The Road Ahead, 1981<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nFortunately, Chuck had an outstanding college resume, so when he attended a job fair, offers from Chevron and Cargill came quickly. But it was the third offer that held the most allure. Parsons was at that job fair showing a film called Challenge of the Arctic<\/em>. The video depicts Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, where enormous oil reserves were discovered on the North Slope and the trans-Alaska pipeline was built. Chuck watched that day in 1981 as the film told the story of how the Ralph M. Parsons Company completed the design, engineering, procurement, and construction of the Prudhoe Bay facilities under budget and ahead of schedule, despite unexpected ice blocks, perilous weather, and dangerous terrain.<\/p>\n\n\n\nChuck was in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Warren Mindheim, who hired Chuck, was one of the first friends Chuck made at his new job. He also became close with a few other ambitious up-and-comers that Warren had hired the year before. This \u201cBrat Pack\u201d ate lunch together every day, hung out both during and outside of work, and attended parties with professionals from Parsons, movie studios, and other large employers in the area. They also vigorously debated. Often. All of them strong-willed, they once got into a dispute about the dark side of the moon that Chuck settled with a Xerox copy and a picture of a moose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In these early years at Parsons, Chuck\u2019s personal life was evolving as quickly as his career, as he married his college sweetheart, Diane, and started a family in California with the first of what would become three children (a son and two daughters). Also carving out time at night after work to attend UCLA, he earned his MBA, graduating summa cum laude, with concentrations in finance and marketing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Honorary Doctorate from Cal Poly<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nLater, Chuck became the founding president of Parsons Commercial Technology Group. While leading this young group, he and a colleague got their hands on free tickets to a Charlotte Hornets game. Chuck had the idea to call the Southern Bell facilities group and inform them they\u2019d won the tickets. When Southern Bell said they had a policy against accepting the tickets, Chuck, not to be deterred, said he\u2019d love to come over and talk with them because he had some great ideas about how to better manage their 50 million square feet of facilities across nine southeastern states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That conversation led to some small contracts, and when Chuck and his colleagues kept peppering Southern Bell, and their parent company, BellSouth, with even more ideas to reduce costs, improve schedules, and enhance quality across their portfolio, they eventually sent Parsons to examine their contracts in all nine states. When Parsons recommended consolidating those contracts, they agreed. The resulting contract ended up totaling over $100 million per year and a billion dollars in contract value, and after a competitive solicitation, was awarded to Parsons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe facilities team at BellSouth then recommended us to their outside plant network group, and we won another $250 million-per-year contract and had to build up a staff of 1,000 people doing outside plant engineering. And so we went from a small group of 30 people with less than $3 million in annual revenue to having these massive contracts overnight,\u201d Chuck recalls. \u201cIt was a thrill.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And what was the catalyst for these massive deals? A friend of Chuck\u2019s father, Grover Connell, of the Connell Rice & Sugar Company, one of the largest traders of grain in the world, once relayed to Chuck a piece of wisdom: \u201cI don\u2019t ever lose. That doesn\u2019t mean I always win. But I don\u2019t ever lose.\u201d That lesson was reinforced in group learning sessions at Duke University, where Chuck attended the Executive Education Program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Insights like these have contributed to Chuck\u2019s strategy and his success. Consider Parsons\u2019 growth during his 13-year tenure as CEO. Despite the Great Recession, 2008, 2009, and 2010 were record years for Parsons in terms of revenue, profits, and cash flow. Even then, Chuck envisioned the enterprise moving from services to also include software and hardware and differentiating itself by emerging as a world-class technology company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CES Government 2020<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nTo get there, Chuck knew Parsons needed to invest. Soon came the $380 million SPARTA acquisition, which propelled the firm into cyber, space, intelligence, and missile defense. That acquisition changed the course for Parsons and paved the way for acquisitions to come: Secure Mission Solutions, then Delcan, followed by Polaris Alpha, OGSystems, QRC Technologies, Braxton Science & Technology Group, and, most recently, BlackHorse Solutions. Chuck felt that most of Parsons\u2019 competition was baffled by what they perceived as strange choices. \u201cThey didn\u2019t realize there was a whole strategy that backed up where we were going,\u201d he says. Now, several years later, he sees those same firms realizing, \u201cWow, they\u2019ve built this entire cyber, intel, space, geospatial, missile defense, ISR business,\u201d which is now larger than the entirety of what Parsons\u2019 federal business was at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Part of what drove that strategy was a potent management style Chuck developed early in his career that he calls \u201cdynamic tension,\u201d which is the idea that dissenting opinions are a necessary driver of positive change. Never wanting groupthink, he welcomed diverse perspectives and recognized the importance of listening to everyone\u2019s voice to keep innovating and to eliminate blind spots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chuck and Diane, Dinner with Strait of Messina Project Team<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nChuck also learned the importance of authenticity. He\u2019s built trust and inspired loyalty, even through hard times and tough decisions, by always being true to himself. In fact, it\u2019s this winning tactic of always being true to yourself that he says is his most important advice for Carey Smith, his successor as Parsons\u2019 CEO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now Chuck looks back at his long career at Parsons on the eve of retirement and claims, without hesitation, that what he\u2019ll miss most are the daily interactions with people he\u2019s come to view as part of his family. Never losing sight of the human element of Parsons\u2019 work and the importance of making true connections, Chuck\u2019s traveled around the world, often with his wife and kids in tow, drawing inspiration and insight from everyone he\u2019s met along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After more than a decade at the helm of the Parsons ship, Chuck has left an indelible impression. In his wake, he\u2019s put his stamp on Parsons\u2019 business, its culture, its reputation, and its brand. Of course, that should be no surprise when speaking of a man who says that rather than leave footprints in the sand, he\u2019d leave them on the moon, where they\u2019d last forever. Now, as Parsons is about to welcome its newest leader, if asked whether Carey should aim for the moon, as he did, he\u2019d have only one possible response: \u201cTo infinity and beyond!\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Long before he was CEO, before he was chairman of the board, before he\u2019d even heard of Parsons, Charles L. Harrington, as a boy, developed a sense that he was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"6006,5218,6364,844,9336,15648","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7718,7662],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ideation","category-innovation"],"yoast_head":"\n
Footprints On The Moon<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n