Joseph F. Brennan
Founder & Chairman, AUS, Inc.
1967-2002
“Work with integrity and strive for excellence. Be true to yourself and the company – for we will meet our challenges and celebrate our successes together.”
50 years ago, in the summer of 1967, Joseph Brennan founded AUS on three Principles of Excellence: personal integrity, superior standards of performance, and loyalty to clients and colleagues. In the decades that followed, as AUS grew from a single office in Center City Philadelphia to a portfolio of business enterprises with a national presence serving international markets, our Principles of Excellence have remained unchanged. Following in Joe Brennan’s footsteps, hundreds of AUS employee-shareholders have built successful careers by relying on these principles as they respond to the unique and challenging needs of the company’s diverse client base.
Our heritage continues to shape our future. With an unwavering commitment to clients and shareholders alike, AUS continues to identify new opportunities and pursue innovative means of crafting business solutions and creating corporate value. At AUS, we encourage an entrepreneurial outlook. We encourage and promote those with an eagerness to explore and evaluate, search and scrutinize, revitalize, redefine and reinvent. With a workforce of that caliber, AUS has, over the years, invested assets in airfields and flight schools, newspapers and printing plants, financial consulting and intellectual property management services, and market research operations – each new business telling a story of diversity and adaptability.
Data – whether retrieved and reported, aggregated or extrapolated, calculated, researched or surveyed – has consistently been a driving factor in each of the AUS business ventures. In the 1970’s AUS invested heavily in mainframe computers to consolidate financial data from regulated utilities and subsequently became a preeminent consultancy in the energy, water and telecommunications industries. In the 1980’s AUS acquired and cultivated a company whose founder was one of the earliest adopters and proponents of computer – assisted telephone survey research and methodologies. In the 1990’s and 2000’s AUS is focusing its strategy on data-driven market research and consulting practices as those businesses shift from relying on traditional data sources and information gathering techniques and evolve into sophisticated analytics operations managing unstructured data and massive databases.
The successful execution of the AUS strategy depends on three simple tactics: we ask, we listen, and we answer. From data collection to analytics and consulting, each of the AUS portfolio companies uses this approach to collaborate internally, and with clients, to deliver superior results and shareholder value.
The essential core of this company is its employees. Entrepreneurial in spirit and united by the AUS Principles of Excellence, they share a dedication to outstanding service and a commitment to growth. Their decades of allegiance have earned them not only the benefit of employment, but the opportunity… and responsibility… of ownership. In their hands, the outlook for AUS during its next 50 years is both promising and exciting.
Jack Ringwood
AUS President & CEO