USBI's Newsroom

Double duty: USBI offices are showrooms for sales
August 2, 1999, Washington Business Journal
by Kathryn Niemela

Bernard Crocker had no intention of going into the furniture business. When he graduated from Northeastern University in Boston, he wanted to take his penchant for math into the world of accounting -- but he couldn't find a job. He eventually found one with a furniture company and 23 years later he's president of one of the Metro area's largest furniture dealerships. He says he hasn't been bored once and in fact is passionate about what he does.

"I don't know what caused that, because I wanted to be a CPA," Crocker said. "Maybe it's because I came from a lower-middle-class family in Boston and we never had any new furniture."

Crocker worked his way through the furniture industry to his present position at U.S. Business Interiors in Largo, where he's helped bring the company to sales of $70 million.

USBI transforms structureless office space into ergonomically correct, technologically adept and attractive work environments, according to Crocker. They also install walls, ceilings and floors that move in conjunction with their office systems.

These systems match modern office trends for more collaborative workspace, space for the hoteling employee and movable workspace to accommodate changing technology. USBI's eight designers use computer-aided planning and design to determine how the furniture will fit into the space. Seven project managers are responsible for ensuring that space is being built as planned. Crocker says USBI helps companies get what they want out of their real estate, one of the biggest -- and possibly the biggest -- single investments a company makes.

USBI's system products (or cubicles) range in price from $2,000 to $10,000 and may include features such as standing-height work surfaces, indirect lighting, polished wood, and hidden but accessible cable systems. This is a change from the way furniture has heretofore been sold and set up, according to Crocker.

Last January, USBI opened a 104,000-square-foot corporate resource center in Largo, where 25,000 square feet of office space serves as a showroom for clients. The interior of the 78,000-square-foot warehouse is painted bright white for a surgical room feel. The ceilings, floors, walls and shelving are all white, the gray high-gloss floor gleams from a seven step polishing procedure. The warehouse provides storage space for USBI and its clients
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Changing furniture
In the 1940s and '50s the office environment was merely a sea of desks. In the '70s, offices were jammed with cubicles, and designing office space was like building a giant erector set.

Notes on a white board in USBI offices reveal how office environments have changed.

Where they once focused on the workplace and employee structure, now they stress the employee and workplace culture, Crocker said. That means the concepts of team work and a new level of trust in the individual must be included in office plans.

USBI's office space mirrors the environments they create for clients. Customers are given a birds-eye view of a living example of workspace design from the building's mezzanine.

"It's a plan in real life, a view of how USBI designs its own space," Crocker said.

From this view, visitors see rows of office systems aligned to the angle of the wall that separates the offices from the lobby. Small tables and chairs are placed around the room for informal meetings, and standing-height workspace is abundant throughout. In the center, floor-to-ceiling structural supports have been painted yellow and designed to fan out like a tree.

Immense windows line one wall. Executives at USBI don't "hog the sunlight" by taking all the windows and corner offices, Crocker said.

Instead, everyone has the advantage of sunlight during the day. Employees see nature when they look out the window, and the street has been blocked from view by landscaped mounds built up around the building.

Crocker doesn't have a window in his office. He doesn't have a door either.

"USBI has a no-door policy -- we believe in direct access," he said. "It's a whole different atmosphere when management is involved in the company. And I don't need to work in a private office. If I need privacy I go to a private area."

Privacy might be found in one of six enclaves on the first floor of the building. Some hold offices, like Crocker's, some are conference space, and others soft seating with chairs in bright purple, green and gold.

Privacy also comes in the form of white noise piped into the building. Crocker's office models one of their more expensive systems -- one of the few signs of his position. He'd rather the focus were on the customer.

"I take it to heart that we're designing a place where people will spend most of their day," he said. "I wish I could design my automobile and home that way."
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Next target: Northern Virginia
In addition to the Largo center, USBI has opened offices were also opened this year in Baltimore and Phoenix. And now that they are "done and fully in place," Crocker said, USBI is ready to take on another market.

Their next target is Northern Virginia where sales of $100 million to $150 million have been estimated. Crocker says they're just following the growth.

"We follow the construction trade," he said. "We're literally right behind them. Northern Virginia is definitely my next target."

Since its founding in 1990, USBI has experienced consistent growth of 10 to 20 percent each year. But Crocker said he is cautious about the company growing too fast.

"We want good growth," he said. "But not exploding growth -- it's difficult to support financially."

Of its $70 million in sales, the Largo office brings in $45 million, and Phoenix $25 million. Product sales account for 70 percent of the $70 million, and services which include disaster recovery, maintenance, move coordination and project management, account for 30 percent.

The Largo site was selected because of its proximity to I-495 and to the large local markets including Baltimore.

Their clients include the Pentagon, the U.S. Postal Service, Citicorp, the new Anne Arundel court house and a McDonald's. Of their 1,500 clients, two-thirds are corporate, and one-third U.S. government. They have 15 trucks out on the road every day.

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