CDI Corporation

CDI Corporation

Type	Public
Traded as	NYSE: CDI
Industry	Engineering, Information Technology, Staffing
Founded	1950
Founder(s)	Walter R. Garrison, Founder, Chairman of the Board, Chairman of Governance & Nominating Committee and Member of Executive Committee
Headquarters	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Key people	Paulett Eberhart, CEO, President and Director; Mark A. Kerschner, CFO; Andrew D. Cvitanov, President of CDI IT Solutions; Robert Giorgio, President of CDI Engineering Solutions; Robert Romaine Rob, President of Management Recruiters International, Inc. (MRI); Mark Balawejder, Senior Vice President of Solutions Delivery - CDI IT Solutions; Joseph R. Seiders, Chief Legal Officer, Chief Compliance Officer, Senior Vice President and Secretary; Brian D. Short, Chief Administrative Officer, Senior Vice President and General Counsel; Steven Levenkron, Chief Information Officer and Senior Vice President
Services	Engineering, Information Technology, Outsourcing, Staffing
Revenue	$0.93B(USD) in 2010
Employees	10,000 (at end of 2010)
Divisions	4
Website	www.cdicorp.com

CDI Corporation supplies engineering, information technology and staffing services to customers in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. The company has four divisions, Anders, Engineering Services, Information Technology Services and Management Recruiters International.

History

Beginnings

After World War II, the growing importance of technology and the rush to be first to market made it necessary to have a larger number of engineers with increasingly diverse backgrounds working with the company. Because this had to be done without dramatically increasing overhead costs, employers were required to minimize the number of direct employees receiving benefit packages from their respective companies. It was for this reason that CDI Corporation, originally known as Comprehensive Designers, Inc. was founded in 1950. The company was put in place to hire additional engineers on a temporary basis with reduced benefits, and was one of the first companies to offer temporary services to manufacturing companies.

Though CDI had great potential due to the booming automotive sector and defense activity related to the Cold War, the company grew slowly during its first decade in operation. In 1956, CDI hired Walter R. Garrison, a 30 year old aspiring aeronautics engineer from The University of Kansas who helped the company grow. Garrison joined the company as a chief engineer that year and was promoted to Vice President and Director two years later.

Purchase of CDI Corporation

By 1961, Garrison and his family owned almost 45% of CDI Corporation. He and two colleagues bought out the remainder of CDI's shares of stock and set about to revive the fledgling company. With the Vietnam War and its subsequent arms race abounding, U.S. defense spending was set to reach record levels. With such sophisticated advances in technology to come, it followed naturally that technical services such as those provided by CDI would be needed in the near term. It was for this reason that Garrison started business and recruiting offices nationally in order to adequately perform all of the services that would be needed. Sales by the technical services industry were estimated at $500 million USD, with CDI Corporation being ranked in the top two with annual revenues of $40 million USD. Eighty percent of these earnings were related to military expenditures.

In 1967, company sales doubled when the company won a bid to work on the Lockheed C-5A aircraft. This contract ended in 1968, and the company's defense contracts fell at the end of the Vietnam War in the early 1970s. The company was able to weather the storm, however, as such customers only comprised 33% of company sales. The remainder of their business was provided by over 100 manufacturing firms in Europe, the Middle East and the United States. At that time, CDI had 3000 temporary workers at any given point who could be shifted between several different cities to serve the needs of any given contract.

Establishment of in-house engineering facilities

In the early 1970s, in order to speed project completion, CDI established engineering facilities, within which outsourced projects could be worked from start to finish on company premises by employees of CDI prior to delivery to the customer. This project philosophy was more productive than sending workers to a client's location who may have little familiarity with the project. This business model continued to expand to the point where close to 40% of CDI Corporation's work was performed within its own walls.

Purchase of Management Recruiters International

In 1972, the company purchased Management Recruiters International (MRI) for $1.3 million. Though the company was fledgling at the time of purchase, once it was acquired, offices began appearing all over the United States, most of them being franchises. Recruiting was CDI's top segment in terms of profit rates, focusing on middle management (supervisors earning between $25 000-125 000 United States Dollars), the most prominent segment of administration, many of whom were expected to make several career changes prior to settling on a longer term employer. Since this acquisition occurred during the baby-boom generation, there were likely to be a multitude of qualified managers to fill the company ranks. MRI was never more than a fraction of CDI's overall revenue, but the division provided as much as a third of the company's operating income.

Entry into the traditional temporary services market

During the recessions of 1974-1975 and 1982-1983, CDI learned that the technical services business was highly vulnerable to recession. At other times, the profit margins were quite slim, sometimes as low as 2.5%. For this reason, Garrison decided in 1982 to enter the traditional temporary services market involving clerical and entry-level workers. Adding offices as quickly as possible, the new division quickly went into the red, characterized as a reality of such expedient growth.

In the late 1980s however, CDI's Temporary Services division strived for 500 offices. In 1989, this division reached 145 offices and $111 million in revenue without making any profit. Though 45 of their worst performing offices were eliminated, the division was still unprofitable. Nevertheless, Garrison decided to acquire Todays Temporary of Dallas, Texas for an undisclosed amount of money.^[1]

Divisions

Engineering Solutions

Engineering Services provides design, facility layout, outsourcing, logistics, project management, staffing solutions and systems development to alternative energy, biopharmaceutical, chemicals, commercial aerospace, defense industry, energy transmission, gas, heavy manufacturing, marine, military aerospace, nuclear, oil, pharmaceutical, power generation, regulated medical services and refining organizations.^[2] CDI acquired the computer and technical services divisions of United Engineers Inc. in 1993.^[3]

IT Solutions

CDI IT Solutions provides information technology services such as direct placement of business consulting, employees, outsourcing and staffing augmentation.

Management Recruiters International

Management Recruiters International is a franchisor that provides support services and training to franchisees that perform recruiting of executive, professional, supervisory and technical candidates.^[2]

AndersElite

CDI AndersElite provides temporary and direct hire employees working in architecture, construction and other related fields.

References

1. ^ "CDI Corporation" FundingUniverse LLC
2. ^ ^{a b} "CDI Corp" Bloomberg Businessweek
3. ^ Christopher Geehern. "Philadelphia company buys UE units", Union-News (Springfield, Massachusetts), March 6, 1993, Business section, page 14.

External links

• Official website
• http://www.cdicorp.info
• CDI IT Solutions http://www.cdi-its.com
• MRINetwork http://www.mrinetwork.com/
• AndersElite http://www.anderselite.com