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Albany company ... worldwide success

• Reed Mitchell's passion for his work has been vital in turning ACMI of Albany into a world-class operation.

Carlton Fletcher

ALBANY — Reed Mitchell had a moment of epiphany some 24 hours after being flown from Albany to Amsterdam to work on moulding in a classic, 500-year-old building.

“I was absolutely petrified,” Mitchell, the working half of the partnership that owns American Custom Millwork Inc. of Albany, said of that long-ago trip. “But within 24 hours of being there, I knew what my talent was.

“Since then, I’ve worked with and for celebrities whose egoes are bigger than you could put in this building. But I’ve never been intimidated by anybody because I’ve never doubted my abilities. There’s nothing I’m afraid to tackle.”

That would include a business that was floundering when he started work there in 1993 and has, since he and partner Mark Davis bought it around the turn of the century, become known worldwide as the standard for fine millwork and cabinetry.

ACMI’s unmatched craftsmanship is on display at homes and structures in the Far East, throughout Europe, in the Middle East, in the Caribbean, across the continental United States. As word of the company’s quality spread, so has demand for its work.

“Right now, we’re as high up the food chain in what we do as you can get,” Mitchell says. “The caliber of talent that’s right here in Albany, Georgia is world-class. We’ll run toe-to- toe with anybody, anywhere, any time.”

The turnaround of ACMI, which was founded in 1988, from local materials and woodwork supplier to in-demand designer/builder/installer of elegant millwork, cabinetry and moulding is as compelling as the man who runs its day- to-day operations. Mitchell had worked with the company for almost a decade when he and former banker Davis bought out the owners.

Mitchell’s first act as the new boss? He “fired” all the company’s customers.

“Things were backward,” Mitchell said. “Our customers were dictating how we did business. They determined the what, when, where and how. It turned into one of those businesses where everyone was happy to just pay the bills from week to week.

“So I came in and fired every customer. I told our employees we were going to sail this ship through some mighty rough waters, but I told them if they’d hang with me, trust me, I was going to take this business where I knew it could go. Some of them jumped ship, and some cussed and fussed along the way, but we slowly turned things around.”

That turnaround started when Mitchell worked a deal to produce and supply mouldings on a contract basis for a London company. It says something about his faith in himself and in his workers that he promised the English company he could ship monthly the same linear footage of moulding his company had been producing in a year’s time.

“We actually had to give them their first order on consignment because they didn’t believe we would be able to supply what they wanted,” Mitchell said. “I really couldn’t blame them, though. Their first order was equal to our entire annual production the four years before.

“We went from producing 150,000 linear feet of moulding a year to producing 1 million linear feet a month.”

Flash forward to 2008. That little company on Newton Road has expanded to include more than 34,000 square feet of work space in which some 74 skilled craftsmen turn raw wood into works of art. Draftsmen design elaborately detailed pieces that are painstakingly crafted to detail by some of the world’s best woodworkers.

And ACMI’s work has proven to be recession-proof, in demand by high-end builders and developers whose quest for quality supercedes such matters as cost.

During a tour of the company’s facilities, a visitor is shown plans for the 14-unit Ocean Club North development on Georgia’s Sea Island. The “cheapest” unit goes for $6 million. And there’s the Frederica Golf Club on St. Simons Island, the stateroom of a yacht in Cannes, France, the Sea Island home of a billionaire businessman, the North Georgia residence of a former NFL executive.

“We have a backlog of work we’re under contract for that will carry us to the middle of 2010,” Mitchell said. “That’s a damned good problem to have. Every morning I thank God for this company’s success. I’m humbled by it, and I appreciate it, but make no mistake that we worked hard to get to this point.”

When Mitchell talks of ACMI, it’s always “we.” He takes as much pride in his highly skilled employees as he does the work they produce.

“Man, I’m smart enough to know that I ain’t that smart,” he jokes. “And that means if you want to be successful, you have to surround yourself with talented people and let them work. We have people here from all over, from Delaware, Minnesota, Alabama, Chicago, Kentucky and Albany. When I hire them I look at work ethic first, and I try to find those skilled folks who have sawdust in their blood.

“But we also look at the quality of the person as well. There have been some extremely talented people who worked here that we had to let go because they didn’t mesh with everyone else. We work with a mutual respect; I don’t sit here looking over my shoulder constantly because I don’t feel I have to. These are people who take pride in their work.”

People like cabinetmaker Josh Willmon, who practically begged Mitchell for work.

“That guy’s incredible,” Mitchell said while showing a visitor around ACMI’s work area. “He came into my office one day and asked me for a job, and I told him we weren’t hiring. He came back the next day and said if I’d hire him he’d do anything, sweep up or whatever. I told him we didn’t have an opening.

“When he showed up the third day, I hired him. And he’s one of the most talented people in this company.”

There’s also plant supervisor Ricky O’Neal, draftsmen/ designers Dave Parnell and Terry Cowart — who have 70 years of experience between them — sanding department supervisor Gwen Brookins, inventory shipping director Melissa Miller, maintenance and tooling head James Beasley, some P&G retirees, former businessmen, even Mitchell’s brother, Joshua Sarno, who works in sales and marketing.

Mitchell praises them all individually, and they return the compliments.

“It’s a great place to work, and he’s a great person to work for,” Willmon says.

“Everything is skill- oriented,” Brookins says. “We all have a job to do, and we all work together.”

Dougherty County Commissioner John Hayes, who has done some work for ACMI, says the business is easily Albany’s best-kept secret.

“They’re not looking for attention; they don’t need it,” Hayes said. “But you have to go out there and see the work they do. The quality is incredible. Their work is recognized throughout the world as top-of-the-line. We’re very fortunate to have an organization like that in Albany.”

The Albany Area Chamber of Commerce obviously agreed with Hayes when last month it named ACMI its Small Business of the Year.

Even with the skill of the company’s craftsmen, much of ACMI’s success is because of the man who leads it. Mitchell came to Albany when his father walked out on him, his mother and younger brother in Tallahassee. He was 6 at the time. His maternal grandmother brought the family to Albany.

“My grandmother had the greatest impact on my life; she was just an incredible woman,” he said. “She was born in 1913, and she put herself through college. She always told me ‘No matter what you choose to do in life, be the best at it.’ I’ve hung onto that.”

While growing up in Albany, Mitchell always knew he wanted to be a builder. His friends drew pictures of race cars, animals and space monsters; he sketched houses. His life in Southwest Georgia was a good one, and that’s one of the reasons he, wife Julie and 5-year-old son Jack have stayed here. (Mitchell’s 17- year-old son Brad lives in Augusta with his mother.)

But the businessman in Mitchell says there’s more than family ties that keep him in the area.

“We’re perfectly located for what we do,” he says. “It’s three hours to the East Coast, three hours to Atlanta, three hours to the Gulf. The I-10 east-west corridor is an hour or so away, and the I-75 north-south corridor is 30 minutes away. We’re nicely situated.”

Mitchell has captained the ACMI ship through the rough waters of the business world, and clear sailing — with a tailing wind — lies ahead. But nothing came easily. The “luck” of the company’s success required plenty of sweat equity, plenty of 12- and 14-hour days, and hundreds of thousands of miles.

“To put it mildly, this company was upside down when we got it,” Mitchell said. “It took 10 years of seven days a week, 12 hours a day, flying 180,000 miles a year to finally see that red number on the bottom line turn black. I think that was the greatest success of this company.

“But it’s never been just about the money to me. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve done well. But the passion I have for this work is what drives me. It’s incredible to love what you’re doing and to work with people who share your passion. Sure, we have had a lot of success, but that’s because, for us, failure is not an option. Period.”

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