Inland News Group

By Richard K. De Atleyrdeatley@scng.com @RKDeAtley on Twitter

Started in 1972, the In-land Regional Center is a nonprofit agency that serves more than 33,000 people in San Bernardino and Riverside counties with the goal of bringing greater autonomy for peo-ple with disabilities such as autism, cerebral palsy and epilepsy.

The center, with a cam-pus on South Waterman Avenue in San Bernardino and offices in Riverside, was chosen first for large businesses — those with 350 or more employees — for the Inland Empire’s 2017 Top Workplaces sur-vey.

The center employs more than 700 people with a variety of skills who work with adults and children to help them gain “indepen-dence, empowerment and inclusion,” IRC Human Resources Manager Maria Harkin said.

The center’s workforce is expanding, she said.

“IRC offers many di-verse opportunities for ca-reer growth ranging from

highly skilled positions along with opportunities to grow, develop, and learn new skills in the areas of social work and adminis-

trative services,” she said.The skill sets for IRC

workers include counsel-ing and assessment pro-ficiency, plus readiness to advocate for their clients, she said.

The Inland Regional Center is the largest of the 21 established through-out California by the Lan-terman Developmental Disabilities Services Act, which spells out the right to services and support that will help clients live as independently as possible.

The services at the cen-

ter starts with a coordina-tor who becomes the prime contact for a client at the IRC.

The counseling and as-sessment skills come into play as a plan is devel-oped. It includes aligning goals, needs, skills and preferences and available services to increase inde-pendence, empowerment

and community inclusion, Harkin said.

The IRC became the fo-cus of international at-tention on Dec. 2, 2015, when two armed terror-ists opened fire on people in a rented room at the fa-cility’s conference center. Fourteen people died and 22 were wounded.

Almost all the victims

were employees of the San Bernardino County Di-vision of Environmental Health Services, which had rented the room.

The IRC’s workers kept up services for clients by using electronic tablets and going into the field, returning to their offices when they opened about a month later.

INLAND REGIONAL CENTER

San Bernardino nonprofit works to bring independence for those with special needs

Payroll account technician Nikki Knieriem works in her office at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, The IRC is among the winners of the Top Workplaces survey.

Consumer program liaison Erica Lopez makes a copy at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino. The IRC is the largest of the 21 disability centers in California.

Founded: 1972Sector: Human and social servicesHeadquarters: San BernardinoInland Empire employees: 750Website: inlandrc.org

INLAND REGIONAL CENTER

By Fielding Buckfbuck@scng.com @pefbuck on Twitter

Meaningful, flexible and ethical.

That’s what Inland em-ployees say they want their workplaces to be.

The Inland News Group — Inland Valley Daily Bul-letin, The Facts in Red-lands, The Sun in San Ber-nardino and The Press-Enterprise in Riverside — partnered with Ener-gage, formerly Workplace-Dynamics, an employee research and consulting firm, to determine which workplaces best meet em-ployees’ expectations.

The result is 2017’s Top Workplaces, a list of pub-lic, private, nonprofit or governmental organiza-tions throughout San Ber-

nardino and Riverside counties.

Here’s how the list came about:

Beginning in June, the

newspapers ran articles and advertisements encouraging employees in the region to nominate companies as Top Workplaces.

Anyone could nominate a company. The only re-quirement was that the or-ganization must employ at least 35 people in the In-land area.

Energage invited 1,306 companies to participate and surveyed 49 of them. Surveys were sent to 13,525 Inland Empire employees;

8,030 responded.Participants were given

24 statements about their workplaces and asked to rank them on a seven-point scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.”

The statements with the most positive responses were:

“My job makes me feel like I am part of something meaningful.”

“I have the flexibility I need to balance my work and personal life.”

“This company operates by strong values and ethics.”

In addition, the survey asked employees about other factors:

• Employee Engage-ment: Loyalty, motivation and referral.

• Leader: Confidence in company leadership

• The basics: Pay, bene-fits, flexibility.

After employees com-pleted the surveys, Ener-gage ran statistical tests to look for any questionable results, although some-times a small number of employers are disqualified based on the tests.

Employers were catego-rized into size bands, be-cause “smaller employers tend to score higher than midsize employers and midsize employers tend to score higher than large employers,” Claffey said.

The employers were ranked within their size band based solely on em-ployee responses to the survey statements. The top employers in each size band were selected as Top Workplaces in the Inland Empire for 2017.

TOP WORKPLACES

How the IE’s best were determined

PHOTOS BY RACHEL LUNA — STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

The main entrance of the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino. The IRC is among the winners of the Top Workplaces survey.

JOHN VALENZUELA — STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Staff members from East Valley Water District take a short break to participate in team-building stretching exercises at its headquarters in Highland. The district is the winner in the small businesses category of Southern California News Group’s Top Workplaces in the Inland area.

To find out more about the Inland Empire companies named Top Workplaces, check out the online data-base at pe.com/workplacesJoin the conversationJoin the conversation on Twitter, follow @pressent-erprise, @ivdailybulletin, @RedlandsNews and @sbsun.Talking about this year’s awards? Use #topwork-places on Twitter.

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Inland News Group

By Fielding Buckfbuck@scng.com @pefbuck on Twitter

At the East Valley Wa-ter District, people’s de-sire for f lexibility in the workplace gets fulfilled. Literally.

The Highland-based utility has a stretching program for its employ-ees, five minutes of “mov-ing in the groove” to lim-ber up the body and the mind. Field workers start their shifts with it daily. Office workers do it a cou-ple of times a week.

The stretching sessions arose out of the utility’s Leadership Academy, which gives employees skills to move into man-agement roles.

“We get together a group of our future lead-ers for a six-month pro-gram,” said Kerrie Bryan, human resources man-ager. “The employees get to come up with a real project that will better the district.”

This is the third time the district has made Top Workplaces and the sec-ond year in a row it has been the No. 1 small com-pany.

In the past year, the district has had success with its cross-training program, Bryan said, en-abling an employee in customer service to trans-fer to the finance depart-ment.

The district was formed in 1954 to serve then-un-

incorporated Highland. It now provides water and wastewater services to more than 100,000 customers in 27.7 square miles that include por-tions of San Bernardino and unincorporated ar-eas of San Bernardino County.

T he distr ic t ’s mis -sion statement calls for “world-class public ser-vice,” Bryan said.

“Our employees live that day to day,” he said. “They love giving great customer serv ice and helping out our commu-nities as much as they can. I think that’s one of the things that makes it meaningful, but also the relationships that have been established.”

In the survey, workers

anonymously commented that they have creative freedom in a family envi-ronment.

“It is the best employer I have ever had,” read one comment. “EVWD allows me to grow personally and professionally. They let me balance work and home life. My job duties allow me to learn every-day and my job is never stagnant. I love being busy, and this position is always busy.”

EAST VALLEY WATER DISTRICT

Keeping workers in the loop and in the groove

PHOTOS BY JOHN VALENZUELA — STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

East Valley Water District staff member Alejandra Ronquill participates in team-building stretching exercises at its headquarters in Highland. East Valley Water District is the winner in the small businesses category of Southern California News Group’s Top Workplaces in the Inland area.

Founded: 1954Sector: Local governmentHeadquarters: HighlandInland Empire employees: 66Website: eastvalley.org

EAST VALLEY WATER DISTRICT

LARGE — 350 EMPLOYEES OR MORE• Inland Regional Center, San Bernardino, nonprofit, 734 employees• Boudreau Pipeline Corp., Corona, building construc-tion, 360 employees• Springs Charter School, Temecula, education, 768 employees• Altura Credit Union, Riverside, credit union, 354 employees• Temecula Valley Hospital, Temecula, medical, 749 employees• City of Fontana, public safety, 963 employees• San Gorgonio Memorial Hospital, Banning, health care, 696 employees

MIDSIZE — 125-349 EMPLOYEES• Rancho Pacific Electric,

Rancho Cucamonga, electri-cal, 150 employees• UCPath Center, Riverside, college, 227 employees• Western Municipal Water District, Ri ve r sid e , w a te r, 150 e mp loye e s• S tr o n gh o l d En gin e e r-in g , Ri ve r sid e , c o n s tr u c -tio n , 192 e mp loye e s• M o un t a i n W e s t F i -n a n c i a l , R e d l a n d s , m o r t g a g e l e n d i n g , 280 e mp l oye e s• CU D ir e c t C o r p. , O n t ar-io, f inan c e an d te chn o l-o g y, 193 e mp loye e s• A l di, B a t av ia Ill. , gr o -c e r y, 298 e mp l oye e s• A lb e r t A . We b b A s s o ci-a te s , Ri ve r sid e , ci v il e n -gin e e r in g , 153 e mp l oye e s• P an da Re s t aur an t Gr o up, r e s t aur an t s , Ro s e m e a d , 152 e mp loy-e e s

S M A L L — L E S S T H A N 125 E M P L OY E E S• Ea s t Valle y Wa te r D is-tr ic t , Highlan d, lo c al g ov -e r nm e n t , 66 e mp l oye e s• Nis s an o f S an B e r-nar din o, au to m o ti ve , 95 e mp l oye e s• H o spic e o f th e Valle y, Mur r ie t a , n o np r o f i t , 61 e mp l oye e s• Kar e n A ll e n S al o n , Ri v-e r sid e , b e au t y in du s tr y, 40 e mp l oye e s• We s te r n Ri ve r sid e C o un cil o f G ove r nm e n t s , Ri ve r sid e , lo c al g ove r n -m e n t s , 51 e mp loye e s• Sandals Church, Riverside, 100 employees• Peabody Engineering, Corona, building products, 35 employees• Safelite Auto Glass, Co-lumbus Ohio, automotive, 51 employees

• Soren McAdam LLP, Redlands, accounting, tax service, 45 employees• Western Water Works, Chino Hills, wholesale distri-bution, 45 employees• Babcock Laboratories, Riverside, other services, 68 employees• Aerotek, Hanover, Mary-land, staffing, 67 employees• Accent Computer Solutions Inc., Rancho Cucamonga, IT services, 51 employees• Brenner-Fiedler, Riverside, wholesale distribution, 45 employees• Partners in Leadership LLC, Temecula, training and consulting, 94 employees• Miller-Jones Mortuary, Hemet, funerals, 70 employ-ees• Randstad, Atlanta, Geor-gia, staffing, 36 employees

TOP WORKPLACES

Inland Empire’s Top Workplaces 2017

By Richard K. De Atleyrdeatley@scng.com @RKDeAtley on Twitter

When Rancho Pacific Electric started in 1966, electrical contracting was mostly a copper-wire busi-ness.

Outlets just delivered current and f luorescent l ights hummed in of-fices.

More than 50 years later, the challenges are differ-ent, said Rancho Pacific Electric’s David Robinson, who with brother Steve oversees the Rancho Cu-camonga business their fa-ther started.

Ray Robinson, grand-son and namesake of the founder, is superintendent. If he is on the phone, he’s at a site. Somewhere.

Rancho Pacific Elec-tric, with 150 employ-ees, was chosen for first place in the midsize busi-ness category of the In-land Empire’s 2017 Top Workplaces survey. Mid-size businesses have 125

to 349 employees.The business was mostly

multifamily housing when the elder Ray Robinson started out, David Robin-son said.

“In the early ’80s we changed direction into more commercial and pub-

lic works contracting,” he said.

The takeoff was tied to the growth of the In-land area, David Robin-son said, and eventually Rancho Pacific Electric was doing a variety of projects large and small,

but specializing in educa-tional facilities.

“A lot of different things have changed since we started this company,” Da-vid Robinson said.

He compared it to what the cellphone has brought to personal communication.

“That is how dramatic it has been in our industry, as well,” he said. “A lot of it is code-driven.”

California’s Building Standards Code, usually called Title 24, now calls for inside lighting to adjust its intensity against the nat-ural light entering an of-fice or schoolroom, to keep it from unnecessarily using

power, he said.Motion sensors in offices

turn off lights and even electrical outlets if they de-tect no one is present.

David Robinson said work on schools ranges from new developments that include underground infrastructure, bringing utilities from the street, “all the way to a complete turn-key school.”

Modernization of older facilities involves lighting, fire alarms, fiber-optics and upgrading energy efficiency systems he said.

Educational clients have included Cal Baptist and La Sierra universities in River-side, plus several school dis-tricts throughout the In-land area, David Robinson said.

Most of Rancho Pacific’s contracts for all kinds of projects are in the Inland area and Orange County, he said.

Other recent projects include renovation at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, a state-of-the-art facility

for the Loma Linda Uni-versity School of Den-tistry, and the Citrus Plaza in Redlands, ac-cording to the company’s website.

The Great Recession “dried up a lot of private projects,” David Robin-son said, but school proj-ects, funded by bonds, were more reliable to go forward.

“You need to be flexible and focused on what you’re good at. These days, every-thing has its specialty,” he said

Other midsize cate-gory businesses chosen for Top Workplaces in-clude UCPath Center for the University of Cali-fornia, located in River-side; Western Municipal Water Distr ict , R iver-side; Stronghold Engi-neering Inc., Riverside; Mountain West Finan-cial, Redlands; CU Di-rect Corp., Ontario; Albert A. Webb Associates, River-side; and Panda Restaurant Group, Rosemead.

RANCHO PACIFIC ELECTRIC

Rancho Cucamonga company is wired for success

East Valley Water District staff members, from left, Adrian Ramirez, Alejandra Ronquill, Kerrie Bryan and Shala Gerber participate in team-building stretching exercises at the district’s headquarters in Highland. The sessions are part of its Leadership Academy. It gives employees skills to move into management roles.

Founded: 1966Sector: ElectricalHeadquarters: Rancho CucamongaInland Empire employees: 150Website: ranchopacific electric.com

RANCHO PACIFIC ELECTRIC

COURTESY PHOTO

Rancho Pacific Electric of Rancho Cucamonga was chosen for first place in the midsize business category of the 2017 Top Workplaces survey. A worker helps build the Rancho Cucamonga Sports Center.

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STRENGTH THROUGH

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Top WorkplaceTemecula Valley Hospital ishonored to be a Top Workplace!

Physicians are independent practitioners who are not employees or agents of Temecula Valley Hospital. The hospital shall not be liable for actions or treatmentsprovided by physicians. For language assistance, disability accommodations and the non-discrimination notice, visit our website.

Learn more attemeculavalleyhospital.com/top31700 Temecula Parkway Temecula, CA 92592

2017

To our Employeeswho Make

San Gorgonioa Top Workplace3 years in a row!

T H A N K Y OU

www.sgmh.org

Valuing our employeesis what we do best.In the world of accounting, our clients expectexceptional service and we provide that throughdedicated teamwork. Our employees value workingtogether, while advancing their knowledge throughrewarding and challenging opportunities.

SorenMcAdam.com 909.798.2222

APPLY TODAY@ careers@rpeinc.net

EVERYSTRONGWALLWAS ONCEINDIVIDUAL BRICKS

CELEBRATING 25 YEARS OFBUILDING CONSTRUCTIONS EXCELLENCE

We Need Youon Our Team

www.strongholdengineering.com

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2017 THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE >> PE.COM | NEWS | 9 A

TO OUR 2017TOP WORKPLACES

SPONSORS!

Thank You

Gold Sponsor

Silver Sponsors Bronze Sponsors

Community Partners Floral SponsorPrint Sponsor

Creative Print Solutions

2017

CU Direct is proud to foster an innovative, fun and progressive work environment that allows employees to achievetheir highest potential and career growth. Our talented and dedicated employees work together to provide innovativetechnology solutions to our credit union and dealer partners. We could not do it without them!

VOTED INLAND EMPIRE’S TOP WORKPLACE

TOPWORKPLACES2017

Apply at CUDIRECT.com/TopWorkplace

We’re stocking ourshelves with awards!

ALDI named to the Top Workplaces by

the Press-Enterprise.

Being named a Top Workplace is a huge honor,but we didn’t do it alone. Every ALDI employee inSouthern California deserves a round of applause,from our stores to our warehouses, to our districtmanagers. We’re all working hard to make ALDI a

leading retailer and employer!

To learn more about what it is liketo work in a Top Workplace, visit:

careers.aldi.us

ALDI is an equal opportunity employer

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