Sarcom Undergoes Management Shake-Up

Randy Wilcox, a board member who founded the privately held Columbus-based solution provider in 1983, offered no comment about the departures of CEO Rick Mills and Scott Berding, vice president of sales. Berding said he and Mills lost their jobs because of office politics.

Now acting CEO, Wilcox said he plans to continue the strategy begun by Mills and Berding to restructure the company's debt and refocus its mission.

"I think we're pretty well-positioned focusing on our solutions, technology and services," Wilcox said. "We've been investing for the last couple of years, and we're on track to do in excess of $55 million in solutions business this year."

Over the past 18 months, Mills and Berding had zeroed in on restructuring debt from what Berding called a series of bad acquisition deals made by senior management.

"We were burdened with $114 million in debt from the knucklehead management team that went out and paid way too much for the acquisitions they bought and got nothing for them," Berding said last week following his dismissal.

Wilcox, while noting that Mills and Berding did a good job restructuring the company, downplayed Berding's comments last week about acquisitions made from 1996 to 1999.

"Did they all work out? No, of course not," Wilcox said. "But some of our best locations and largest customers were part of those acquisitions."

Berding also said that during the past year he dismissed three district managers who cashed in on bonus incentive payments of $25,000 per quarter even though they didn't make the sales numbers required to earn the bonuses.

"Half of the people put in the field by Sarcom were just totally incompetent," Berding said. "They just didn't run their business right, and I went out and replaced every one of them with people I know who have been in the industry for 18 years."

Wilcox said he could not comment about the district managers' bonus incentives because he was not aware of the situation.

Berding said that he and Mills transitioned Sarcom from a product and low-end services company to a full-services company with seven services practices, among them storage, security, mobile and wireless infrastructure solutions.

Wilcox said the company plans to hire national directors to manage the practice areas.

Wilcox agrees with Berding that Sarcom is showing signs of success, including $1 million in revenue for the month of June 2002. When Mills joined the company 18 months ago, Sarcom was losing $3 million a month, according to Berding.

Said Wilcox: "Customers we deal with for the most part have stuck with us through the whole thing, and we still have a great customer base. I'm probably more optimistic about the business today than I have been at any time in the last three years."

Wilcox declined to say how long he will remain in the top spot but said he isn't planning to stay for the long term.

"I am committed to being at the company as long as I need to be here," Wilcox said. "But I like the strategy [started by Mills and Berding, and I think we are headed in the right direction."