“Most people overestimate what they can achieve in a year and underestimate what they can achieve in ten years.”
– Gates’ Law
While in undergrad at Notre Dame, Matt reads The Warren Buffet Way while taking Intro to Entrepreneurship and it shifts the trajectory of his thinking about value, compounding, competitive advantage, and discipline.
In the wake of the dot com bust, Matt forms his first investment partnership, invests in undervalued public equities, and achieves breakout returns.
The partners agree to roll the returns of the dot com investments into a search fund and Matt moves to Dallas in pursuit of a deal. Matt hires an experienced telecom operator partner and the two attempt to acquire the senior debt of a distressed ISP/Cable Co. serving the high end apartment market. They fail.
Matt takes some time to recover from the failure of the search fund by evaluating his purpose. His “why” emerges and Matt commits to serving the poor and extending the loving authority of God through business.
He then gets a shot at running a distressed business for a friend and develops a love for operating, coaching, selling, and scaling. He finds and trains leaders, equips them with a mission, values, and a winning team to execute their leadership. The business makes a turn around and is still in operation today.
Friends at Barnhart ask Matt to join and learn the integration of purpose and business excellence. Over the next nine years, Matt serves in a variety of operational leadership roles both sourcing and integrating acquisitions, and scaling existing ops. He finishes his time as CFO.
Matt hires David Wetherald as a Project Engineer. Over the coming years, they work with the outstanding professionals on the Barnhart Great Lakes team to complete challenging industrial maintenance projects including Marathon Detroit Heavy Oil Upgrade, FP&L Point Beach Power Uprate, Alaska Way Viaduct TBM, and many, many others. They are tired.
Matt joins the executive leadership team of Barnhart Crane, relocates to Memphis, and begins participating in acquisitions. During his time at Barnhart, Matt plays a pivotal role on eight acquisitions.
Matt and Elliot meet while serving together at their local church in Memphis. The two fellowship over a common view of a purpose-driven life, a concern for the poor, and value investing. Over many, many bbq lunches, they discuss business, family, ministry, and how to practically live out faith and theology in life and business.
Barnhart exec team launches Matt into a holdco to develop an adjacent specialty rigging business.
After four fun years of healthy growth, it was time move on. Matt hands over the reigns of the holdco to his executive management team and is succeeded by his EVP of operations. The holdco has grown to $100MM in revenue in four years through four different acquisitions and five startup operations. Annual free cash flow is around 70% of invested equity capital.
The end of one good thing signals the beginning of another. Matt is encouraged by friends and mentors to start a permanent capital holdco focused on industrial construction and maintenance. Matt asks Elliot to partner as CFO/CIO and David joins as a critical team member, developing technical capability within OpCo's.
In January, 2024, SubSplit Services Group, LP closed its first permanent equity investment, acquiring MIINC.
