By Jeff Morrow

It’s been a journey of learning and change for the owners of a small Richland-based nuclear power consulting and technical services company.

[blockquote quote="We knew the company could be successful. We had the employees and the resources." source="Karen Miller, managing director of Polestar Technical Services" align="right" max_width="300px"]

Kathy Miller, Bill Bailey and Patty Bailey of Polestar Technical Services have proved it is possible to return “home” to their small business after it was acquired by a multinational corporation.

The company began as Polestar Applied Technology in 1992 in Los Gatos, Calif.

By 1993, the business started supporting U.S. Department of Energy projects at the Hanford site, and in 1999, Polestar opened a Richland office.

But in 2007, the WorleyParsons Group Inc., an Australian multinational company, bought Polestar and rebranded it as WorleyParsons Polestar.

Miller and the Baileys were managers for the company during this period. They said WorleyParsons believed at the time there would be a renaissance in nuclear energy, but it didn’t come.

Change ahead

Miller stressed she and the Baileys didn’t sell the company in the first place.

“The three principal owners (at Polestar at that time) were the ones who made the decision to sell,” said Miller, managing director of Polestar Technical Services. “It was 60-40 with 60 percent of the business commercial.”

Then one day, Bill Bailey, director of business development at Polestar Technical Services, heard something from his supervisor that changed their future.

“In February of 2013, my boss was back here from Reading, Pennsylvania, and at the end of the day he said, ‘I don’t know what to do with you guys.’”

“The company was more involved in commercial industry. Ours was more technical support (for government projects). That set off the alarm bells. It became pretty clear that at some point down the road, we’d be gone.”

And that would have been OK, but Miller and the Baileys liked what they were doing in Richland.

So they decided to break off from WorleyParsons.

“Nobody had to do it,” said Patty Bailey, project operations manager at Polestar Technical Services and Bill Bailey’s wife. “All of us would have been fine, gone on to other jobs. But when considering if it was the right thing to do, the answer was ‘yes’. We worked hard all of these years for this.”

Bill Bailey agreed.

“So this was almost like a survival test,” he said. “We enjoy the people we work with and we enjoy the work. Patty and I spent four years in England, so moving wouldn’t have been a problem. But our family is here. I’ve been here since 1981.”

The three pitched the proposal to WorleyParsons in March 2013.

“We got the green light from the parent company in November of 2013,” said Bill Bailey. “And we didn’t finally get it done until April of 2014.”

Miller said they were confident it would happen.

“We knew the company could be successful,” Miller said. “We had the employees and the resources.”

But there were challenges along the way.

Setting up a new company

The Baileys and Miller are experts in lifecycle management of nuclear facilities. They had no experience in setting up a new corporation, negotiating with a multinational company about a divestiture plan or securing a major loan.

So they brought in Bruce Davis and Michael Franz of the Washington Small Business Development Center. Davis, who has since retired, was the center’s adviser in the Tri-Cities, and Franz was in Seattle.

The process required 12- to 13-hour days during the week, another full day on Saturdays, and part of Sundays. After all, they still had their work to do for WorleyParsons before they could concentrate on the new business.

Every Friday, Davis met with the three while Franz joined via phone from Seattle. The transition included a 20-page list of things to get done.

“There is a big difference between running and owning a company,” Bill Bailey said.

They had to figure out workers’ compensation, labor laws, processes for bylaws, changing lease agreements, and employee handbooks. Even the logo had to be done right.

“Bruce provided the discipline,” said Bill Bailey. “We met with him every Friday morning. It was time consuming.”

Their personal lives were put on hold for a while.

“Bill and I didn’t plan anything for pretty much four to six months,” said Patty Bailey.

And WorleyParsons even helped.

“They bent over backwards for us with the Dell Computer Co.,” Bill Bailey said.

They needed 25 computers at the time.

“We had no credit history,” he said. “But they twisted Dell’s arms, saying, ‘Help these guys.’”

Since the transition, there has been plenty to celebrate.

“Once we closed the books on the old Polestar, then started on the new Polestar, it was pretty special,” Bill Bailey said.

Hitting their first anniversary was a highlight for Patty.

“I think making it through the first year was great,” she said.

And another thing happened: Employees who left when the acquisition occurred in 2007 returned.

“They walked back into our doors and wanted to be back,” Patty Bailey said.

Looking to the future

The company is smaller than it used to be but there are plans for growth.

“We lost quite a few employees in the commercial organization, but we retained the governmental part,” Miller said. “Our focus is on cleanup and we work at sites across the country. We were close to $12 million in revenues and 80 employees when we were bought. When we divested, we were at $4 million and 26.”

Miller said the company’s plan is to double those numbers in the next five years.

“We’re trying to grow the company from when we divested to where we were acquired,” Miller said. “The last one-and-a-half years we’ve spent getting our feet under us.”

Still, it’s been a worthwhile adventure. Miller and the Baileys don’t think of themselves as the people who saved others’ jobs.

But someone did post a picture of the three of them in the company lunchroom and wrote, “Our Heroes.”

Miller and the Baileys believe they saw something worth saving, despite the risks.

“The process was actually quite frightening,” said Patty Miller. “But it was exciting.”