Lucrative lesson plan

Not one to boast, Bill Grant beamed about this one.

Princeton University recently selected Hildebrandt Learning Centers LLC to operate its new child-care center to be built on the campus of the Ivy League school.

“It is,” the high point, Grant admitted, in the 17-year history of the company with a list of notable academic, government and corporate clients throughout the Mid-Atlantic states.

Hildebrandt has carved out a niche managing on-site child-care centers for employers, earning nearly $20 million in annual revenues and employing a staff of nearly 700 people to develop innovative programs for its growing list of 35 clients. Five new centers are to open this year and Grant estimated the company will have 1,000 employees by next year.

“We spend zero dollars on marketing. We don’t have to knock on doors. People come to us,” said Grant, the 55-year-old chief executive of the privately held company. “We have enough business in the hopper for the next three years.”

He founded the company in 1991, eight years after starting Magic Years Child Care & Learning Centers Inc.

His background is in accounting and economics and a large calculator with a roll of paper feeding into the machine sits next to his computer at his office desk. The idea of providing on-site child care came while he was working for a local food service company. Hospitals and nursing homes were among the company’s clients and they were in need of nurses. Why not attract and retain nurses by offering child care, he thought.

He took Magic Years public, but has no desire to go that route with Hildebrandt. Instead of worrying about profitability, quarterly reports and answering to shareholders, he’s chosen to follow a business model that allows Hildebrandt to make money, pay its overhead and reinvest in the company.

The company manages several inter-generational centers for children and adults. But the majority of contracts are for child-care centers. Designed for infants to preteens, the centers are in demand as the labor force is made up of more single mothers and families in which both parents work.

The centers are generating interest at colleges and universities where new faculty members are replacing retirees, Grant said. “After salary, the next question is, ‘Do you have a child-care center on campus?’” he said.

West Virginia University chose Hildebrandt in May over two larger competitors in the industry, Bright Horizons Family Solutions of Watertown, Mass. and Children’s Choice Learning Centers of Richardson, Texas.

Closer to home, King’s College will continue its relationship with Hildebrandt in the Kinship Square project on the corner of North Main and North streets.

“There’s going to be a child-care center in there,” Grant said. The company has managed the King’s College/St. Mary’s Child Care Center on South Washington Street since 1997. The new project will include a 13,000-square-foot child-care center on the first floor with adjacent classroom space for the school’s early childhood and elementary education programs.

“We’re going to take care of children for people from downtown,” Grant said.

He’s quick to note that child care is different from day care. “That’s not what we do. We’re really early learning centers.”

The programs that are custom-tailored for each contract incorporate a variety of activities indoors in classrooms and outside where children can climb boulders and hop from log to log on a playground.

A key distinction, he added, is 23 of Hildebrandt’s centers have been accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, a designation given to approximately 8 percent of the licensed centers in the country. Twenty-one have earned the Pennsylvania Keystone Four Star designation, the highest level from the state Department of Public Welfare.

Grant deflected Hildebrandt’s success and achievements away from himself. “I have a great staff,” he said, pointing to their hard work and willingness to obtain the degrees and training necessary to make the company successful.

To keep its edge and stay current, Grant and his staff search out programs and professionals in the fields of child care and education.

Five staff members are traveling to Italy in the coming months to study the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education. His son-in-law, Tim O’Shea, chief development officer of the company, will attend a seminar in North Carolina on the design of natural playgrounds.

O’Shea came in a package deal with Grant’s daughter Lauren. She had been working as a registered nurse at the University of Pennsylvania hospital and Grant wondered if she would like to join him in his business. Grant recalled his daughter asking, “Could I bring my husband because he’s an engineer.”

They’re joined by Grant’s wife, Mary Lou, a dietitian, and another daughter, Alison, who works during the summer months.

Learn about Hildebrandt Learning Centers LLC

Hildebrandt Learning Centers LLC operates 36 employer-sponsored child care centers and two adult day care centers.

Notable rank: Fourth-largest employer child care management organization in the country in 2008, according to Exchange magazine

Notable contracts: Gettysburg College, West Virginia University, King’s College, sanofi pasteur, Rodale Inc., Olympus America and the Pennsylvania Department of Education

Notable news: Awarded the management contract for the new child-care center at Princeton University to open in the fall of 2011