Commercial Integrator January 2023 - 18

COVER STORY
Integrator Profi le
2005: Lone Star becomes an ISO-certifi ed
company as part of a strategy to deliver a
high-quality experience, regardless of location
or business segment.
2017: LSC's president and owner,
Ray Bailey, fl ies 8,000lb. of relief supplies
to Hurricane Harvey victims.
October 14, 1991:
Lone Star Communications
is founded in Grand
Prairie, Texas.
2005: Flew evacuees
from New Orleans
aſt er Hurricane Katrina.
2010: Flew three
trips with doctors and
medicine to Haiti.
2015: Halco Life Safety Systems
is acquired.
which it's still thriving today.
Bailey makes clear that LSC had always
been a player in the healthcare market.
" We still were doing a lot of hospitals [in
2007], " he notes. " But we weren't doing
near as many dollar-wise as we were in
education. " However, aſt er the transition
of business focus that year, healthcare
grew to become the largest single entity
within what LSC does. " As a matter of fact, "
Bailey adds, " it's 87% of what we do as a
company. And we're going to be in excess
of $70 million this year. "
At 12 years old, Ray Bailey, founder
and president of Lone Star Communications,
knew exactly what he wanted
to do: fl y bush planes in Alaska. The
Oregon native fulfi lled his childhood
dream aſt er joining the U.S. Air Force
a week aſt er he graduated from high
school. While in the Air Force, he specialized
in electronics. And, aſt er four
years in the military, he did, in fact, fl y
as a bush pilot in Alaska for six-and-ahalf
years.
and 2007, we grew to become the largest
Rauland distributor in U.S., selling their
education products. We dominated in
Texas with what we were selling in 2007. "
Later that decade, though, the market took
a nosedive, money sources dried up and
school funding became scarce. That's when
LSC leaned into the healthcare market, in
18
Scaling Up
Part of LSC's success has to do with
acquisitions - four of them, to be exact -
and the scaling-up principles that Bailey
learned from Verne Harnish, founder of
Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO) and
author of Scaling Up: How a Few Companies
Make It...and Why the Rest Don't.
Aſt er hearing him speak at an NSCA event,
Bailey purchased Harnish's book and
began applying what he learned. Those
principles helped him grow a $26 million
business to $71 million in annual revenue
this year. Bailey attended a Scaling Up class
in Atlanta with his senior staff , and then sent
his middle-management team to a one-day
Scaling Up class in Dallas. There, his team
met with Scaling Up coach Mark Fenner.
With Fenner's help, Bailey put the company
on its current trajectory of rapid growth.
The fi rst step was to become clear on
goals. Every quarter, Bailey completes a
one-page strategic plan built around the
company's " Big Hairy Audacious Goal "
Commercial Integrator JANUARY 2023
A True
Volunteer Pilot
Ray Bailey has been fl ying planes
from high school. Since 2003, he's
been a volunteer pilot for Angel
Flight South Central. This free airtransportation
program serves
Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana Arkansas
and New Mexico. To date,
he's completed 284 missions in his
F-90 King Air, providing lifesaving
medical and food supplies
to people who can't get them.
(BHAG). For LSC, that BHAG is building
the team to 1,000 " rising star " employees.
The company, which has core values of
one team, one purpose and one family,
recognized that fostering team unity was
essential amid four company acquisitions
and having scaled to eight offi ces. The
company also seeks to align the entire team
around its purpose: making communities
safer. Therefore, LSC conducts regular
surveys to understand how employees
are feeling and what they want. Bailey has
responded to that with continuous
company-culture refi nements.
A Forever Home
" Over time, what we learned from those
surveys is people are looking for places
they can stay forever, " Bailey refl ects. " What
we found is, with the younger crowd, they
wanted to know where they would be in fi ve
years...what their future would be. "
commercialintegrator.com
http://www.commercialintegrator.com
Commercial Integrator January 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Commercial Integrator January 2023
