Crafton Tull[1], a Rogers-based engineering and design firm, continues to invest in cycling and active transportation amid growth through acquisition when the culture is a good fit.
Earlier this year, the company acquired Bentonville-based Laneshift, a professional development and education firm that teaches people how to plan and build active transportation or bike infrastructure in their cities. Also this year, Crafton Tull invested about $150,000 into cycling and active transportation infrastructure at its Rogers office.
Matt Crafton, president and CEO of Crafton Tull, said the company has been investing in cycling and active transportation for about 20 years.
“As a business, we’ve encouraged it in our staff,” he said. “We have company-branded cycling gear that we help pay for … We have a wellness program where we reimburse the cost of entry into different rides and races … We’ve sponsored cycling teams here in Northwest Arkansas. So it’s just been … our culture going back many years.”
Crafton said as the region has embraced cycling over the past 20-30 years, the company has been the design firm for “many miles of paved trails all around Northwest Arkansas,” including part of the Razorback Greenway. The company continues to work on area trail projects. It’s also designed several bike parks in Northwest Arkansas.
Ryan Hale, founder and vice president at Laneshift, said he defines active transportation as anything that’s human-powered, including walking, biking, rolling and running. It also includes riding electric scooters and e-bikes.
Crafton Tull’s about $150,000 in investments in cycling and active transportation were completed at its Rogers office. The company renovated the former surveyors building into recreation station The Brake Room for bike storage and showering, added a new trail connection and purchased company-owned e-bikes for employees to use for area meetings.
“I don’t know that that’s common in the business world for a company to make those types of investments,” Hale said. “We’re seeing that more and more here. More companies are doing that, but historically that’s not been common.”
Crafton said the roughly 2,000-square-foot surveyors building behind the Rogers office became unused after the surveyors moved into the office.
“So we remodeled it and built a couple of showers, some bike storage and lockers for our staff just to make it easier for people to ride, have a place to clean up and take a shower,” he said. “We also connected our site to an adjacent street with a little sidewalk connection, so our staff can get easily onto the greenways from our office rather than going out onto a busy street.”
The connection work included adding about a 30-foot-long pedestrian and bicycle trail between the office and an adjacent neighborhood, allowing staff to get onto the area trail system without having to take Olive Street.
Crafton said the company also bought two e-bikes for staff use. Laneshift already owns a fleet of e-bikes that it uses for its professional development courses.
“We have to go to meetings all the time, whether at the city of Rogers, Bentonville, or other places,” he said. “Our staff can just hop on an e-bike and zip over to a meeting, get there in 10-15 minutes on an e-bike and then come back.”
LANESHIFT ACQUISITION
Crafton said the company’s acquisition of Laneshift is “as much culture as it is money and revenue.”
He said he’s known Hale for more than 20 years. Hale played sports in high school, for the Arkansas Razorbacks in the late ‘90s and for the New York Giants, including during the 2001 Super Bowl. The Rogers native worked for the Walton Family Foundation before he started Laneshift in 2017.
“We both grew up in Rogers,” Crafton said. “I’m a little older than him … I’ve always admired him. We just like having his people and him in our company. That’s a big benefit for us … What he does fits within what we do … hand in glove. He gets people from all over the U.S. out there thinking about planning … trail networks in their town, and that’s what we do. We help plan, and then we help design … The culture is what’s really important to us.”
Hale said Laneshift and Crafton Tull are aligned in their mission and values, which helped to make for a smooth transition.
Before the acquisition, Hale said the two companies worked together on various projects, and “we had a high comfort level with their staff and good relationships with their staff … Going from a team of four to a team of over 300 peers and fellow teammates is pretty remarkable.”
Hale said joining Crafton Tull has provided Laneshift with additional resources and allowed him to focus on its work more narrowly.
“Before we joined Crafton, I served as the IT department, the HR department … I wore a lot of different hats,” Hale said. “What’s really great is that Crafton Tull was able to take a lot of those things over and let us focus on the things that we’re really passionate about and the things that we’re really good at.”
TRANSPORTATION ACADEMY
Laneshift hosts people from across the United States for professional development courses in Northwest Arkansas.
“They ride around our trails, they see things and learn how to do it in their town,” Crafton said. “There’s mayors, city planners, city engineers and state highway officials … and they see what we’re doing in Northwest Arkansas and … take those lessons back to their communities.”
Hale said Laneshift is “laser-focused on helping strengthen people and places through active transportation.” It teaches its course participants “how to build connected communities through active transportation.”
Laneshift’s flagship program is the Active Transportation Academy, which is focused on individual professional development. The four-day “immersive experience” takes place in Northwest Arkansas, Hale said. It’s hosted four times annually, and he looks to add more sessions in the coming years.
The company also offers professional development courses for groups or Benchmarking Tours. Participants spend two to three days in Northwest Arkansas learning about active transportation infrastructure and projects that they can implement in their communities.
Laneshift also travels with clients outside Northwest Arkansas to learn about active transportation in other cities, such as Austin, Texas, or New York.
Additionally, Laneshift offers consulting to assist clients in developing plans for connectivity, safety improvements and grant writing — all related to active transportation.
Recently, the company has been undertaking more professional development work focused on a specific region. Hale said Laneshift is working with a large metropolitan area in another state to develop an active transportation development program for the area, similar to its academy. He expects this work to continue to grow.
Hale cited multiple benefits of active transportation, including that it’s good for people’s mental and physical health. He also noted the recent University of Arkansas study that shows biking has an economic impact on the region of about $159 million annually.
“That’s really compelling data,” he said. “We just want to help more communities. We want to … continue to help promote cultures of movement and activity, and we think if we just continue to serve our clients and serve professionals in the way that we have, we think that we’re going to continue to grow.”
GROWTH TRAJECTORY
Crafton said the company is a 100% employee-owned business with an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) and emphasized the importance of growth, adding that the company is always looking to expand.
“The cultural fit is the most important thing beyond the numbers,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure that any company that wants to join us … is going to be a good cultural fit. We’re careful and cautious about that. Jim Tull is our chief strategy officer, and that’s one of Jim’s primary responsibilities is looking to acquisitions. We’ve got some discussions going on. They don’t happen to be here local. They’re in other places. But we’re cautiously looking at some things to help us grow our business.”
The company has offices in Rogers, in Fayetteville (two) and eight other locations, Crafton said. The Rogers and Fayetteville locations have bike racks and other equipment to accommodate staff who want to commute to work.
“We’re trying to take that culture to other office locations,” he said. “In those communities, some are further along than others … That’s what the next steps are: bringing that bike culture to our other offices and other places where we’re located.”
Courtney Guppy, senior vice president of human resources at Crafton Tull, said a group of its Northwest Arkansas staff is “really into biking,” and the interest is growing. They like to bike to work and take part in cycling events and programs throughout the year. Guppy said the recent investments at the company’s Rogers office support the group’s cycling interest, and the trail connection improves safety. The Brake Room, which is open to staff day or night, provides a space to cool off or shower after biking or running before going to work. Also, an ice machine will soon be installed there.
“Your employees, if they’re healthy and they feel well and they feel like you’re taking care of them, they’re happier at work,” Guppy said. “Happy employees are productive employees.”
She said staff feedback about The Brake Room has been positive. It will also be used for other events to accommodate those who aren’t into cycling. The work at the Rogers office was one of many recent office renovation projects, Guppy said. The company recently renovated office space in Fayetteville and Little Rock. Also, its Jonesboro office is being renovated.
The company has 316 staff, including 155 staff in Northwest Arkansas, she said. The number is up about 5% from last year, with a lot of growth in Northwest Arkansas. Job openings include engineers, landscape architects and surveyors.
Related
References
- ^ Crafton Tull (www.craftontull.com)