On Thursday, a four-man Mark Group crew, dressed in tidy uniforms with disposable shoe covers, spent the day adding insulation to the attic and basement of the Diamond's two-story house. They sealed air leaks around doors and electrical fixtures and took special aim at filling a drafty half-inch gap under the baseboard of daughter Sophia's wintry nursery.
Consider Josh Diamond a happy man. The day after the contractor left, he said his daughter's room was measurably warmer. He was also impressed with the crew's efforts to vacuum up when the job was over.
"I think my house is actually cleaner now than before they came," said Diamond, a pulmonary critical-care fellow at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
By importing a European model, Mark Group officials say they are moving deliberately to establish a national foundation for a service business that traditionally has been the realm of local contractors.
"Our goal is to be America's leading provider of weatherization services," said Jeff Bartos, the Mark Group's chief executive officer of U.S. operations.
Officials from the home office in Leicester, England, last year recruited Bartos and his chief operating officer, Dave Hopkins, from Toll Bros. Inc., where they had been regional executives for the Horsham home builder. The Mark Group's aim was to borrow Toll's nationwide model of tight quality control and emphasis on customer satisfaction.
Gov. Rendell rewarded the Mark Group for choosing the Philadelphia Navy Yard as its national headquarters with $3.3 million in incentives, including a $2 million Pennsylvania Industrial Development loan. The 26-year-old company, which employs 1,400 in Britain, said it expected to hire 300 people in the United States in three years.
So far the U.S. office employs just 15, but Bartos said it was about to ramp up operations.
