Looking back at how it got started, ERMCO’s first major contract was for the Indiana State Fairgrounds Event Center in Indianapolis, and it has grown from there.

ERMCO got its start in 1962 as a small, family-run electrical maintenance business.
Photo courtesy of ERMCO

“We started doing their day-to-day work, and we’ve never left,” says David Peterson, president and CEO. “That’s one of our core clients.”

Peterson says the company’s focus on electrical low voltage and automation, along with providing on-going service and maintenance, is attractive to clients who appreciate the company’s one-stop services strategy.

“We call it the one champion approach,” he says. “We can go to our clients and have them hit the easy button. We say, yes, we can do a project for them. It’s up to us to figure out how to bring the most value to meet their needs.”

Electricians install wiring for a client’s logistics warehouse.
Photo courtesy of ERMCO

Larger Projects Fuel Growth

The company’s growth was further spurred over the years as it took on larger projects and greater challenges, beginning with its relationship with AECOM Hunt on national sports venues. That relationship led to more than 35 large-scale sport stadiums across the country, including Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, the Barclays Center in New York, Toyota Center in Houston and Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, to mention a few.

The market sectors that are currently driving work for ERMCO are sports/entertainment, health care and data centers.

“We started doing data center work almost seven years ago in San Antonio,” Peterson says. “We’ve just wrapped up roughly $400 million worth of work on that project over the years. We are growing [that data center business] on a national scale.”

Another recent major project for ERMCO has been the Signia by Hilton, a 40-story, 800-room hotel designed to be the tallest hotel in Indianapolis. ERMCO is applying strategies to improve processes and efficiencies, including bending all feeder conduit for the project in an offsite fabrication facility. That work, which used to be very time-consuming, has been facilitated by the technology that ERMCO uses.

“We used to have to model the conduit and physically pull it,” says Adam Rude, vice president of construction support services. “Now we have add-ons to our software that we model on and add in the dimensions, and it will automatically spool in our fabrication shop based on the type of vendor we are using.”

Describing the process, he says, “We’ve taken something that could’ve taken days or weeks for an individual engineer to do, and, through our investment in software, it takes seconds.”

Rude says that ERMCO “pushes the envelope on technology and makes the financial commitment upfront to do so in hopes of being an industry leader.”

That investment frees engineers to focus on more complicated tasks that require a higher level of sophistication to perform, he says.

“Automation isn’t here to take our jobs; it’s here to make our job easier so we can focus on efficiencies and more difficult tasks. I think that is what differentiates us from our competitors,” he says.

Fabricated underground conduit racks are installed at Fishers Event Center.
Photo courtesy of ERMCO

Clients Prioritize Technological Solutions

Rude says clients also care about technology and whether ERMCO is staying on the cutting edge.

“It comes up a lot in our scope reviews and project interviews,” Rude says. “Sophisticated customers are looking for contractors that are constantly pushing the envelope on offsite manufacturing and fabrication and enhancing efficiency, productivity and quality—making their projects go a lot smoother.”

He adds that while many of ERMCO’s projects are complex, “the sooner clients can get a facility up and running, the sooner they can start generating revenue. They understand and appreciate that, and it differentiates us from a lot of other electrical contractors in the industry.”

Using software to automate processes is also one way ERMCO is coping with an industrywide labor shortage.

“It’s difficult now to find the VDC [virtual design and construction] engineers and project managers, especially ones with the experience needed to do the things we are doing,” Rude says. “So we are counting on technology to automate what used to be manual.”

Having qualified employees who can come in and hit the ground running is a challenge, Peterson agrees. One way ERMCO seeks to overcome that hurdle is by making their construction sites appealing—offering amenities like accessible parking, bathrooms, a comfortable place to eat lunch and a clean environment, not always common on active construction sites.

“That might include a heated or air-conditioned café where workers can go to eat without losing a lot of time,” Peterson says. “You’re creating an environment where your craftspeople don’t have to go and sit in their car to eat lunch and aren’t wasting 30 minutes or their break walking to and from parking.”

He says those types of considerations for workers are important to attract and keep employees.

“It all adds up,” he says. “If there are things we can do to help, to make them feel comfortable and to maximize efficiencies then we get creative and work as a team to do that.”

ERMCO is also helping employees see a long-term career path with the company.

“What we are doing now is putting together a program for secondary leadership to really talk about the skill sets of our field and office staff,” he says. “Folks wanting to come into the office as a project engineer need to understand what the path is to become a project manager. And then as a project manager, what does it mean to become an executive within the company. We are putting that curriculum and career paths in place to make sure we offer those turnkey trainings for our people.”

ERMCO is doing electrical work for Bila Solar at their Indianapolis solar manufacturing plant.
Photo courtesy of ERMCO

Coping With Increasing Costs

Dealing with rising costs related to tariffs and an uncertain economic environment is another challenge ERMCO is tackling.

“Every day it’s evolving,” Peterson says. “One day tariffs are up; the next they are down. We’re having open, honest conversations with our owners and construction management teams to inform them of the issues. We recognize that it has the potential to cost us all money. We don’t feel we should absorb it all. What can we do is manage this together to control cost at the end of the day.”

Peterson says ERMCO consolidates orders to manage costs.

“If we win three or four projects, now we can go to the copper manufacturer and say, ‘Alright, we need X amount of poundage. Are there better ways for us to work together to manage the risk?’”

As ERMCO grows—it has one other office in Columbus, Ind.,—it doesn’t see a need to establish offices across the country.

“When we go out of town to pursue a project, we find a good strategic partner and work with them to support the team. This helps with local relationships and with local craftperson resources to staff the job appropriately,” he says. “When the job is over, our local partner typically takes care of that client managing the service work and we identify the next opportunity to bring value to a national project. We have been partnering on out-of-town work for over 50 years.”

While ERMCO is focused on controlled growth, Peterson says it also works to identify where the industry is going and how it can support that future.

“We have a task force ... that is focused on what the next three to five years look like in our industry,” he says. “How will it be impacted by AI, robotics, manufacturing, prefabrication, our tech stack and all the technology we use, including 3D printing? What are the things we need to be looking at differently and investing in today?”

Implementing these strategies is important for ERMCO and its clients.

at the tip of the spear for our clients, and they trust us to help navigate that conversation the right way,” Peterson says.