not least we began building a steady stream of ground up apartments and urban infill transit oriented mixed-use projects. The final noteworthy accomplishment of the Rafn Company’s second decade was the creation of a continuity plan that would ensure the company would outlast its founder’s desire to continue working. In 1994 Jack Rafn included Tom Ambrey and Kim Bottles in a stock purchase agreement that would create the template for future generations. And in 1996 Rafn Company moved into the Evergreen Building as its Headquarters… hard to believe that was 17 years ago.
