PART III of III of our interview with DR. Valentino (Val) P. De Rocili, President of Compliance Environmental, Inc., an Environmental Health and Safety consulting firm located in Dover, Delaware. Originally from Wilmington, Delaware, he earned an undergraduate degree in Agricultural Engineering Technology from the University of Delaware. He completed a Master of Business Administration degree from Wilmington University, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Safety Engineering from Kennedy-Western University. He is a Certified Hazardous Materials Manager at the Master Level and has numerous certifications in the areas of leadbased paint, asbestos, and infrared thermography.
FSCPA: What differentiates Compliance Environmental from the competition?
Val D: Quality and our ability to deliver what we say we are going to deliver. We aren’t a big volume company. I never wanted to be a big volume company and we probably won’t be. We turn down work. We haven’t lately but we used to turn down work and once the economy gets rolling again we’ll turn down work again. We’re lucky to be able to pick and choose who we work with and we pick and choose what we can do to deliver high quality. That is key. The other part is, as Purdue says, when you tell someone you are going to do something, you do it. If we tell a client we are going to do X, we do X. Pretty simple. Those are the two things that differentiate us from the competition. Our competition seems to have more of an eye on volume. Sometimes we work for our competition so we are becoming as we get a little older the consultants’ consultants if you will. There are certain times when they call us in. That is a good feeling. The word is out there that if you really want it done and done correctly call these guys. We aren’t the cheapest and we don’t want to be. We are very competitive but we aren’t the cheapest because that quality is worth something. What that quality means to us is that we probably spend more billable time doing something that someone else may do slipshod. That is why our costs are a little higher. We are not extreme, but we tend to be a little higher.
FSCPA: How do you attract, train, and retain quality people?
Val D: This is a Bob Applebee (President of George & Lynch fromx to x ) special here! Bob had a theory that was a real good one and I practice it today. The ability to attract. Bob said, and I agree with him, that good employees attract good employees so what we do is we hire from referrals that came from within. That has really been working out. The training – there is 2 parts to that. One is the regulatory part which we all have to have. There are specific requirements so that is usually done by a third party but we do training in house more for learning. Whenever we complete a project we debrief it and we find out the things that we feel were good and bad about it. How to keep skilled employees? Basically you have to keep them happy and that is a fine balance between compensation plus you have to be able to satisfy their needs. One of the things that Applebee said, and he was right about this too, is that good people will demand their own space. In other words, they want to be able to have their own leeway in making decisions and having a say, so they can grow. There is a fine balance to achieve but I am finding out as I am getting older that this theory is absolutely true.
What is your favorite and least favorite part of owning a business?
Val D: The favorite part is seeing your success (or your failure) which I mentioned before. Learning from your experiences, and adapting. Its dynamic, which I really enjoy.
The least favorite aspect, number one I would think, is that you cannot free yourself from a business. It is again like having a child, like getting married. It’s a commitment. Once you make that commitment, you are in it for life. You cannot free yourself from that. I guess you could free yourself by selling, but it is something that is a part of you and will remain. Even when you go on vacation, you’re human, you can’t just turn off your business thoughts. So that is a tough part of it but, I will offer this advice, try to make what you do, your business, a part of you and that will make it easier. A lot of people don’t like that feeling. They want to go home at night and have a beer and watch TV, which is great, but you know business owners cannot do that I don’t believe – not and be successful.
FSCPA: What has surprised you the most about owning your own business?
Val D: The effort that is required when you have employees. I started my company by myself and for the first 16 months I was the only employee so once I brought my first employee on I was very surprised by the amount of effort it takes to manage people. I did not quite understand that going in.
FSCPA: What has been your biggest misstep?
Val D: This kind of ties in again to when you tell someone you are going to do something, you do it. My biggest mistake was telling someone I could do something and I found out later that I couldn’t do it. I didn’t have the knowledge or expertise. I wound up with egg on my face and that isn’t good. I don’t like that. So with that I learned that it is important to determine what you are good at and what you are not good at and don’t expect to be good at a lot of things.
I learned something from Muhammad Ali. In my opinion, here is a guy who was a tremendous boxer and he knew he had the talent. But if you watch him box you can see that sometimes he was just one little bit better than his opponent, and that is all you have to be. He was so good in his prime that his challengers had to really work hard preparing for a fight and Ali never did. He would go to other guy’s gym and heckle him. A lot of that was a strategy to get into the challenger’s head too. But what I took from Ali is the idea that knowing how to be just a little bit better than your competition is enough. You don’t have to be tremendously better. If you are people will say what is wrong with him? Why is he wasting all that effort? What is the point?
FSCPA: What would you earmark as your greatest accomplishment over the life of the business so far?
Val D: Sustaining our business through good times and bad times. The ability to adapt and survive. I went to a party for the 25th anniversary of the company of a friend of mine about 5 years ago. The President of the company got up to speak and you could have heard a pin drop. Everyone was thinking what is he going to say? And what he said was: “We survived.” I thought to myself, is that really something good, that at your monumental 25th anniversary you’d want to stress? As I was thinking about it, I thought wow – there is really a lot to that. That is something that I’ll probably say. We’ll see about that!
FSCPA: What would you say are the 3 primary keys to your success?
Val D: Integrity, knowledge, and dedication.
Integrity: If you say it – do it.
Knowledge: Because I grew up with the regulations I have a really good knowledge base. Also, we have completed over 1500 projects in 17 years. Some of those have been ongoing for more than 10 years. We haven’t completed them yet because of the changing regulatory environment and agencies.
Dedication: That is the hard work component. Not just me but the company. Customers call us and they have a problem. We take it upon ourselves to deliver the solution. They know it and that’s why they hire us.
FSCPA: How big of a factor is sheer intelligence in achieving success in business?
Val D: I wouldn’t call it intelligence. I would call it business savvy. Almost anybody can run a company in the good times. That doesn’t make a good leader or someone who is business savvy. It is the times that we are in now that matter in reference to how you run your company. And this is what makes us strong in our system, our capital market system. Those who come out of this are going to be stronger and that is just part of the process. If you are going to be in business more than 10 years you will experience a down side and you will experience an up side. Our economy is cyclical. You may be a dunce and making money when times are great but you are going to find out in the lean times what business savvy you’ve really got. That is the bottom line.
FSCPA: What question would you like for me to have asked in this interview?
Val D: Looking back in the last 10 years how have you changed/grown? What have you learned? My answer would be: confidence. As you get older and more experienced you become a lot more confident and that is a good thing.
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