Two Kitsap Companies Listed Among Fastest Growing in State
Rachel Pritchett Sep 20, 2010
BREMERTON – Two Kitsap County companies that surfed high across the recessionary trough have made it onto Puget Sound Business Journal’s Top 100 list of fastest growing companies.
Rice Fergus Miller Architecture and Planning of Bremerton and Avalara, the Web-based business tax management company on Bainbridge Island, are on this year’s just-released listed, though rankings have not yet been announced.
The journal looks at companies’ revenue figures for the past three years, then calculates growth rates.
David Fergus, partner at Rice Fergus Miller, said the company’s gross revenues grew from $4.7 million in 2007 to $7.2 million last year.
He credits the company’s diverse portfolio of projects for flourishing — especially for a construction-related field — when others were dying. That portfolio includes public buildings like fire stations and schools, but also health-care facilities and senior housing.
“Our blend has worked very well for us,” Fergus said.
When the recession hit, the company had a number of public projects funded by past levies and bonds already in the pipeline. Those included projects at Olympic College such as the new Humanities Building and a day care, as well as fire-station projects elsewhere in Puget Sound.
Now the public projects coming before Rice Fergus Miller have slowed, but senior housing and health-care facilities have picked up to replace them. The company designed a medical office building now under construction in Poulsbo and enjoys a national reputation for senior housing.
Fergus anticipates new work from tribes and the hospitality industry will add to future company growth.
“And probably a more robust market in interior design,” he said, due to more property owners choosing to renovate rather than build new today.
The company, with 40 employees, has gutted an old commercial building in downtown Bremerton and is rebuilding it as new headquarters. It will move into next spring.
Bainbridge Island-based Avalara is doing $20 million annually in sales, even though it’s only five years old.
The company offers online sales tax services for businesses. Its business has gone skyward in the recession because for companies, it’s much cheaper to outsource the work than to have staffs doing it themselves, according to President and Chief Executive Officer Scott McFarlane.
“We have a product that works really well in recession,” he said.
Avalara’s 8,000 clients include Apple and Borders Books.
McFarlane said the company’s future growth will be with international companies. “We see ourselves serving a global market,” he said.
McFarlane said today most of the company’s clients are based in North America. It has seven offices altogether, including one in India. Avalara has 180 employees.