Strategic Solutions 15th Anniversary
Strategic Solutions, LLC was a one-person operation when it took on a small borough in Southwest Pennsylvania as its first client in 2009. That person, of course, was John Trant, who has grown the company to eight staff and more than 60 clients throughout Pennsylvania and beyond.
Strategic Solutions is no longer an I but a we, and we are thrilled to celebrate our 15th anniversary by sharing some of our history, current work, and future endeavors with you.
Early on, Strategic Solutions was John’s “second job.” While employed as a planner and then a lawyer, John’s attraction to both municipal management and community planning presented an opportunity to integrate the two.
“The model was always there for this kind of management-planning hybrid work, which started with clients across Pennsylvania,” John says.
Pat Kelly joined John in 2017 to provide communities with much needed on-the-ground code enforcement. And it was the following year the core of Strategic Solutions was formed: Linda Rocco joined the team and brought a high level of organization and quality control to each project. Next up was Chelsea Puff.
John’s call to his former colleague in 2018 didn’t go exactly as planned. When asked to join the Strategic team, Chelsea said, “I’m sorry, I’m having a baby tomorrow.” Fortunately, they reconnected at a better time, and since then Chelsea has served as project manager for a vast array of projects with an ever-increasing list of clients. She still remembers how supportive and flexible John, Pat, and Linda were with a mother of three boys.
Strategic Solutions’ evolution can be seen through Chelsea’s eyes.
Back then, “We didn’t have weekly meetings. We didn’t use Teams. We didn’t have separate phone lines. We barely had a website. But you could see what Strategic could become,” Chelsea says. “John had big ideas and I like to do. It was the perfect combination.”
Chelsea says the company’s growth was intentional but also happened organically. “We just did a good job, and people heard about it.”
All four core team members are with the company today.
In addition to planning projects, our growing portfolio of work at that time included lending expertise to human resources support, organizational assessments, community development projects and providing interim leadership - 90% of which was in the public sector. With our additional capacity, we expanded into more project management and strategic planning, along with land use and code enforcement work.
As our services and list of clients grew, Jason Vrabel, John Toner, and Laurence Christian came aboard with additional writing, planning, and management expertise.
All of this brings us to why Strategic Solutions was established in the first place. “This work allowed me to do what I love to do, which is to help organizations that don’t have all the capacity to do whatthey want and need to do for their communities,” John says.
This is especially true of organizations experiencing rapid change or leadership transitions. John says these potentially “messy” situations became his calling. “Providing capacity and interim leadership means creating stability, and keeping operations functioning during difficult times.”
What was true 15 years ago is true today: Listening and engagement are the keys to our success. Also true: Planning is good, doing is better.
“We will continue to grow in the years ahead, but will remain flexible and adaptable, and continue to bring expertise to clients in ways that fit their needs,” John says. “Growing but keeping it small ... we can do both of those things.”
In the months ahead we will turn the spotlight toward a few of our clients, and the value of the collaborative work we do - together.