Michael Chamberlain

Supervised all accounting and administrative functions and staff for 3 companies with combined annual revenues of $25 million. Selected to run new acquisition, acquire and merge additional company and to simultaneously manage two further companies. Merged functions and streamlined processes in consolidation of separate organizations. Developed strategic plans. Supervised preparation of all financial statements, projections and other reports for monthly P&L meetings. Managed cash, including multiple cash accounts, lines of credit and sweep accounts. Oversaw preparation of estimates, approved all proposals and negotiated contracts. Directed submittal of all tax returns and payments. Liaised with auditors during financial and insurance audits. Performed due diligence for acquisitions, including analysis of financial statements, tax returns, pending and existing contracts and litigation; and verification of A/P, A/R, inventory and other assets and liabilities. Oversaw IT functions, insurance and risk management. Executed accounting system conversions, created new Charts of Accounts, Job Numbering conventions and Cost Codes.

Challenge: Purchased small business with 4 customers and 5% market share. Growth was impossible due to inefficiencies and technological deficiencies. The entire operation had one computer and most functions were performed by hand. Tasked with upgrading the capabilities and growing the business.Leadership: Completely re-designed all processes and procedures for accounting, administrative and sales functions and created procedures where none had previously existed. Analyzed IT requirements, consulted with contractors and developed technology plan. Researched and procured accounting, estimating and other software. Oversaw training of staff in new software and supervised all accounting and administrative functions and staff.

Initiative/Innovation: Created programs using VBA for Excel to automate payroll, estimating, job setup, contracts and inventory management. Computerized all of the work that had been done by hand and provided seamless, error-free data transfer between different functions and departments.

Results: Within 2 years, customer base had increased by 350% and market share had reached 25%.

Assisted new owners in developing standards, processes and procedures for new acquisition. Created quality control procedures. Implemented new procedures and systems into estimating and administrative departments.

Challenge: Upgrade procedures and technological capabilities. Functions were inefficient. Estimating and sales departments’ sales success rate was very low.

Innovation: Created software solutions to increase productivityof multiple departments.

Leadership: Identified flaws in sales strategy and developed strategic and process improvements. Named to team selected to manage new acquisition.

Results: Increased sales success rate by more than 100%.

Prepared undeveloped property for construction of manufacturing plant, from acquisition through zoning and design review to sales negotiations with prospective buyer. Developed business plan for manufacturing facility. Prepared market research analysis and sales proposal for presentation to potential buyer. Solicited proposals, selected, contracted and coordinated professional services such as engineering, architecture, and legal services. Completed processes that allowed owner to recognize 35% return on sale of property. Designed and produced software solutions to automate payroll functions for company with 500+ employees.

Challenge: Company had grown by more than 600% in 14 years and payroll had become overwhelming. There were over 500 field employees yet nearly every part of the process, except the actual check printing, was done manually. Essentially all other accounting functions ceased for an entire day each week to process payroll. In addition, much of the payroll was piecework, which most off-the-shelf software doesn’t handle well.

Initiative: Observed payroll process was very cumbersome and improvement was imperative to sustain company growth. Researched solutions and made proposal to senior management.

Analysis: Consulted with office manager and payroll manager to gain familiarity with procedures. Interviewed members of payroll and other accounting staff to become acquainted with current procedures and location of data.

Innovation: Developed outline for software. Personally designed and wrote program. Oversaw testing at each phase of development. Within two weeks had created workable prototype, after two additional weeks had successfully created field payroll program for more than 500 employees that was fully operational.

Results: New system increased productivity of payroll department by over 20% and freed up accounting staff to perform normal duties on payroll day.

Participated on national team assembled to implement corporate initiative. Led projects to collect and organize data to comply with corporate requests for cost and quantity information. Created construction cost estimates for feasibility reports relating to new land purchases. Mentored new employee.

Challenge: Corporate office announced national estimating initiative. Each division was tasked with creating processes, procedures and systems to break down costs of each stage of construction process. Local divisions were at various stages of development and were in need of standardization across the country.

Initiative: Spearheaded effort to arrange regional summit as national effort lagged. Began consultations with other departments in the region to develop principles and to standardize software and methods. As this effort began to come to fruition it was picked up by the Area VP’s and eventually grew into the first of two national summits.

Leadership: Led local effort to implement corporate mandate. Supervised planning and organization of first national estimating summit. Researched and identified software and hardware requirements and instructed IT in acquiring and fulfilling needs. Oversaw creation of raw data, designed methods and directed development of software for processing data.

Results: Personally designed system that was identified as the solution to be adopted nationally.

Advanced through several positions as company expanded from $10M to $75M in annual revenues. Obtained approximately $35M to $40M in contracts annually. Negotiated and approved contracts. Prepared and submitted estimates and prepared specifications for field personnel. Implemented software upgrades and process improvements to reduce preparation time for proposals by more than 50%. Created operations procedure to facilitate flow of specification information from estimators to field. Upgraded takeoff procedures, pricing spreadsheets, and proposals to reduce preparation time. Composed correspondence to customers on behalf of company owner. Participated in workgroup created to upgrade quality assurance program to comply with ISO 9000 standard. Scheduled and supervised labor, material deliveries, and customer service activity. Coordinated with customers (homebuilders, general contractors) and other trade contractors. Managed work on nearly $20M annual production – approximately 4,000 homes per year constructed on nearly 100 housing tracts. Supervised 100 employees, dozens of crews, and multiple subcontractors on distant work sites simultaneously. Initiated Quality Assurance program.

Challenge: One of our most demanding customers awarded us a contract for their most expensive and difficult product lines. These were essentially semi-custom homes to be built as production homes. This project caused quite a bit of turmoil for them and they went through a number of Project Managers before finally bringing in one from the outside who was new to the industry. Hand selected by Senior Management to oversee our portion of this project.

Resilience: Turned around faltering project by re-evaluating priorities of team and delegating less critical functions to others in order to personally focus efforts on this high profile project. Revised processes and reassigned responsibilities.Was personally supervising approximately 50 projects concurrently.

Leadership: As the project progressed was consistently able to bring us in ahead of schedule without affecting quality or sacrificing the schedule of any other project.

Results: That year we received the Subcontractor of the Year Award from that customer. Was designated by the President to accept the award on behalf of the company and received recognition at the next management meeting for being responsible for the organization receiving this highly coveted award.

Operated at times as only employee in Las Vegas market. Prepared and submitted estimates and negotiated contracts. Scheduled, supervised and performed work. Responsible for all administrative functions – payroll, A/P, A/R.

GPA - 3.98

GPA - 3.36