SHI International matches growth with green living

FRANKLIN (SOMERSET) When Thai Lee acquired Software House International in 1989, nobody expected it to become the international powerhouse that it is today. But in just over 20 years, the Harvard-trained Lee has transformed the spin-off company from the division of another company to an independent, multibillion dollar global provider of technology products and services with 25 offices in North America, Paris, the United Kingdom and Hong Kong.

Today, it is the largest minority/woman-owned company in the U.S., and its based right here in Central Jersey.

The company began under Lees leadership in the Somerset section of Franklin, moved to larger headquarters in Piscataway in 2008, and recently completed a move back to Somerset to accommodate its continued growth. SHI now occupies the former ATT building on Davidson Avenue that had been vacant for about a decade. The company has about 1,800 employees, with 200 added last year, most of them at the Franklin location.

According to Ed McNamara, director of communications for SHI International, Lee has been a smart, hands-on shepherd for the company. She does not believe management should be stratified above the other employees with special privileges. In fact, there are no reserved parking spaces at the SHI International parking lot for anyone but expectant mothers. Lee knows the names of just about everyone at the company, and McNamara said she works very hard.

Another way she has differed from many of her competitors has been that she has carefully managed the companys assets, keeping her costs low and not leveraging the company as others might have done.

As a result, McNamara said, Lee has been able to move closer to our customers when competitors have pulled back. This has enabled SHI to take advantage of the downturn in the economy, growing the business and opening 20 new offices around the country and then the world in 2008 and 2009.

When she realized that the company was outgrowing its new headquarters in Piscataway after just a few years, Lee brought in Cornerstone Architectural Group, a leading full-service architectural firm based in South Plainfield, to design a renovation of the ATT building on Davidson Avenue for her new headquarters. Cornerstone had designed the Piscataway headquarters, and the two companies had a history of working together.

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This project, one of the largest in the tristate area, embodies SHIs core values of innovation, early adoption and pioneering on the cutting edge, said Robert F. Barranger, co-founder and partner at Cornerstone Architectural Group.

The 15-month, multiphased fit-out entailed a major energy-efficient lighting retrofit on which Cornerstone worked closely with California-based Finelite, a leading manufacturer of high-performance lighting systems, and independent lighting manufacturer representative Jeffrey Maglietta of the Chatham-based Liberty Lighting Group Inc., to design a system that provided a higher-quality light while realizing a 50 percent reduction in energy consumption for lighting and the number of fixtures.

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SHI International matches growth with green living