Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.metro From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Moving up with clients on the move Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 17:03:26 EST Message-ID: \SE B;METROPOLITAN;MONEY;THE ENTREPRENEURS \HD Moving up with clients on the move \BY David Field \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES Patricia Henriques has found a life in business that's moving in a big way. Her moves range from relocating law firms, nonprofit associations and corporate offices to moving a whole airport, and for someone who towers at about 5 feet, her career is a big thing. As she likes to tell prospective clients for her Washington-based Management Alternatives Inc., "When I started out, I was 6 feet tall. Look how the job has whittled me down!" Mrs. Henriques started out small: Her parents owned a golf course in Orange, Conn., and as a child she sold sodas and such on the far tees, "learning to handle cash, learning to plan and keep to a plan." But her plans kept growing, and a career that started out teaching English to Parisians became, after stints in banking, advertising, managing a Washington trade association and law firms, one of enterprise. Working for the law firm, she had supervised moves that involved "changing the telephones a total of 264 times in 18 months." "Ten years ago next July, it just came time to do on my own what I'd been doing for others' companies," she said in her K Street NW office. Using her savings, Mrs. Henriques started Management Alternatives with no clients at all. Soon though, through word of mouth, she had one in General Electric Co., which was moving its Washington office, a job that made her as proud as a peacock. She recalls that after GE's move from one downtown office to another was all but complete, one important task remained: moving a stuffed peacock, the trademark of GE's National Broadcasting Co. subsidiary, to its new home. "The client insisted that the peacock, which was about 6 feet across, arrive in its new home unscathed. We looked at all sorts of shipping and packing boxes, but none made any sense, so in the end I walked it. I carried it myself, which was no problem except that part of the route was down 14th Street - 14th Street in the old days" of sexually oriented businesses and varied street characters. "When they saw a peacock coming down 14th Street on Friday night at 11 p.m., I think some of them were wondering about what they had just drunk. 'Hey, this is good stuff.' " After that, moving GE's Nipper the Dog, known to generations of RCA Victrola listeners as obedient to his master's voice, was child's play. Moving, though, is serious stuff. "What we can provide to clients is continuity, moving them without forcing them to choose between losing the large amounts of time, money and business that can easily be lost in a move and the losses that could suffer if they don't make a move that they have to," she said. This, of course, takes planning, and Management Alternative's staff of 15 has developed the computer and logistics programs to manage moves. The firm relocated the American Association of Retired Persons across town to its new Judiciary Square headquarters, "moving 16,800 boxes, and there was only one box that may have been lost." When the firm moved the Greater Pittsburgh International Airport in September from its original, 40-year-old location to a new terminal two miles down the runway, it took 2 1/2 years of planning to get ready 3,800 pieces of furniture and equipment, 1,500 pieces of ground service equipment, 8,000 boxes, 5,000 rental cars, 30 aircraft for the first morning flights, a cafeteria, a mail and cargo facility and sniffer dogs - overnight. Between the last flight late on Sept. 30 and the first flights at 5:30 a.m. the next day, Mrs. Henriques had about four hours. "It was hectic, but we had planned enough that it was not chaotic. People kept coming up to me and asking if they could see our command center, as if it was a military operation with a room full of charts and officers, but I had to tell them, we had planned ahead enough that we all knew what to do." Officials for Arlington-based USAir, whose headquarters Mrs. Henriques had moved from Washington National Airport to Crystal City, agreed that the Pittsburgh transition was seamless. Mrs. Henriques, who is 43 and lives in Arlington, insists on the importance of planning for any business, new or old. "When I started, I sat down for 90 days and worked out a very detailed business plan. Every time I have deviated from the plan, it has been a time that I later regretted the decision." Her firm also offers strategic planning "to help businesses know what they have to do to get where they want to. We've done this for government agencies, nonprofits, law firms, others." She says that by focusing on a move's positive benefits, its psychological strain can be transformed to a way to improve the quality of the workplace. Mrs. Henriques insists that Management Alternatives is different in that it "isn't just a consultant who tells people what to do, but we stay with the client to do it. That's why a relocation can be such an opportunity to bring about corporate change." This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM