6
Lonni
P R O F I L E
Conference call: Lonnie Laffen President of JLG Architects (#4 Best Firm Architecture for 2016), a 110-person, employee-owned North Dakota-based firm co-founded in 1989 by Laffen.
By LIISA ANDREASSEN Correspondent “W e love organic growth but it’s dependent on developing internal leadership fast enough,” Laffen says. “M&A allows you quicker penetration into the market and leadership you can’t find internally.” A CONVERSATION WITH LONNIE LAFFEN. The Zweig Letter: What’s your philosophy on fee/ billing and accounts receivable? How do you col- lect fees from a difficult client? Lonnie Laffen: We do a lot of public work (inten- tionally for this reason), and haven’t had many is- sues relating to collections. We work hard to turn
out billing as soon as we can at the beginning of the month. We learned a long time ago that the best way to get paid faster was to bill quicker. “I’m also a senator in North Dakota and came to understand that the legislature sets policy and the governor executes that policy. We operate our company the same way.”
Lonnie Laffen, President, JLG Architects
TZL: What’s the recipe for creating an effective board?
THE ZWEIG LETTER Ma
Made with FlippingBook Annual report