  |
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||
|
 | ||||
|
|
Alumni Profile: Larry Laseter of Home Solutions of America, Inc. Today: Larry recently joined Home Solutions of America, Inc., as president of its Interior Services Division. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, the NASDAQ-listed company provides services for the restoration of homes and businesses following natural disasters. With operations in the southeastern United States, the Gulf Coast region and California, it offers recovery, restoration and rebuilding/remodeling services to regions that are prone to flooding, hurricanes, and other weather emergencies – as well as to areas experiencing robust housing development. The Interior Services Division provides remodeling services to homeowners and builders. A former vice president at The Home Depot, Larry was recruited to accelerate the growth of the Interior Services Division. The company has achieved high growth overall for the last five years. Larry's challenges going forward are integrating acquisitions, expanding product and service lines, moving the business into new geographic areas, and recruiting people who can support rapid expansion. At Booz Allen & Before: Larry joined Booz Allen's Atlanta office in 1990 as an associate in the operations practice and later moved to the Chicago office. During his three years with the firm, he concentrated in service operations, focusing on restructuring operations around customer needs. He was a senior associate at Booz Allen when he was recruited in 1992 by the FPL Group, to head the customer service and credit operations of Florida Power & Light. Larry was promoted in 1995 to the job of FPL Group's Director of Strategic Planning and Development and a year later he became President of FPL Energy Services and Vice President, Sales and Marketing, for Florida Power & Light. In 1999, Larry was appointed senior vice president for business development and operations at a San Francisco-based Internet startup, MyHomeKey, Inc., which became a leading online retailer of home services. From 2002 to 2006, Larry was an executive with The Home Depot, where he started as director of business development. Later, as Global Services Merchant for Exterior Services, he increased sales by 50 percent in one year. In his last position at Home Depot, Vice President for Specialty Sales; he was responsible for high-ticket consultative selling of kitchen cabinets, countertops, appliances, windows, and flooring. Prior to joining Home Solutions of America, Larry was an independent consultant to high growth businesses. Larry graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point with a degree in electrical engineering and served for five years in the United States Army as an infantry officer. He has an MBA from Harvard University. Did your experience at Booz Allen give you a strong foundation for your current position? Absolutely. It gave me extremely strong analytical underpinnings and tools that I still use every single day in everything I do. The biggest lesson for me was the importance of combining analytical rigor with firsthand observation of a business – and that includes a fundamental understanding of the customer. What skills did you acquire at Booz Allen? Analytical rigor. The ability to synthesize data, to develop a hypothesis and then do structured analysis against the hypothesis. Every time I start a new job, whether it's in a new company or after getting a promotion, it’s like being a senior associate starting a new project. I have a work plan that typically consists of seeing people, doing interviews, and directly observing operations or the customers. My approach: Let's start gathering data, find who the data sources are, and decide what analyses need to be done. Let’s make some milestones, and then let's do presentations that synthesize all this. This is a process that I've used successfully over and over again to come into new roles and quickly develop an action plan that can improve the operation in a short time. Would you recommend working at Booz Allen? Absolutely. Even though I was there for only three years, the depth of the skill set I developed and the breadth of exposure to different industries and businesses – I just couldn't have gotten that anywhere else. That combination was just fantastic for me. And I met some great people on top of that! To me, what was most unique about Booz Allen was the analytical rigor. Booz Allen doesn't just say, "Here's what we think." It’s able to come in and say, "Here's what we know." Booz Allen consultants combine what they think with the hard analytics to give clients answers that will work. Any favorite Booz Allen moments or experiences you'd like to share? My second project was for a utility company in Florida. It started in December in West Palm Beach. The first night, we're having an organizational dinner, sitting out at this little waterfront restaurant on the Intercoastal Waterway, having a cocktail and meeting all the team members. One of the principals on the project, asks who I am and how long I have been with Booz Allen. I tell him this is my second assignment. And he says, "You're a brand new associate and you're sitting out here in this perfect weather in West Palm Beach and you're going to be here all winter long. That's not right!" I'm laughing, and he says, "Larry, trust me. This stuff averages out. Next winter, you're going to be in Rochester." Sure enough, the next winter I was on assignment in Rochester, New York. There was eight feet of snow piled outside the windows! Any advice for people just starting with the firm? Be humble. Every client knows more about their business than you do. Don't think that the Booz Allen approach works because we're smarter than the client. The difference is that a Booz Allen team comes in with a tool set that the client typically hasn't been using and an analytical rigor that they're probably not used to – and even just the capacity and tenacity to find the data that allow you to find answers that these smart people who know their business haven't been able to find before. The breakthroughs always come when consultants respect and understand the client and have a true collaboration. profile posted December 19, 2007 Related Links...
|
|
Home | About Booz Allen | Capabilities | Careers | Ideas & Insights | Contracts | News & Media | Alumni | Contact Us | Site Map |