Cool Companies: The Integer Group
	July/Aug 2006, By Nora Caley

The Integer Group, a sales promotion agency based in Lakewood, knows that management needs to keep employees happy, and not through an occasional pot luck lunch.

So management, led by CFO Chris Stoeber and president and COO Mike Sweeney, asked the 450 employees in the Belmar office (there are an additional 350 at other Integer offices) what they wanted. It turned out the creative types at the marketing firm wanted a creative outlet. So like the characters in those old Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney movies, the principals decided to put on a show in the backyard.

Actually it was in the parking lot, and the now annual show is called Creative Circus. “It’s part talent show, part art show, part cooking,” Sweeney says. At one show, he and a coworker did an imitation of the Blues Brothers. Another employee presented his version of Johnny Carson’s The Great Karnac. Stoeber and the accounting department sang a version of Donna Summer’s song, “Bad Girls,” presumably about CPAs who don’t use US Generally Accepted Accounting Procedures. Other employees posted their own and their kids’ artwork on the walls, while still others set up a cooking station.

One year the employees opted not to have a Creative Circus, and instead held Recess, a party at a nearby park. Activities included the Water Balloon Toss, Sack Race, Tricycle Race, Inflatable Obstacle Course, Tug-of-war, 3-Legged Race, and Big Ski Board Race.
The employee perks go beyond parties. Integer developed Uncommon Touches, an internal program that handles errands for employees. That way, staffers don’t have to leave the office (and sacrifice productivity) to pick up dry cleaning or to get a windshield replaced. There are also in-office massages, new home buyer education classes, and other services.

“If our employees are satisfied, they do better work and our clients are satisfied,” Stoeber says.

The word “integer” basically means a number, or a whole entity. The founders took the name to stand for integration and acting as a whole. The group formed in 1993 as a spin-off of Coors, which for years had done its advertising in-house. When Leo Kiely III became the first non Coors family member to become president of the brewing company, he made some changes. “Back then they had in-house departments like construction and engineering,” Sweeney says. “The new management said, ‘We need to get back to what we do best, which is brewing and selling great beer.’”

So about 90 Coors employees became Integer employees. They soon won other clients, such as Gatorade (which is no longer a client), Dex Yellow Pages, Marsico Funds, and others. “We weren’t a company that is 100 percent reliant on a single client and it goes away,” Sweeney says. Not that the brewery, now called Molson Coors, is ever going away. “We live and breathe and bleed Coors. We also drink it.”

Over the years Integer acquired other companies, such as longtime Denver ad agency Karsh and Hagan. Pocky Marranzino, CEO of the ad agency that handles Colorado Lottery and other accounts, is among the executive leadership at Integer. Other holdings include Stern Advertising, located near Cleveland. There are also Integer Group offices in New York, Dallas, and Des Moines. Integer is now the fourth largest communications company in the US (according to the company website). In 1999 New York City-based advertising giant Omnicom bought Integer.

Sweeney says Integer has survived the recession and the increased competition by competing not with Denver advertising agencies but with Chicago and New York agencies. “That’s not to say the Denver agencies are not great. They are, but we are a different type of agency.”

It helps that employees are loyal. The company also engages employees with community service opportunities. Staffers serve on boards such as Boys and Girls Inc., and also work on events such as building houses for Habitat for Humanity or feeding people at soup kitchens. Integer uses its intranet to publicize the volunteer opportunities.

Integer expanded so much over the years that it outgrew its office space. By 2004 employees were scattered among three buildings on West Sixth Avenue. When those leases expired a couple of years ago, management had to consider two issues: the new offices needed to be close to Coors Brewing in Golden, and employees didn’t want a longer commute. Finances were a factor, as Integer needed about 100,000 square feet. Plus the offices had to be in a cool place.
They settled on Belmar, the 22 city block mixed use property that includes retail, residential, and office space. Integer executives met with the developer, Continuum Partners, during the planning stages of Belmar. “At that time it was still the old Villa Italia mall, so it was hard to envision,” Sweeney says. “They kept after us, but we said we’re not sure we want to be the anchor tenant in a project that was unproven.”

Eventually the two sides negotiated a package that was financially acceptable for Integer management and also offered employees amenities such as being able to stroll outside to get lunch or work out. The offices are 12 minutes from Coors (the old place was 9 minutes) and everyone works in the same building. Most importantly, says Sweeney, the burrito guy moved from the old building to the new. “He comes by with a cooler and sells homemade breakfast burritos four mornings a week,” he says. “Friday mornings are his busiest.”
The company expanded training, a benefit that employees requested in an employee satisfaction survey. Sweeney, Stoeber, and other staff members teach Integer 101, Coors Distribution 101, and other courses that employees take in a training room onsite. The company handed out Integer State sweatshirts when it launched the training program last year.

In 2005 Integer was ranked fifth among medium sized companies in the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) 50 Best Small and Medium Companies to Work For In America. The Alexandria, Virginia-based SHRM noted that among other perks, Integer rewards employees with tokens for a vending machine that dispenses candy wrapped in gift certificates. Sweeney thinks the company will be ranked well again this year. “If we don’t get it, it’s not that our
company has changed, it’s that there are different judges,” he says.