• Posted: December 21, 2020
• better careers, better construction, Champs Sports, Expedia HQ, Fellowship Hall – Old St. Patricks, G&M Electrical Contractors, Molex at Willis Tower, North Shore Country Day School, Pathways – Shirley Ryan Ability Lab, Tom Rivi, WeWork Offices

G&M Electrical Contractors is celebrating its 75th year in business at a time when once-in-a-generation challenges have become routine, but Tom Rivi is optimistic about the future. After all, he and the business have weathered dramatic changes in the past. 

Tom has been president for 15 years, but started working at G&M at age 12, where his father was an electrician who eventually worked his way up the ranks to become president. Tom started out working summers as a draftsman doing the drawings for the field.

Although he got an early start in the business, he had no intention of making a career in the electrical industry, and instead pursued a degree in chemistry. Despite his long-term plans, he still spent summers and breaks during college working for G&M, doing estimating, and returned during a year off following graduation, after which he had every intention of going back to school to pursue an MBA.

But the lure of G&M was too strong, and that year off turned into 35 years.

G&M was, and to some extent is, a family-owned business, with fathers, sons, uncles, cousins, daughters and mothers all working together. This made creating an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) a natural evolution – it’s now basically an employee-owned business. ESOP provides a way for businesses to create a pension plan for non-union employees.

It’s a Different World

Tom started at G&M before the digital revolution, so there were no computers and simply having a fax machine was considered forward-thinking. Since then, he’s seen advances in technology that extend well beyond the back office. From the hardware itself to the everyday use of advanced technology to complete jobs more safely and efficiently for customers, what the unionized electrical industry offers today is better in every sense than what was possible when Tom entered the industry.    

To ensure that G&M’s 60+ electricians from IBEW Local 134 are always at the forefront of technology advancements that can help them deliver better construction on the job site, G&M encourages continuing education that builds on the skills and knowledge gained in one of the most sophisticated electrical apprenticeship programs in the country. G&M also regularly brings in vendors at the forefront of new construction technologies for lunch-and-learns designed to foster a culture of continuous learning that is manifested in the quality of G&M’s work.

Adapting in 2020

In recent years, G&M’s primary niche has been tenant buildout work in downtown Chicago and suburban Cook County. Then the pandemic hit and the office needs of businesses throughout Cook County changed drastically overnight. While G&M has continued to work on office projects, sometimes installing technologies designed to create safer environments during the pandemic, the electrical contractor had to quickly reevaluate its core competencies and identify a path forward. In the months since, G&M has tapped the general contractors it typically works with and put itself forward for projects outside of the office segment. The result has been a successful year despite the many challenges as G&M has pivoted to work on projects at places like the Graduate Hotel Evanston and Intrinsic School, a charter school housed in a downtown high-rise at 79 W. Monroe. G&M has also returned to out-of-the-ground work on projects like Planet Granite, something it specialized in earlier in its history but had moved away from in the recent past. 

“It doesn’t look like things are going to just snap back to normal in the office market,” Tom said. “But I think that the whole push around technology modifications will help encourage people to invest in those types of changes. We’re gaining the work experience we’ll need for the new normal.”

Where the future is concerned, Tom says things are bright. “We’ve been very successful. We’re a smaller company, but we’re in growth mode. We’ve seen some areas we can expand to, there’s plenty of nice work out there, and there’s plenty of qualified union labor.”

G&M At-a-Glance

Founded: 1945
Specialties: Electrical, Telecommunications and Renewable Energy Installations for Commercial, Educational, Health Care facilities, and retail.
Featured Projects:
– Expedia HQ
– WeWork Offices
– Molex at Willis Tower
– Pathways – Shirley Ryan Ability Lab
– Fellowship Hall – Old St. Patricks
– Champs Sports
– North Shore Country Day School 
Website: https://www.gm-electric.com/

To learn more about G&M Electrical Contractors, please visit its website.

To find unionized electrical contractors like G&M that deliver better construction on every job, use our Find a Contractor tool.