Business owner rises from part-time deliveryman to owner.
Name: Bob Lycke
Business: K-R Inc.
Employees: 25
Location: Mountlake Terrace, Washington
As a teenager, Bob Lycke worked part time at Kuker-Ranken Inc., a provider of land survey and construction supplies. Thirty-eight years later, Lycke is president of K-R Inc. He talks about career transitions and the problems with Washington.
What’s your journey from part-time deliveryman to company president been like?
It’s been a fun journey. When I came here, I had no intention of it being my career.
How did you transition from delivery to sales?
I graduated in 1978 and went to doing delivery full time. I saw opportunities out there, and the company was growing. I went to the owner and said, “What’s my future here?” And he said, “Whatever you want to make it.” So I told him I’d like to give a shot at selling.
He took me to downtown Seattle, dropped me off on the street corner and said, “I want you to go to every floor in every building in downtown Seattle. Talk to anybody in architecture and engineering, graphic design or illustration and get the information of who does their purchasing and give them the flier and tell them about this one product.”
In the early 2000s, you had another transition—purchasing the company. But at the same time, you were facing something very personal.
What happened was, I could see the previous ownership was not keeping up with the time and didn’t have the vision. So I went to them and asked to buy the company. Eventually, we worked out an agreement. Just before that, my wife got ill.
I took over the office, and my wife passed on a year later. It was quite a struggle for me—owning a brand new business, my wife passing on, kids to take care of. There’s been some struggle.
I can only imagine how tough that was. How did you cope with it all?
I had a lot of support behind me. The employees were very good about it. I worked during the daytime. Sales were really good, and everything was going great. And then I’d come home and have the lowest lows of my life. My wife was dying, and I’d take care of her.
I put a lot of effort into work. A lot of emotions, ups and downs—from [bringing] the highest sales that the company’s ever done to going home and being in that situation. It’s hard to describe other than a lot of highs and a lot of lows—and all in the same day.
What kind of work environment do you create that makes your employees stay with you?
Well, No. 1, the industry is fine, and the customers are good to us. We treat everybody like family. If [workers] have a family function, we let them go. We don’t dock their pay. They’re not hourly; they’re all salary. We all understand that we have lives outside work. We allow our employees to do their family life, and [they’ll] get their work done—and enjoy being here. And I would have to say 70 percent of my employees have been here for 20 years or longer.
K-R has been around for 87 years. What factors have contributed to its longevity?
Our ability to recognize what the future is bringing. When I started in this business, we were 95 percent engineering, drafting and graphics. We’re now 80 percent measuring centers. It’s transitioned from hand-drafting, paper, Mylar, pin bar, to big expensive land surveying equipment.
Also, the company has been available to transition from one ownership group who didn’t have the expertise to take it to a next level to another ownership that does.
How does Washington treat its small businesses?
We’re taxed to death. There are a couple of areas that need to be improved, and one is the Labor & Industries (L&I) hold that they have on Washington. L&I is extremely costly to us, and health insurance is unbelievably costly to us.
The big challenge small businesses face today with higher taxes and it being more costly to run your business is our sales don’t change a whole lot. In order for us to maintain the same amount of employees, we have to do three times more business. And the sales aren’t there. We all have competition.
What advice would you offer someone who’s starting from the bottom at a company and working his or her way up?
The advice I’d have for someone that was in my shoes—who didn’t go to college—would be to stick to whatever they’re doing. Don’t quit and give up because certain things aren’t going your way. It always changes. So, even for a year or two, things aren’t going that well, just don’t quit and find another job. Don’t keep starting over and over and over. I just don’t think you can get anywhere doing that.
