Rich Summers grew up in the trades.
His father was a handyman. His mother spent 45 years as a phlebotomist, showing up every day with the kind of accountability that doesn’t need an audience. He started as a carpenter, launched a construction company before finishing college and arrived early at the conviction that has defined everything since: build things, and build them to last.
His career moved fast. He helped Sprint stand up one of the first digital cell phone systems in the United States. He helped Itron develop the first wireless meter reading system in the world. He led a utility field services company to fourfold growth over eight years. Each role had the same signature: an early-stage problem, limited precedent and no established playbook.
When Rich joined Sparus in 2014, his first move was to sit with clients. What he found was a trust deficit. He made specific commitments to listen, improve and be transparent, and held the organization to them. The cost of quality and rework fell by more than 95 percent. Informal processes gave way to disciplined project management. The company grew from a single-service operation into a multi-service platform.
The premise underneath all of it: the people closest to clients should have what they need to succeed, and everything else should get out of their way.
Clients can hire a vendor. They can also hire a partner — someone embedded in their infrastructure, accountable to their outcomes, producing work that holds. Building the latter is what Rich came to Sparus to do. That work is not finished. For Rich, it never really is.
Bachelor of Science degrees in organizational leadership and information technology, Duquesne University. Stanford Certified Project Manager. Member, Sparus Board of Directors.