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SUCCESSION PLAN The question from executives at Herman Miller Co. got the attention of Continental Office principals Jack Lucks and Frank Kass. Continental Office derives a significant percentage of its furniture sales from Herman Miller, a publicly traded Michigan company that last year had net sales of $1.7 billion. With Kass, Lucks and Chief Executive Ron Geese in their 60s, Kass felt the question was warranted. "They worried about the succession plan," Kass said. "We began a process of looking at who we could bring in to ultimately run the business and be a principal owner of the business." The new president and CEO, Ira Sharfin, had little trouble providing a personal reference when he interviewed: His parents owned a company that built an expansion for Continental Office in 1969. On top of that, the Sharfins were Kass’s next-door neighbors. "I’ve known Ira his entire life," Kass said. "He chose to move back to Columbus, and we got reacquainted." Sharfin’s background is in consulting. He worked for Coopers & Lybrand and later PricewaterhouseCoopers, and he was involved in mergers and acquisitions at IBM. Since being hired in 2005, Sharfin has begun a growth spurt that has Continental Office revenue on track to top $100 million this year and has pushed employment to 300. This month, Continental Office has opened a 10,000-squarefoot showroom at its North Side headquarters. In the past year, the company has established an office in Erie, Pa., and re-entered the Indianapolis market by acquiring a company it had spun off. That office now is selling Herman Miller furniture. Combined with earlier moves since 2000 to expand into Toledo and Pittsburgh, the new acquisitions have Continental on a growth track. "Bringing in Ira has opened our eyes to how things are done in other industries," Geese said. Continental does more than sell furniture. It has a division that specializes in relocation services, from planning to cleaning up the old work space. Continental’s consulting division helps corporate customers plan interior layouts, manage work flow and communicate change to employees. The company also has an architectural division, a sitelocation service and a commercial-flooring operation. "I look at Continental as a solutions and services provider," Sharfin said. The relationship with Herman Miller is key, Sharfin said. The companies often consult with each other on new products and new markets. "It’s not a typical manufacturer-dealer relationship," Sharfin said. "We can sell close to 200 different (manufacturers’) products in a given year, and 10 to 12 of them are really true partners of ours. Herman Miller is above and beyond the others." Continental Office has the western Pennsylvania territory for Herman Miller, which prompted the company to open the Erie office. But Continental’s biggest move since Sharfin has been on board was to re-enter an old market. In 1988, Kass and Lucks established a presence in Indianapolis with the acquisition of an office-furniture company. In 2003 the previous owner wanted to go it alone, so Continental spun off the company to employees and got out of town. But the new management didn’t work out. Sharfin approached the owner, bought it out and re-established the office as a Herman Miller reseller. Continental Office now covers 66 Ohio counties for Herman Miller, 19 counties in western Pennsylvania and about two-thirds of Indiana. Curt Pullen, a Herman Miller senior vice president who oversees the company’s dealer network, said Continental Office is now among the company’s five biggest resellers. Kass said growth is now a clear mission for the company that his father founded in 1939. He said that might mean expansion into new cities. "If this (Indianapolis) assimilation works out, we’ll
look at southeast Michigan as a normal expansion," Kass said.
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