McKinley Elevator Corporation’s management style – a dedication to the concept of teamwork and personal responsibility – developed as Mike McKinley worked over the years in the family business. The founding company, McKinley Equipment Corporation, was started by Mike’s dad in 1948. The company specialized in material lifts, forklifts, storage racking, and anything else you would use in a warehouse. After growing up working in the warehouse, Mike joined the company full time in 1971, shortly after graduating from Cal Berkley with a B.S. in Economics and receiving his MBA in Business Finance.

The company added vertical wheelchair lifts to its product line in the 1980’s, and then progressed to stair chairs and residential elevators in the 1990’s. When the time was right, the corporation divided its business into two separate entities, the equipment and the accessibility businesses. Mike transitioned into running McKinley Elevator Corporation in Irvine and San Francisco, while Greg Larsen, his brother-in-law, runs the original McKinley Equipment Corporation in Irvine. Today, the company has expanded even further operating in Nevada, and still offers stair chairs, wheelchairs, wheelchair lifts and residential elevators, along with dumbwaiters and parking lifts.

The recession has had a devastating impact everywhere, but especially on California employment, when compared with other parts of the country. According to McKinley the national unemployment rate is under 10 percent, while California is still as 12.5 percent. To make the situation worse, California has a large inventory of “underwater” homes, with mortgages greater than the current value and whose owners cannot afford them and are defaulting. Even prime borrowers are defaulting now from unemployment. The combination of all of this will hinder new home growth for quite awhile. However, McKinley remains positive and claims that residential elevator sales are still there, just harder to find, and that his company has weathered the recession pretty well so far. He attributes his success to having good people, being well-established and being well-prepared.

“Business is always a cycle,” McKinley said. “You have to know that whatever is occurring right now won’t last. There’s a price to pay when you haven’t planned for change.”

McKinley’s goal throughout his years as top dog at the company, and even now during the recession, has been to keep his staff fully employed and working as a team. The company holds regular meetings so that the staff can bring up issues and topics, solve problems and keep everyone informed.

Weekly meetings for each product line are held via telephone and in person by the project managers, field supervisors and sales staff. McKinley said that at first there was hesitancy and a tendency to fear blame, which at times, made the meetings quite tense. However, with reassurance from management that blame wasn’t an acceptable response, only solving the issue was, team spirit began to grow.

All inside staff attend “Fridays at 3,” a weekly internal meeting that focuses on how to improve the business and to stress how important it is for each employee to care for the customer. Sometimes the staff chooses the topic. Sometimes there’s ice cream and camaraderie. But always, there is growth, either in knowledge or team spirit.

Technicians meet once a month in two groups – installers and technicians. Once each quarter the entire group meets together. The sessions are from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. and are for planning, indentifying needs, problem solving, presenting information on new products and giving feedback to manufacturers. Every four to six weeks, McKinley University takes place. This is a voluntary, technical training session offered on a Saturday. It is completely voluntary and unpaid for those simply wanting to improve their skills. It has expanded to any office or sales staff member who is interested enough to come.

To be effective, staff meetings must be regular and well-planned. The General Manager plans the elevator and wheelchair lift meetings, while the CFO plans “Fridays at 3.” The Service Manager conducts McKinley University and also the tech meetings. Each year is started in January with an Annual Kick-off Meeting, held at a nearby Embassy Suites Hotel that includes all employees from all offices for half of a day. During this meeting employees are informed of the year that was completed and what is planned for the year to come, followed by individual department meetings.

McKinley believes that the meetings are an investment that has paid off for his company by improving communication, customer service, teamwork, professionalism, expertise, morale, and relations between management and staff. The company operates with a participatory management style that has resulted in a staff that cares about each other and their customers.

“I’ve had visitors comment that everyone seems really happy in our company. That’s a great compliment and I think it gets transferred back to the customer,” McKinley said. “Some say that how your treat your staff will be how they treat your customers.”

McKinley’s team is well-prepared for the next business cycle to arrive, which fortunately will be an upturn, and the efficiency and expertise his staff has developed will be called on to handle all the new business. McKinley is sure they will be able to!

For more information, call McKinley Elevator Corporation at 949-261-9244, or visit the company’s website at www.mckinleyelevator.com.