May 5, 2006, a Friday. Cinco de Mayo.

If you browse the internet to see what happened that day, there was nothing of great import to the world at large.

George W. Bush was President of the United States. NASA found a new red spot on Jupiter. Sudan was “Sudanning” – the government signed an accord with the Sudan Liberation Army. The Dow opened at 11,577 on its way to above 13,000 in May, 2008, before it crashed back down to below 7,000 in early 2009. Gasoline prices hovered just below $3/gallon in the USA. “Crash” had won the Best Picture Oscar in March. The #1 hit on the pop charts in the US was “Bad Day” by Daniel Powter, and “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley was #1 in the UK.

Bad Day. Crazy.

Inauspicious song titles to be number one on a day you choose to do something important, like open a business. But only if you don’t know Rob Ward. Because that’s the very day, 20 years ago, Rob chose to start up Pendant.

As you might expect, the vision during those early days has almost nothing in common with where we are now. The one consistent thing during the years was Rob’s conviction that he could build something consequential out of intelligence, intense curiosity, audacity, autodidacticism, and just plain hard work.

The History

And so it went. Starting out doing electrical installations for building automation projects, Pendant swung to controls, beginning with aviation refueling systems with a client local to Pendant’s HQ in Havre de Grace, Maryland, who won projects from around the world. Thus the reason Pendant has executed projects in around two dozen different countries.

Process industries and other industrial work soon followed. Polymer films, essential oils, aroma chemicals, coffee bean blending were just a few project types with which Pendant became involved. And then after a few years came warehouse automation. Rob identified the opportunity as a worthy one, and before you knew it, Pendant was doing projects for companies like Home Depot, Macy’s, and Amazon.

In the ensuing years, more and more of the work was in the warehouse space, comprising parcel, retail distribution, e-commerce, health care – any project where clients wanted to move their materials inside their warehouse and ultimately outside to their clients, whether within their own company or to customers.

Warehouse software became a thing when we realized that we could access a much bigger pool of projects with software than without. So that started with middleware – connecting to the host WMS to send and receive messages about individual cartons or pallets, and what should happen to them. And then finally building an entire Warehouse Control System and Warehouse Execution system application that we call Revolution Street WXS, with a nod toward our location in Havre de Grace.

I’d be remiss in omitting the work we do with Timpson Training https://www.timpsontraining.com/ as their sole supplier of control panel design and assembly, with occasional technical support thrown in.

All of that was accomplished while getting ever more capable at handling complex projects. One of the hallmarks of Pendant has been the delivery of successful projects that were new to Pendant at the time, a drive that came from Rob’s unswerving belief that it could be done. As a guy who spends most of his time in sales, we joke a lot about sales people that say yes to everything, hoping that the execution team can deliver. With Pendant, I haven’t said yes to anything that we ultimately could not do.

Today you can think of Pendant as a Controls Systems Integrator with Software, but it’s probably not too much of a stretch to say that in five years, we’ll be a Software Company that also does Controls.


The People

As with any company, people come and go. Rob always liked the idea of having a business that created jobs for people, seeking out those with innate curiosity and a “self-starter” mentality.

Mike Vaeth, Brittany Siefring, and Brad Hoffman, other than Rob and Cassie, are the longest-tenured Pendant team members. Mike works in Design, Brittany in Business Development, and Brad runs Production and Procurement. As I thought about what is similar about them, as different as they are from each other, I arrived at their dedication to Pendant and the success of Pendant as the defining common characteristic.

Pendant has had, of course, many different types of people as part of the team. As currently configured, on the Project Execution side we have team members that understand the value of building and using standards for what we do, and want to engrain that ethos in Pendant’s DNA, to the point where when Pendant writes a PLC program, it has been battle-tested in the real world where missed diverts , jams at a merge, and packages going to the wrong place cost clients serious money. In the panel shop, we use our standards to make sure the panel you get does exactly what it is supposed to, without you having to think about it. In Business Development and Sales, we strive to use our systems and standards to be on time and accurate with our proposals and estimates.

In Finance and Admin, accuracy and timeliness make sure that you are invoiced accurately, that vendors are paid properly, and employees’ pay and benefits are done correctly and with great care.

And we have fun doing it. Our team has a wicked sense of humor collectively, and with the advent of AI-based photo shopping, it seems that it’s getting wickeder.

Lessons

We’ve learned a few invaluable lessons in this first twenty years. Here is my “Top Six”.

• Watch your available bandwidth – even if you have the technical skill, you may not have the time.
• Stick to your guns when it comes to standards – making exceptions too freely will come back to haunt you.
• Hire the right people – we have evolved to where we look not at what a person has done (experience), but what they can do and how they fit.
• Find the right clients – having clients that value what you do and how you do it leads to way more successful outcomes for everyone. Being able to have frank conversations with clients is priceless.
• Have a good time doing it – connect with the people you work with, whether Pendant team members or clients, and the experience is more fun for everyone.
• Commit – commitment outlasts tons of problems. Pendant has had some lean years here and there, but a commitment to the idea of Pendant has always seen us through.

What’s Next?

It’s simple. More growth. Growth as individuals, which fuels our growth as a team and as a company. We’ll continue to encourage our people to be curious about the world around them. We’ll continue to tackle more complex and larger projects, as well as continue to develop our software products to make life easier and more productive and profitable for you, our clients. And by doing that, we live out a commitment (there’s that word again) to becoming the best we can be. In 20 years, it’s hard to imagine what we will have become. But keep an eye on us as we go, and maybe even join in. You might find yourself enjoying a lot of success and having a ton of fun doing it.

And finally, thank to those that have been on the journey with us - clients, suppliers, teammates. Each of you owns a piece of this.