Nolan’s Acceptance as a Benefit Corporation

Hi my name is Steve Nafranowicz and I am an employee of Nolan Painting.  Nolan Painting is a residential painting contractor working in Philadelphia and surrounding areas. We paint your homes, inside and out.

I’ve worked for Nolan Painting since the summer of 1992.  I’ve had the opportunity to grow and benefit as a result of the employee policies that Nolan Painting has in place.  I started my career with Nolan Painting as a trainee, learned the painting trade, earned a crew leader position, was promoted to an estimator, and now I am proud to say, I am the CFO of Nolan Painting, a Benefit Corporation.

We were first introduced to B-Lab in the summer of 2007.  We were in the process of “Going Green.”  We had hired Elizabeth Guman of Strategy Arts. She recommended B-Lab and that we pursue their online certification. Throughout this process we learned a lot about our strengths and weaknesses around the “Triple Bottom Line.” People, Planet, and Profit.

Profit – Our Profits were OK, of course this was prior to the major change in our economy we’re all about to experience.

Planet – We were committed to reducing the impact that our business had on our environment. In our office we converted light switches to motion activated switches, installed new HVAC units and converted from oil heat to natural gas. In the field we changed our practices of how and where we clean paintbrushes and sprayers, and evaluated the vehicles in our fleet.  We use low and no VOC paint. Paint manufacturers have made many changes to their products to lower VOC’s. This has helped us reduce the overall output of pollutants with every can of paint we open.

People – I believe this is Nolan Painting’s greatest strength and the reason why being a Benefit Corporation is such a good fit.  I have personally benefitted from the generous and caring employee practices that Nolan Painting has as its core values since it was founded by Kevin Nolan in 1979.  I’ve had company-sponsored health insurance since my first days with Nolan Painting. Nolan Painting has covered 80% or more of this insurance cost. I’ve had 401k retirement savings with a company match since 1995.  Unfortunately we had to suspend the match in recent years. Today I’m happy to say that the match is back and more generous than ever before.  I’ve had the opportunity to continue my education through our company tuition reimbursement program. Vacation time earned by employees can be carried over from year to year. We have employees who have family in Europe, Africa, and South America and they have all been able to go home on extended visits without losing any wages.

This is why I feel being a Benefit Corporation is a great fit for Nolan Painting.

Like I’ve told my 15-year-old son a dozen times, “A ‘B’ is so much better than a ‘C’!”

Thank You.