Buchanan Enterprises
Address: 740 Quaker Highway, Uxbridge, MA 01569
Phone: 508-865-3335
Fax: 508-865-7101
Website: www.buchananelectric.com
Number of Employees: 140
Top Executive: James Buchanan, president and CEO
Product or Service: Buchanan Electric handles residential electrical needs; AcuLan sells and professionally installs structured cabling systems; Corporate Communication Services Inc. sells telephone systems; VOIP, voice and data structured cabling.
Year Founded: 1992
Buchanan Enterprises offers one-stop wiring
If it has wire in it, we hook it up. If it needs wire, we get it there. And the impossible takes us a little bit longer, but we can do whatever you want," is how James Buchanan, founder, president and CEO of James E. Buchanan Electric Inc., sums up his company’s comprehensive array of services.
From wiring basic electrical outlets to total home automation systems, installing home theaters to telephone/voice and data networks, Uxbridge-based Buchanan Electric -organized as Buchanan Enterprises - provides one-stop shopping for large residential and hospitality industry projects.
"We offer every service you need for wiring of any kind," says Buchanan. What that means, he says, is that general contractors don’t have to deal with different subcontractors for phone, fiber optics, general wiring and computer and entertainment infrastructure-and the scheduling hang-ups that can create. "You get one guy to talk to; one guy to complain to," Buchanan says.
It is that "seamless" service, along with 14 years of experience and some insightful strategic choices, that has made Buchanan Enterprises a leader in the niche market of wiring large residential projects in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The 140-employee company expects to make $20 million in revenue in 2006 and $30 million in 2007, according to Buchanan. Revenues should hit $40 million in 2008 "without a problem," he adds.
The company has been growing steadily since Buchanan started it in Worcester in 1992 as a one-man operation out of the back of a used pick-up truck that he bought with money he borrowed from his brother-in-law. An electrician since 1977, the Houston, TX native had been working for a Westboro company which serviced cash registers until it was bought out. That’s when he decided to launch his own company. The first year, Buchanan Electric made $160,000, he says. The second it doubled that and the third, it hit $1.5 million, when Buchanan says he "fell into a nice project" with 100 homes to wire.
Over the last decade, Buchanan has serviced many of the mammoth homebuilders, including Pulte Homes and Toll Brothers, in large single-family home projects in Massachusetts. The company has also wired close to 2,000 apartments in the past decade, he estimates. Among the projects that put the company on the map some 10 years ago was a $2.5-million job in which the company wired 324 apartments called the Villages at Bear Hill in Waltham.
Most electrical contractors prefer large-scale commercial projects to residential, Buchanan says, considering them to be more profitable and less demanding than the fast-paced schedule of residential projects. Thus, he says, his company has few competitors in its chosen niche, which includes large-scale housing developments, apartment complexes, hotels and assisted living developments. As the single-family home market has slowed, the company has shifted more to rental housing, assisted living projects and hotels, which Buchanan says remain strong.
Buchanan Enterprises thrives on the challenges of residential projects, in which scheduling is crucial since people are often waiting to move in to spaces being wired. "You have to work with them and be sensitive to what their needs are," Buchanan says.
Adding voice, data and video to the mix
Four years ago, Buchanan Electric decided to expand its wiring service capabilities to include the communication aspect of residential infrastructure, a segment of projects, Buchanan says, it previously had to pass up. The company acquired several communication companies and is now able to offer "the whole ball of wax" in wiring homes, Buchanan says. It provides everything from computer system cable infrastructure to fiber optics to card-entry security systems.
In fact, Buchanan Executive Vice President Keith Sanborn says the communication division’s management team, assembled in three acquisitions since 2002, has a total of 125 year’s experience in the industry between them. What’s more, he says, the division’s technicians have an average of four to six years experience "and the industry just got started in 1992. We’re extremely broad in the knowledge of the industry in all pieces of the market," says Sanborn. "We’re also extremely price competitive."
Sanborn joined Buchanan Enterprises in 2002, when Buchanan bought his Manchaug-based company, AcuLan Performance Cabling, which specializes in installation of commercial/industrial voice, data and video fiber optic systems. Sanborn had started AcuLan in 2000 with four other founders. Its main focus was structured cabling allowing commercial and private customers to link phone and computer networks between buildings.
The company then bought One Connection of Norton, adding home automation, home theater and security to its capabilities. The 2004 acquisition of Corporate Communication Services of Webster added PBX and key telephone installations to the mix. AcuLan and the two other subsequent acquisitions now operate as dba’s under Buchanan Enterprises, formed as the umbrella entity in 2005, Sanborn says.
The combination of the three companies, Sanborn says, gives Buchanan Enterprises the size and resources to give it an edge in the highly competitive communication infrastructure market. It also gives previously standalone smaller companies, like AcuLan, the working capital and operational foundation to attract and accommodate large-scale projects previously out of reach.
Buchanan’s communication customers include biotechnology companies, hospitals, higher-education organizations, manufacturers and general contractors. It has provided cabling infrastructure for the Genzyme Corp., Mass Eye & Ear Infirmary, the University of Rhode Island and Commerce Insurance, just to name a few.
The communication division has grown from eight employees four years ago to 30 currently, according to Sanborn. In its first year of operation, the division had just under $1 million in revenue. By 2004, revenues reached $2.9 million. While the division has been in flux assimilating the various acquisitions into a solid team over the last few years, Sanborn says, 2006 has emerged as a key growth year, with communication revenues expected to reach $4-million. Among the factors is the client base which the three acquisitions have brought, he says.
The future challenge, Sanborn says, will be to add new clients in a wide range of industries. He expects the division to grow at 20 percent to 30 percent a year. In five years, Sanborn says, he expects division revenues to reach $8 million and employ 60 to 70 employees.
With the communication segment firmly established, Buchanan Enterprises no longer has to pass up any aspect of total electric and low voltage services to commercial, residential and industrial clients. And it does so, Buchanan says, in a timely fashion few electrical contractors can match. "If it absolutely has to be done by this time, we’re probably one of the few companies that can do it," he says.
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