After Tom Hennings’ demise at PMC in 2002, he spent the next few years jumping around from plastic companies trying to find someone to accept him. Sadly as it seems, no corporation would accept a man who has a pompous attitude and a thirst for the ultimate power. Tom decided the best course of action would be to start his own consulting company, TH Consulting Group. This was truly was the best decision he could made since no company with any prior knowledge or a halfway decent Human Resources department would ever consider giving this man the reigns to a company again.
In 2006, however Tom Hennings discovered he had two allies that were just as ethically challenged, pompous, and corrupt as he, Edward J. Fanning and Nick Jevic. Edward Fanning and Nick Jevic made their money in banking for Provident Bank, other various banks, and owned their own Investment firm FNJ Group. Together the three of them with more money than brains decided to buy a Residential and Multi-Family Modular Building company, known at the time as Benchmark Homes.
The deal was completed with Benchmark Homes in early 2007, and name was changed to Phoenix Building Solutions. If you had had guessed yet who was entrusted with the responsibility to make this building company successful and profitable, that’s right, Mr. Thomas Charles Hennings. In a press release by Phoenix on April 19, 2007, Tom Hennings is quoted as saying “We are very excited about our prospects. We plan to create awareness with increased marketing and promotion and with a larger focused and dedicated sales team. With continued emphasis on customer service and quality, and increased marketing and promotion, Phoenix Building Solutions will be the leading company in the industry in this market."
After Tom Hennings settled into his role as President and COO of Phoenix, awareness and changes started to take place. The over the next two years the company which at one time had a five (5) person sales team, was replaced with one part-time sales person. The receptionist, marketing, controller, engineering director, one designer, and approximately half the manufacturing positions were abolished. A company of nearly 70 employees was now down to just 30. Many of these positions such as sales, marketing, engineering director, and the controller were absorbed by Tom Hennings himself. Tom had a rather predictable work schedule as well mostly working once a week only on Mondays or Tuesdays but never both. How can a man that is running a company and has absorbed four positions work one day a week and be successful? The reality is he can’t and he didn’t, on January 5, 2009, Phoenix Building Solutions suspended all operations, and did not pay employees their final pay for the weeks of December 21, 2008-January 5, 2009. I believe for Tom Hennings or any President/COO this maybe a record for destroying a company in less than two years after its inception.
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