Precision Construction Services is reaching new heights with several important contracts under its belt

By Jorge Mercado

Staff Writer

For Precision Construction Services, a design-building contractor, the growth the founders have seen since starting the company in 2013 “feels good,” said Erik Wright, a co-principal and co-founder.

“But, it really does just feel like we are just getting started,” he told the Business Times.

Precision’s growth has been outstanding, earning it a spot in the top 300 of the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest growing privately held companies in the nation, and ranking seventh on the Pacific Coast Business Times Fastest Growing Companies list in 2022.

Precision, which is based in San Luis Obispo and has about 50 employees, had $17 million in revenue in 2021, representing growth of 264.9% over 2019.

Wright said he, along with fellow co-founders and principals Karl Vaillancourt and Jared Malapit, have been solely focused on continuing to grow the company — mainly by reinvesting every piece of profit right back into it.

“We’re 100% committed to this company and that has helped us with hiring the right people, continuing to be focused on growth, looking at the big picture and not being shortsighted about income,” Wright said.

The company continues seeing big wins. Earlier this year, Precision won a bid to build out a 125,000-square-foot storage facility for Justin Winery.

The project was between two local construction companies and two based outside the region, but it was Precision that landed its largest contract in company history, valued at $19 million.

“All we have done so far is just proved to ourselves that we are on the right track, but there’s a massive amount of work still to be done and a ton of growth left in front of us,” Vaillancourt said.

That win has made the company more attractive for larger contracts, giving it the opportunity to continue to scale at a rapid pace.

Precision is also in the middle of retrofitting a new office in San Luis Obispo — just a few blocks away from its current location — a sign that the company doesn’t want to just play in the national market, it wants to do so from home.

“We’re really getting on that national stage where our competitors now are top-of-the-market contractors and we’re slowly moving away from a lot of the local market that is very parochial to just the Central Coast,” Wright said. “It’s these big players that come into town on the bigger projects that local contractors were not getting invited to, and we’re one of the first to really break through and be a contractor on that national stage in the Central Coast market.”

Precision’s founders are not shy about the help it took to get to this point. Wright said that entities like REACH — the Regional Economic Action Coalition — have been committed to helping the company grow in San Luis Obispo.

“There’s not a lot of ego here. We just want to get to the best answer all the time and that comes from all different places,” Wright said. “You just have to not be shy about asking questions and not be too proud to take advice.”