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“and the roof leaks,” finishes Caro. In a familiar pattern, these easy going, civic-minded partners often finish each other’s thoughts. Caro and Monroe enjoy the comfort of selecting their clients. Monroe begins, “We use loss prevention guidelines from our insurance carriers. They develop profiles of the low-risk client.” Caro elaborates, “We select them carefully, so we end up with successful projects. Happy customers mean less marketing. It’s an acquired talent.” The firm’s current client base consists mainly of municipalities, county governments, and contractors with notable jobs like the Virginia Living Museum, the Grafton School Complex, and the brand new Boy Scout Bayport camp facilities. It wasn’t always this way. Each decade, the firm adapted and survived a major business shift. Following the Savings and Loan scandals and the 1986 Tax Reform Act, the office market dried up. The firm lost its business base. Caro and Monroe rapidly downsized more than half its staff and shifted to industrial and municipal work. Caro recalls, “We hunkered down, weathered the storm. Things were tight. We decided we never wanted to go through layoffs like that again. We’re too much like family around here. We decided to stay small—take low-volume high-profile jobs and really cater to the needs of the client.” Ten years later, NAFTA came along and the Free Trade Act sent labor moving offshore, and their industrial business tanked. Monroe highlights, “When the economy turns down, our church work flourishes. I especially enjoy church design.” Through it all, Caro and Monroe gained an untarnished reputation for protecting their clients from the potential harm that can come their way through poor design or materials selection. Caro points out, “We often demonstrate to our clients that our fee can be self-liquidating through the savings we’ll generate for them.” He shifts the metaphor to add clarity: “It’s like being the conductor of a symphony who knows which instruments are to be played. By not just accepting the status quo, by knowing the codes and their exceptions, we can safely save the client hundreds of thousands of dollars.” Monroe weaves in, “We’re naturally aggressive for our clients’ sake but only when it come to arbitrary issues.” That aggressiveness shows up in surprising ways. Bill Monroe’s calm exterior belies a man who has completed a 1000-mile bike trip. Brian Caro prefers the motorized kind. He restores and rides classic European motorcycles, which likely have plenty of untarnished silver on them too. |
Caro Monroe and Liang Architects: Untarnished after all these Years