A desk with hard hats, blueprints, and pencils. Overlay of a logo, “The Kleingers Group.”
A desk with hard hats, blueprints, and pencils. Overlay of a logo, “The Kleingers Group.”

Client Feature: Kleingers Group Thrives with One Bank, Many Milestones

A premier civil engineering firm experiences the benefits of a banking relationship that grew with them

Overview

The Kleingers Group is a premier civil engineering, land surveying, and landscape architecture firm based out of West Chester, Ohio. Over its 33-year history, the company has averaged 10% compounding growth per year. Despite this incredible transformation, it has never outgrown its banking relationship, thanks to the way their First Financial Bank team has taken the time to really get to know the company and its values and grow its own products and offerings to meet Kleingers at every milestone.

Whenever we needed to grow or be strategic, First Financial has been there for us. They have been there all along the way. – Tim Casto, CEO & President

The Problem

The Kleingers Group started 33 years ago when Jim Kleingers brought together five engineers in a basement. After growing to more than 150 employees in seven offices, Kleingers continued banking with the same institution that gave Jim his first loan to start the business. A lot changes at a company over 30 years, especially in an industry as capital-intensive as engineering and surveying.

“Every office offers surveying,” explained Tim. “For a survey crew to show up at your site, that requires more than $100K of equipment. That’s been a huge growth area.”

Even Kleingers’s business model changed. It started as predominantly civil engineering, or designing everything outside a building: parking lots, power lines, making sure the infrastructure is in place to support the building. Then, about twenty years ago, they created a separate landscape architecture team. Now, there are teams dedicated to surveying, transportation engineering, municipal engineering, and pavement assessments.

How is it possible that with all this growth, The Kleingers Group never outgrew their bank?

Banking with First Financial

“Whenever we needed to grow or be strategic, First Financial has been there for us,” said Kleingers CEO & President, Tim Casto. “They have been there all along the way.”

While many clients come to First Financial because they have outgrown a smaller bank, or because a larger institution isn’t providing the needed attention, Kleingers has always felt that First Financial fits just right.

Of course, there have been changes through the years. Bankers have taken different roles, and new bankers have been assigned to Kleingers. Different periods of the company’s development have required different banking products. Through it all, First Financial has been proactive in identifying products or services that might benefit the company.

We didn’t even know these tools were available...It’s just made life so much easier. – Steve Korte, Chief Operations Officer

Steve Korte, the Chief Operations Officer, recalled the bank’s flexibility during the particularly capital-intensive chapters, like opening a new office. He also remembered the care and attention provided by First Financial when Kleingers closed out PPP loans from the COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, he was impressed when Market President Jeff Judd introduced them to sweep accounts.

“We didn’t even know these tools were available,” said Korte. “We used to worry about making the most of account surplus, and it’s just made life so much easier.”

The biggest endeavor in the past few years has been transitioning to an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP). Tim and Steve represent second-generation ownership, and they were looking to the future and wondering how they would transition their ownership. They knew they wanted Kleingers to stay Kleingers, so an ESOP made sense.

Steve knew that it would be a large undertaking with a lot of parties involved; they also knew they were going to work with the team that had been by their side through so much already. They brought their First Financial banker to the table early on, who brought in connections to support the process, including First Financial Bank’s specialized ESOP team.

Tim reflected on what they realized through the process, saying, “If you have people who aren’t familiar with ESOP, you feel that. With First Financial, knowing that they had a dedicated team who is well-versed with all the underwriting, it was a no-brainer.”

The shift to becoming an ESOP has not changed daily operations at Kleingers, but Steve and Tim are excited for staff to see the changes to their retirement benefits. They didn’t make any other adjustments or cuts to existing staff benefits, just added employee ownership. The company offered Town Halls to educate their teams on how this new structure would pay off in the end.

“One of the staff raised their hand, and they just wanted to say, ‘Thank you.’” recalled Tim. “That was it. That was touching.”

This commitment to delivering the best for their people is a core part of Kleingers’ culture, and Tim and Steve are quick to point out that this value is equally evident in the way that First Financial has treated them as a client.

Reflecting on these shared values and the many milestones Kleingers and First Financial Bank have experienced together, Steve stated with confidence, “First Financial bank is the only bank we have ever needed over the last 30 years.