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Inspiring business stories from the Heart of Berks County
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The stories shared here—about building culture and learning lessons the hard way—are just two among the many that live inside the Schlouch organization, held closely by its people for more than 40 years. There's a version of this story that's simply about a growing construction company, full of thumbs-up and smiles and belly laughs. But that version leaves out the hard parts, the scary parts and the moments of real vulnerability that made everything else possible.
What built Schlouch was a willingness to be uncomfortable. To sit in a room and tell the truth. To show up the morning after a million-dollar mistake with resolve and determination. To drive three hours to therapy every Saturday for a decade because the work on yourself is never really finished. These aren't business strategies. They're human ones. And they work, every time, when we’re brave enough to pursue them.
"Legacy is not about what you accumulate," Barry says. "It's who you lift."
Interested in learning more about a GRCA membership and a chance to be featured in an upcoming feature story?
Want to explore additional Growth & Transformation Stories from Reading, PA.? Visit the GRCA's dedicated webpage.
The culture inside Schlouch shines through, clearly visible in its external work. Schlouch’s "Creating Foundations Upon Which Others Can Achieve Their Dreams." While the buildings themselves may be conceived by others, the team’s careful handiwork ensures the preparations are solid, from civil design, survey, earthwork, blasting, utilities to slip-form curbing and asphalt paving. Below are a few projects that bear the Schlouch autograph, quietly supporting layers of paint and stone.
Proud of
Some longtime clients went further still, voluntarily paying their invoices ahead of normal terms to help stabilize cash flow.
"That's what happens when you work with integrity," Barry says. "You get up, you show up and people will support you."
The company came through. The team that stayed did the rebuilding. For Barry, the experience calcified into a principle he returns to whenever the road gets hard: the scariest response is usually the right one. Tell the truth first. Show up with a plan. Trust that the relationships you've spent years building are stronger than the problem you're facing.
One big number Barry will never forget? $1,000,000.
That's what the 1992 shopping center estimate cost Schlouch—not because of a disaster or an act of God, but because of a mistake. A bad estimate on a large job, and accounts that started overflowing in the wrong direction before anyone had caught it.
Most business owners, faced with a problem of that magnitude, would hold information close to the chest, waiting for the dust to settle and addressing only the loudest voices. And pray that the rumor mill stays quiet.
Barry did the opposite.
Within days of discovering the problem, he commissioned a full job site audit. Then, before word could spread on its own, he went directly to the client. "You're going to hear that we busted the budget on this," he told them. "But I'm going to finish the job."
He went to M&T Bank next, delivering the same message before the bank had heard anything.
Then he gathered his employees (more than 100 of them) and asked them, earnestly, to stay and give him a chance.
Two weeks later, he sat down with the bank and presented a detailed two-year repayment plan, along with the specific changes he was making to prevent it from happening again. They approved it; and then they did something unexpected. They used Schlouch's response as a case study in transparency and accountability, noting that Barry had come forward before he even knew the full extent of the damage.
Learned
About 70 percent of the senior team walked out during that period. “I didn't sign up for this,” some said on the way out. The people who stayed built something different in their place. By 2000, Schlouch had earned the No. 1 Best Place to Work in Pennsylvania for large companies recognition. Barry remembers the year. He also remembers what it cost to get there, and has never once suggested it wasn't worth it.
"It usually goes the other way," Lisa says thoughtfully as she tells the story from her perspective. "It usually starts with a small family feel, and as you grow, it gets more and more cold and separated. Here it was the complete opposite."
The mood inside Schlouch today can strike a visitor as almost too unguarded to be real. Employees stop to greet you, speak easily about their work and use words like loyalty and family without a trace of self-consciousness. From the outside, it reads like the kind of enthusiasm companies pay consultants to manufacture. It isn't. It's the return on a very specific investment: one that cost Barry and his team something real, took years to pay off and built a culture that belongs to the people who stayed for it.
The people inside will tell you better than any description can.
"When a person walks through your building or walks onto your site," Barry says, "they should get what you're about."
And when you walk into Schlouch's facility on Excelsior Drive in Blandon, you’ll likely notice a few things right away. The natural light, because sunlight energizes people, Barry reminds us. Deb's artwork on the walls, because art makes you feel something. Two refrigerators and three microwaves in the staff café instead of one, because nobody should have to wait in line for lunch. A training room that seats 70, because if you want a world-class crew, you start with world-class training.
But in the early days, things looked and felt quite different. Barry ran things the way he thought a construction company was supposed to be run: firm, direct, command and control. It was the industry standard. It was also, he'd eventually realize, not what he wanted.
Lisa B., HR Manager who has worked at Schlouch for 35 years, witnessed the shift from the inside. "It was very rigid and kind of stern. I remember Barry back then… he was very different,” she says with a smile. What Lisa watched from the administrative offices, Barry had already reckoned with on his own.
"I wasn’t happy where I worked," he says plainly. "And I created it."
After a decade of personal therapy, Barry brought his therapist, a man named Marc, right through the front doors of Schlouch Inc. And for five full years, Marc came to the company one week every month to facilitate small groups and open conversations, leading the hard and sometimes uncomfortable work of learning to communicate, respect and trust the people you work alongside every day. In an industry built on toughness and getting the job done, Barry was asking his team to do something most of them had never done before; participation wasn’t optional and everyone was paid to attend during working hours.
Inside Out
Barry Schlouch didn't come from a business family. He grew up in a home where his parents struggled with substance abuse, with no model for trust and no blueprint for building something stable. He had a mean work ethic by working on his grandparent’s family farm that garnered him some notice, however, and a girlfriend named Deb, who was 17 when they married and who would become, in every sense, his partner in everything that followed.
The idea to start a company didn’t actually start with Barry. It came from a man named Dwight Powell, a seasoned engineer with a thick Texas accent who was 25 years Barry's senior and had spent years watching him work job sites across Berks County. "You should start your own company," Dwight kept telling him. Barry didn't have a business background or money to speak of. He had a loving and supportive wife, a one-year-old, a four-year-old and a mortgage. He said yes anyway.
"I had worked for a small company for five years before I started, and I really learned the trade,” Barry explains. “I got good at it. I knew how to estimate, and I knew how to project manage. I didn't know how to start a business, but I knew how to do the work."
In 1983, Barry and Deb founded Schlouch, Inc. out of the basement of their Berks County home, with Dwight co-signing the bank note as a 50% partner. Their first contract was a $15,000 site preparation job for a new Wendy's restaurant that still sits in West Reading to this day. Within six months, Barry had bought out Dwight's shares and was running it himself.
Getting there wasn't a straight line. Between that first contract and where Schlouch stands today lie four decades of hard-won lessons, setbacks significant enough to test everyone involved and a willingness on Barry's part to do whatever the moment required—of the business and of himself.
By 2000, Schlouch was ranked the No. 1 Best Place to Work in Pennsylvania for large companies by Gov. Tom Ridge, finishing ahead of names like Hershey and Just Born.
Today, Schlouch employs approximately 275 people across 42 trades and is the leading total site preparation specialist in Eastern Pennsylvania, with more than 60 percent of business driven by repeat clients. The company operates over 200 pieces of heavy equipment and runs a full in-house training season every winter to prepare the workforce for the year ahead.
If you've spent any time around Barry Schlouch, you know his big energy. The warm smile. The handshake that turns into a conversation exploring three life philosophies before you've finished your coffee. But behind the shiny building exterior of Schlouch Inc. in Blandon, Pa., you’ll find some surprising, candid and meaningful stories rippling beneath the surface. Stories about the hard years. The turning points. The choices Barry and his team made that turned a basement startup into one of the best places to work in the state. Dig a little deeper with us to uncover where the real story begins.
Inspiring business stories from the Heart of Berks County
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The culture inside Schlouch shines through, clearly visible in its external work. Schlouch’s "Creating Foundations Upon Which Others Can Achieve Their Dreams." While the buildings themselves may be conceived by others, the team’s careful handiwork ensures the preparations are solid, from civil design, survey, earthwork, blasting, utilities to slip-form curbing and asphalt paving. Below are a few projects that bear the Schlouch autograph, quietly supporting layers of paint and stone.
Proud of
Interested in learning more about a GRCA membership and a chance to be featured in an upcoming feature story?
Want to explore additional Growth & Transformation Stories from Reading, PA.? Visit the GRCA's dedicated webpage.
Explore Bell Media Group's Marketing Magic in Berks County.
a
The stories shared here—about building culture and learning lessons the hard way—are just two among the many that live inside the Schlouch organization, held closely by its people for more than 40 years. There's a version of this story that's simply about a growing construction company, full of thumbs-up and smiles and belly laughs. But that version leaves out the hard parts, the scary parts and the moments of real vulnerability that made everything else possible.
What built Schlouch was a willingness to be uncomfortable. To sit in a room and tell the truth. To show up the morning after a million-dollar mistake with resolve and determination. To drive three hours to therapy every Saturday for a decade because the work on yourself is never really finished. These aren't business strategies. They're human ones. And they work, every time, when we’re brave enough to pursue them.
"Legacy is not about what you accumulate," Barry says. "It's who you lift."
Some longtime clients went further still, voluntarily paying their invoices ahead of normal terms to help stabilize cash flow.
"That's what happens when you work with integrity," Barry says. "You get up, you show up and people will support you."
The company came through. The team that stayed did the rebuilding. For Barry, the experience calcified into a principle he returns to whenever the road gets hard: the scariest response is usually the right one. Tell the truth first. Show up with a plan. Trust that the relationships you've spent years building are stronger than the problem you're facing.
One big number Barry will never forget? $1,000,000.
That's what the 1992 shopping center estimate cost Schlouch—not because of a disaster or an act of God, but because of a mistake. A bad estimate on a large job, and accounts that started overflowing in the wrong direction before anyone had caught it.
Most business owners, faced with a problem of that magnitude, would hold information close to the chest, waiting for the dust to settle and addressing only the loudest voices. And pray that the rumor mill stays quiet.
Barry did the opposite.
Within days of discovering the problem, he commissioned a full job site audit. Then, before word could spread on its own, he went directly to the client. "You're going to hear that we busted the budget on this," he told them. "But I'm going to finish the job."
He went to M&T Bank next, delivering the same message before the bank had heard anything.
Then he gathered his employees (more than 100 of them) and asked them, earnestly, to stay and give him a chance.
Two weeks later, he sat down with the bank and presented a detailed two-year repayment plan, along with the specific changes he was making to prevent it from happening again. They approved it; and then they did something unexpected. They used Schlouch's response as a case study in transparency and accountability, noting that Barry had come forward before he even knew the full extent of the damage.
Learned
About 70 percent of the senior team walked out during that period. “I didn't sign up for this,” some said on the way out. The people who stayed built something different in their place. By 2000, Schlouch had earned the No. 1 Best Place to Work in Pennsylvania for large companies recognition. Barry remembers the year. He also remembers what it cost to get there, and has never once suggested it wasn't worth it.
"It usually goes the other way," Lisa says thoughtfully as she tells the story from her perspective. "It usually starts with a small family feel, and as you grow, it gets more and more cold and separated. Here it was the complete opposite."
The mood inside Schlouch today can strike a visitor as almost too unguarded to be real. Employees stop to greet you, speak easily about their work and use words like loyalty and family without a trace of self-consciousness. From the outside, it reads like the kind of enthusiasm companies pay consultants to manufacture. It isn't. It's the return on a very specific investment: one that cost Barry and his team something real, took years to pay off and built a culture that belongs to the people who stayed for it.
The people inside will tell you better than any description can.
"When a person walks through your building or walks onto your site," Barry says, "they should get what you're about."
And when you walk into Schlouch's facility on Excelsior Drive in Blandon, you’ll likely notice a few things right away. The natural light, because sunlight energizes people, Barry reminds us. Deb's artwork on the walls, because art makes you feel something. Two refrigerators and three microwaves in the staff café instead of one, because nobody should have to wait in line for lunch. A training room that seats 70, because if you want a world-class crew, you start with world-class training.
But in the early days, things looked and felt quite different. Barry ran things the way he thought a construction company was supposed to be run: firm, direct, command and control. It was the industry standard. It was also, he'd eventually realize, not what he wanted.
Lisa B., HR Manager who has worked at Schlouch for 35 years, witnessed the shift from the inside. "It was very rigid and kind of stern. I remember Barry back then… he was very different,” she says with a smile. What Lisa watched from the administrative offices, Barry had already reckoned with on his own.
"I wasn’t happy where I worked," he says plainly. "And I created it."
After a decade of personal therapy, Barry brought his therapist, a man named Marc, right through the front doors of Schlouch Inc. And for five full years, Marc came to the company one week every month to facilitate small groups and open conversations, leading the hard and sometimes uncomfortable work of learning to communicate, respect and trust the people you work alongside every day. In an industry built on toughness and getting the job done, Barry was asking his team to do something most of them had never done before; participation wasn’t optional and everyone was paid to attend during working hours.
Inside Out
Barry Schlouch didn't come from a business family. He grew up in a home where his parents struggled with substance abuse, with no model for trust and no blueprint for building something stable. He had a mean work ethic by working on his grandparent’s family farm that garnered him some notice, however, and a girlfriend named Deb, who was 17 when they married and who would become, in every sense, his partner in everything that followed.
The idea to start a company didn’t actually start with Barry. It came from a man named Dwight Powell, a seasoned engineer with a thick Texas accent who was 25 years Barry's senior and had spent years watching him work job sites across Berks County. "You should start your own company," Dwight kept telling him. Barry didn't have a business background or money to speak of. He had a loving and supportive wife, a one-year-old, a four-year-old and a mortgage. He said yes anyway.
"I had worked for a small company for five years before I started, and I really learned the trade,” Barry explains. “I got good at it. I knew how to estimate, and I knew how to project manage. I didn't know how to start a business, but I knew how to do the work."
In 1983, Barry and Deb founded Schlouch, Inc. out of the basement of their Berks County home, with Dwight co-signing the bank note as a 50% partner. Their first contract was a $15,000 site preparation job for a new Wendy's restaurant that still sits in West Reading to this day. Within six months, Barry had bought out Dwight's shares and was running it himself.
Getting there wasn't a straight line. Between that first contract and where Schlouch stands today lie four decades of hard-won lessons, setbacks significant enough to test everyone involved and a willingness on Barry's part to do whatever the moment required—of the business and of himself.
By 2000, Schlouch was ranked the No. 1 Best Place to Work in Pennsylvania for large companies by Gov. Tom Ridge, finishing ahead of names like Hershey and Just Born.
Today, Schlouch employs approximately 275 people across 42 trades and is the leading total site preparation specialist in Eastern Pennsylvania, with more than 60 percent of business driven by repeat clients. The company operates over 200 pieces of heavy equipment and runs a full in-house training season every winter to prepare the workforce for the year ahead.
If you've spent any time around Barry Schlouch, you know his big energy. The warm smile. The handshake that turns into a conversation exploring three life philosophies before you've finished your coffee. But behind the shiny building exterior of Schlouch Inc. in Blandon, Pa., you’ll find some surprising, candid and meaningful stories rippling beneath the surface. Stories about the hard years. The turning points. The choices Barry and his team made that turned a basement startup into one of the best places to work in the state. Dig a little deeper with us to uncover where the real story begins.
