By 2000, GEM Plumbing – a residential and commercial service fleet based in Lincoln, R.I. – had been growing by 20 to 50 employees annually for the past three years, and by all indications, that pace was likely to continue.
That year, to gain better control of the fast-growing company, its four owners – all brothers – began rolling out new technologies, policies and procedures. Changes included new high-tech systems to manage inventory and tools, equipment maintenance, fuel efficiency, customer service and its mobile work force.
In early 2003, GEM Plumbing implemented a new state-of-the art call center with a 12-foot screen that shows the exact location of all vehicles in real time, as well as fixed highway traffic views. With a real-time traffic system, dispatchers can reroute service trucks in the event of traffic tie-ups or inaccessible roadways.
In the midst of these major changes, Larry Gemma and brothers Leonard, Edward and Anthony created the GEM Institute in October 2003. Its charter, at least initially, was to be the training arm for all new employees on company systems, procedures and services. It also laid the groundwork for GEM Plumbing to someday become a national company.
“Training is, in most great companies, a central focus,” says Larry Gemma, executive vice president. “Even though we are a small company, we realized that we needed to focus most of our energy on training.”
Soon after starting the GEM Institute, the owners decided to expand its charter. For the first phase of this expansion, Gemma worked with a local state college to connect the internal training of employees to a degree program.
