After receiving the Socially Responsible Entrepreneur Award, Mitch Tomlinson, president and CEO of Peckham, Inc., told the audience that in 1976, he and his wife moved to Michigan and planned to make a “brief stop” in Lansing on their way to where they planned to live.

Thirty-four years later, the Tomlinsons are still here, having established Peckham as the gold standard for businesses that primarily employ people with disabilities, and wouldn’t think of living anywhere else, calling Lansing “a great place to live and raise [our] kids.”

When asked if there were ever a time when he looked himself in the mirror and thought “This just isn’t going to work,” Tomlinson says, “I think I do that almost every day, still.” Back in the early days, “We had our rocky moments,” he continued. “[We were] part of a large organization [and were] running some red ink.” But in the last third of a century, he said they’ve had a lot of “wow moments” that spurred him on—and helped the company not only stay afloat, but also grow and prosper.

The first big success came in the early 1980s when Peckham won the contracts with the State of Michigan to clean several of its buildings. This line of work became a steady revenue stream, whereas in previous years business had been pretty much feast or famine. Today, he said that the custodial business is “not growing, but stable,” while the key to their success over the past decade is that, “we continue to diversify.” For instance, whereas early on, automotive-related work had made up about 80 percent of their revenue stream, today it comprises only about 2 to 3 percent of business.

In fact, at one point, Peckham’s employees were responsible for sewing nets in the trunks of about 40 to 50 percent of GM’s worldwide car fleet. But when GM started soliciting bids online, and Tomlinson realized that such work had become a commodity, “We realized that we wouldn’t be able to compete,” and “made a decision to start diversifying.” A short time later, they approached the federal government about doing business and started sewing for the U.S. Department of Defense.

Talking about what makes Peckham and its employees unique, Tomlinson said, “Our culture differentiates us, [and] the people who do the best understand our culture, [which includes] respect and dignity for and toward each other.” He also said that their primary focus or mission is to help each person who works at Peckham get the most out of him or herself. “Some people want to measure financial success or efficiency at the expense of the worker,” he said, but at Peckham those who do so, don’t do so well. On the contrary, Tomlinson said that, “People who believe in the potential of the ability of people with disabilities, thrive.”

Tomlinson said that when people come to work at Peckham, which traces its roots back to Pine Rest Christian Rehabilitation Center/Hope Network, and is the largest employer of people with disabilities in the state, “they feel like they have a chance for success,” and credits the team that works for him as being key to everyone’s success.

He also said that statistics show that companies who employ people with disabilities enjoy “significantly less turnover than the average company,” because their employees “take a great deal of pride,” in their work. Company wide, Peckham’s turnover is less than 8 percent, whereas turnover at a typical call center hovers near 100 percent annually.

He went on to say that anecdotal evidence suggests that people with disabilities show more loyalty to their employer, and Peckham fosters this loyalty by offering workers assistance in what Tomlinson refers to as “the soft-side skill stuff”—help with non-work-related issues such as transportation, counseling and other human services. This, in turn, helps keep their employment more stable.

Tomlinson says that what gets him up and going each morning is “the opportunity to work with amazing people, many of whom have undiscovered talents, and then helping them to discover those talents.” He called it “extremely rewarding,” and added, “We have a staff that is amazingly innovative. [We have] ideas percolating around here all the time.” He said that listening to the people who work there every day is a major factor in Peckham’s double-digit growth year in and year out.

According to Tomlinson, Peckham spends a lot of time planning—far more than the average company—including setting one-, three- and five-year goals for each of its four core lines of business (manufacturing, business services, environmental services and distribution and logistics). On top of that, they review each business plan quarterly, and have done it that way for many years. The result is a very disciplined, and obviously successful, approach to business.

Tomlinson said that although he wishes he could say otherwise, he never thought when they started out, that they would grow to be as successful as they’ve become. But what did he know? “When we [first] moved here and began to understand what was happening in Lansing, I knew there was a lot of potential,” he said, calling Peckham’s success a “testimony to the capability of people with disabilities. We’ve exceeded what we envisioned.”

Today, with 13 facilities operating in five cities (Battle Creek; Charlotte; Coralville, Iowa; Lansing and Mason), including one of only a dozen LEED Silver Certified manufacturing facilities in the country that incorporates the concepts of universal design, more than $83 million in 2009 revenues, and 300 staff serving 6,200 clients, it’s clear that Tomlinson is committed to Lansing—and we’re very glad that he is.