Michael Schram has filled many roles during his 10 years at P1 Group, including field technician and Ammonia Division service manager. But after his recent move to the role of Industrial Mechanical Specialist, he’s going after some “big fish” for both the Ammonia division and P1 Group.

Michael started at P1 in 2010 as an HVAC field technician with primarily industrial clients. Soon, he was pricing small service projects and moved into a project manager role, where he worked with ammonia refrigeration customers. He then became a service manager focusing entirely on ammonia. Thanks in part to his leadership, the ammonia division has seen much growth and success.

That success created a need, so Michael moved into his current role, Industrial Mechanical Specialist, where his focus is project and business development for Ammonia. 

“With P1 Group fully invested in ammonia, the time has come to focus entirely on project and business development in order take the Ammonia division to the next level,” Michael said.

And Michael is exactly the right person to do it. In his previous roles, he has already developed trust and positive relationships with the ammonia customers, which is critical since most of the work is customer-driven.

His new process looks something like this.

• Meet with customers who want to initiate projects to identify needs and budget expectations.
• Clarify end-goal expectations and validate to confirm it’s viable and fits within budget.
• Put together a plan including alternate ideas to provide energy savings and rebates.

In the end, most of the projects don’t end up going the way the customer originally envisioned, so Michael takes into careful consideration the potential return on investment and makes sure all the financial pieces of the project makes sense for that customer.

“The customer knows what they want, but they don’t always know how to get there. Those are the unique opportunities where we can think outside the box a little bit,” Michael said. “If we do have competition, we usually don’t beat them on price, we beat them on scope and qualifications and overall final outcome of the project."

Providing great service to customers has always been a huge focus, but Michael also has in his sights set on loftier goals.

He is going to trade association shows and Mechanical Contractors of America (MCA) industry events with the intention of getting to the corporate level with some of the companies that we are already doing business with, as well as some new ones.

KC Sausage is a current customer, and also a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods, a U.S.-based global food company.

 “We do work for KC Sausage, but nothing else ammonia-related for Smithfield Foods,” Michael said. “I’m trying to get in on the corporate level so we can become a preferred vendor with not only them, but also several other large-scale meat producing corporations.”

His 2020 initiative also includes pushing ammonia service out to all of the meat processing and packaging facilities in western Kansas.

Michael has great vision for the future, and with the backing of P1 Group’s solid reputation, he is sure to find success.