Bob Fei, President of Life Cycle Engineering

LowcountryBizSC:
Where were you born and raised?

Bob Fei:
I grew up in West Ashley where I attended public schools (Orange Grove, Wallace / Drayton Hall, and Middleton.)  I went to Georgia Tech for my engineering degree and followed that up with a Masters in Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Southern California.  Seven years ago, I attained my professional engineering (PE) designation.

LowcountryBizSC:
What were your early professional jobs as an engineer?

Bob Fei:
My early experience was more in consulting, or business process re-engineering, working for companies like Ernst & Young doing SAP implementations.  I have never been a practicing engineer as people would typically think of it – civil, mechanical, electrical etc.  I had the “go west young man” syndrome and moved around a lot in the early part of my career.  I lived in Atlanta for a while before moving to the West Coast where I met my wife, a Georgia native. I lived in Australia for a couple of years when I worked for Andersen (now Accenture).  After that, I returned to California where I was involved in a lot of cool jobs at the height of the ”.com” era.  My wife and I moved back to Charleston in 2002 to be close to family when we started our family, and quickly rediscovered just how nice this city is.    

When I returned to Charleston, I joined Life Cycle Engineering, this company that was founded by my father.  

LowcountryBizSC:
What are the origins of Life Cycle Engineering?  Why the words ‘life cycle” in the name?

Bob Fei:
My father and his business partner, George Thornley, started Life Cycle Engineering in 1976.  As two civil service engineers working for the government in Washington, DC, they worked directly with the U.S. Navy to pioneer application of reliability engineering, and specifically predictive technologies and condition monitoring, to be used in nuclear submarines. That led to larger questions about how they could monitor and extend the reliability of additional Navy systems, particularly the mechanical and electrical systems during their entire life cycle.  George Thornley named their entrepreneurial venture based on that original concept.  Today life cycle engineering encompasses additional factors such as sustainability, safety, etc.

LowcountryBizSC:
How has the company grown through the years?

Bob Fei:
The company has been on a steady growth curve since its inception.  Today, we are a $75M a year company with around 450 employees, 100 who work in Charleston.  We have been conservative when it comes to our growth strategy – no large mergers or acquisitions in the past or in the foreseeable future.  We try to grow organically and to lift our clients’ success up as a way of attaining new customers through word of mouth.  

We are proud to have our headquarters here in Charleston, South Carolina.

LowcountryBizSC:
How is LCE structured?

Bob Fei:
We have several groups within the company, each with its own leader.  These groups reflect our strategy going forward.

The Engineering Services Group is our largest line of business and deals directly with the Navy. This area represents around 70% of our business.  We have satellite locations around the country where the Navy has a presence: Norfolk, Virginia; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Washington, DC; San Diego, California; Mayport, Florida; Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; Bremerton, Washington and Pascagoula, Mississippi. We also have an engineering team in Pittsburgh, PA. We have competitors in the big defense contractors, but we have found our niche in delivering a high level of technical service and providing highly reliable systems.  Our differentiator is our intimate knowledge of the leading edge technical challenges that the Navy is facing.

We don’t design the ships and submarines that the Navy uses, but as new ships are designed and once the ships are deployed, we make sure that their internal systems are maintained and optimized for full performance. In a rapidly changing world, the mission of ships may change multiple times over their decades of service.  Our goal is to maximize the productivity of the internal systems to meet new objectives.  

Our Reliability Consulting Group deals mostly with manufacturing companies that undertake major capital investments.From an early point in our company history, my father and his business partner saw that the concept of “life cycle” engineering that we used with the Navy could be applied to private industry.  In an extremely competitive global environment, more and more pressure has built up for companies to maximize the performance of existing assets. We have a passion and talent for providing the same level of service to manufacturing that we do for the Navy.

The third group is our Applied Technology Group, our IT consulting group.   This division grew out of our relationship here locally with the Space and Naval Warfare Center (SPAWAR) which provides IT solutions for the Navy.  SPAWAR is akin to having a Silicon Valley type company right here in Charleston – truly an amazing and innovative organization. They have drawn talent from all over the country and are thought leaders when it comes to cloud computing and computer networking systems, particularly as they apply to the Navy’s need to solve complicated and disparate problems related to command and control, communications and computer systems.  

Our most recent line of business and one that I am very excited about is the Life Cycle Institute.  About 12 years ago, we made a conscious business decision to focus on transferring our best practice knowledge to our clients. We called this our “teach them to fish” rather than “fish for them” strategy. This approach was successful for both our clients and for us. Four years ago we branded our education offering under the Life Cycle Institute brand.

LowcountryBizSC:
What is the key to your success as an organization?

Bob Fei:
Our mission is to enable people and organizations to achieve their full potential. Our differentiator is our methodology that is applied by our experienced people.  For example, in our reliability consulting business our trademark is Powered by Reliability ExcellenceTM”.  To deliver on our promise to deliver lasting results for organizations we use the best people in the business – former naval professionals, former manufacturers and IT experts – who are genuinely dedicated to helping others.

LowcountryBizSC:
When did you become president of the company?  Is your father still involved with the company?

Bob Fei:
I became president in November, 2008. As any entrepreneur must do, my father started contemplating a succession plan several years back.  There are two times in a company’s life cycle when it is most susceptible to failure. The first is in its first two or three years.  There is a high infant mortality rate for companies.  The second fault line occurs during a management transition, especially from entrepreneur founder to next generation. This type of transition is not easy to do and is something that we all take extremely seriously.  We have a transition plan and have promoted and brought in many strong leaders as part of this plan. Jim remains very involved for the foreseeable future and we all feel good about the progress we are making to proactively manage this risk.

LowcountryBizSC:
When you first started working at Life Cycle Engineering, was it your goal to become president?

Bob Fei:
Though it may seem like obvious nepotism, my moving into the role as President was not the plan when I first decided to come to work here.  It may sound strange, but when I moved back to Charleston, I didn’t even think of working for my father’s company, let alone becoming its eventual president. I had attended company picnics when I was growing up, but I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I really didn’t know much about it.

I was given the opportunity to join Life Cycle Engineering to do something that I had never done before – sell consulting services.  I very quickly fell in love with the place.  I have worked in numerous other consulting organizations and none has such a culture of family.  

My father is still involved in the company as CEO, still here every day and an invaluable resource for me.  His office isn’t far away if I have any questions.

LowcountryBizSC:
What is the new ownership structure?

Bob Fei:
We are privately held.  My father set up an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) back in the 1980’s that has been a useful vehicle for including the employees in company ownership.  My father owns 51% controlling interest in the company and the ESOP owns 49%.  

With a broader ownership in the company has come a push for more visibility into company data, a move to open-book management and more delegation.

LowcountryBizSC:
What is the biggest challenge that you have faced as the new leader of this company?

Bob Fei:
As many others who find themselves in a new opportunity to move into executive management, I am faced with an interesting, and somewhat daunting predicament: the hard skills that I developed in the first half of my career – technical, analytical – are not the same as the soft skills that I need to get through the second part of my career in leadership.

The biggest challenge that I face is building the credibility to become the President of a company that my father co-founded.  I credit my original mentor here at Life Cycle for coaching me to invest a lot of my time on building internal relationships.  Moving a company from founder-led to next generation is a massive project that takes a lot of time and emotional energy.  We are all proud of how well it is working thus far.  

LowcountryBizSC:
What opportunities do you see going forward?  Any new lines of business?

Bob Fei:
Over the next five to ten years, our new management team sees plenty of opportunity in expanding our existing lines of business, rather than exploring new ones. We know how to efficiently provide services to government, and as they are a huge consumer of IT, we look to expand our offerings in this area and help them be more productive.  Through our relationship with SPAWAR, our Applied Technology Group will look to help SPAWAR continue to develop new business with other government agencies such as the VA, the FBI, the CIA and the IRS.

LowcountryBizSC:
You help manufacturing companies become more competitive.  Can American companies compete in this global marketplace?

Bob Fei:
Absolutely! It is our strong belief that we can compete with anyone in the world and keep high paying jobs here in the United States. The type of work and the level of education required to perform in a manufacturing setting have changed dramatically over the past twenty years.  Long gone are the days of making the Model T through a series of endless repetitive actions.  The knowledge economy and the manufacturing economy play well off of each other.  

First world countries have rightly put in place rules and regulations governing environmental practices and the rights and safety of workers. These regulations place additional cost burdens on companies, so in order to compete, they have to work smart and at maximum efficiency.  Business leaders have come to recognize that the last and greatest lever that they possess is improving the reliability and stability of existing assets.  That is Life Cycle Engineering’s sweet spot – working directly with manufacturing executives and plant leadership teams to develop systems to make them more productive.

LowcountryBizSC:
Does Life Cycle Engineering involve itself with software implementations like ERP (Enterprise Resource Management)?  

Bob Fei:
All of our clients already have in place some form of ERP and/or asset management tracking program.  We are not ERP implementers.  If a business focuses on technology and does nothing to address its business processes, even the fanciest ERP in the world will give no payback, in fact, a company can actually move backwards in terms of productivity. If a business does nothing with technology, but concentrates its efforts on business processes – its productivity will go up.  Where a company gains the biggest productivity boost is marrying both technology and business processes.  That is where we can help.  

LowcountryBizSC:
How have you been affected by the down economy?

Bob Fei:
I credit my father for putting in a diversification strategy over the past decades.  Our main lines of business – government, commercial, and IT – do not always move together during an economic cycle.
 
LowcountryBizSC:
What are some of the roadblocks to success going forward?

Bob Fei:
Are we developing our management talent that will produce the leaders of the future for this company?  Finding and training talent, and building trust in the organization are the top things that I can do to help this company.

A couple of my favorite business books are: Now Discover Your Strengths and First Break All the Rules.  We have been so influenced by the philosophies espoused in these books that we call Life Cycle a “strengths-based” organization.  All employees take a survey to identify their strengths to ensure that they are successful in their career here.  That has led to a high level of employee engagement here at the company and we are proud to have made the list of the S.C. Best Places to Work in 2010.  My challenge as president will be to maintain that culture.

LowcountryBizSC:
How would you describe your leadership style?

Bob Fei:
I am a servant leader.  As a bit of an introvert, I am not going to be the type of leader that seeks the spotlight.  I try to be thoughtful with my decisions and to work well within our new team-oriented leadership structure of the company.

LowcountryBizSC:
What are some of your interests outside of work?

Bob Fei:
I have two little girls who take up the vast majority of my time outside the office.  Other than that, I never knew how much I love the water until I moved to Atlanta.  My favorite water sport is wake boarding.

My wife and I made a conscious decision when we moved to Charleston to slow down, focus on relationships, and enjoy life a little more. We enjoy being involved in our church  and love being a part of this wonderful community.