Fourth generation keeps business growing
After 91 years as a family business, Joseph McCormick Construction Co. Inc. is gaining popularity outside of its home state with its good name.
As exciting as Owen McCormick finds the process of getting a contract, he realizes the importance of other responsibilities of his job: growth, employee retention, his safety program, and especially training issues. He’s the president of Joseph McCormick Construction Co. Inc., Erie PA – a company that’s been in his family for four generations.
“We were established in 1907 by my great grandfather, Joseph McCormick. He was in the storm sewer business and laid pipe. In the 1950s, my grandfather, John J. McCormick Sr., decided to put up an asphalt plant. We’ve been in the paving business since (then).”
That first plant, a BLH Madsen 4-ton (3.6 Mg) batch plant, went up well in Meadville, PA, but was moved about 35 miles (56km) up the road to Wesleyville, just outside of Erie in the 1960s. The business went from John J. McCormick Sr. to Owen’s uncle, then his father, John J. McCormick Jr. “When I graduated from Notre Dame in 1981, I worked with a general contractor in Washington, D.C., for a few years and got a lot of good site experience,” says McCormick. “After being with him for a few years, I returned to Erie and got back in the construction business with my family. By that time, my dad was buying my uncle out so it was a natural move to work with my brothers to build the business. That’s what I did in 1991 when I returned. Then we (brothers Matt and Owen) took over in 1993.”
“Our bread and butter is asphalt paving. We run two full paving crews at all times. Both crews run a Blaw-Knox 5510 track paver. The rollers McCormick Construction uses are an Ingersoll-Rand DD-90 and DD-22, the Hyster 754 and Hyster static roller, and a Rosco pneumatic tired machine.
“We’re currently at 45 employees,” says McCormick. “We run 8 different foremen, counting grading crews, and they’re in charge of their jobs completely. We also have a field superintendent. That upper tier, the superintendent, make decisions about the equipment and what the foremen should be empowered with. He’s in constant contact with the foremen so he’s very sympathetic to their needs. We’re big on communication between all our people.”
Employee treatment dictates employee retention. Communication is strength for McCormick Construction, keeping employees at all levels “in the know.” McCormick explains that the superintendent meets with his foremen on a daily basis. Weekly meetings between the superintendent, project managers and upper management combined with a high visibility of senior company members at work sites keep employees abreast of changes and expectations.
“We’re out there not only communicating on a meeting-type basis, but witnessing the production as it is happening.”
McCormick sees the prudence in having someone who specializes in a certain area of the company running that area. “We believe in having people focused on the different parts of the company that are taking place. We have family members, but we also have outside people that are play a very integral role in our business. Allowing employees to specialize in their jobs has kept some around for a long time. “We have people who have been with us 37-plus years. I think that they show us the same loyalty we show them. We’re a fair employer. We try to pay as well as can be expected for a position and we treat our employees very well.”
Another factor of employee retention is safety. One way McCormick Construction treats its employees well is by watching out for them. McCormick speaks with pride about his safety program: “we’re extremely safety oriented.” Daily safety meetings are commonplace on the job sites and monthly safety meetings take place as well. A safety committee meets once a month and every employee receives the employee handbook, the safety manual and an explanation of safety expectations during orientation.
On-the-job training affects employee outlook. Along with safety, McCormick Construction places importance on ongoing training for employees. “We’re heavily into training. You probably won’t meet a contractor that is as sold on training as we are. We believe training is the way of the future.”
As part of their commitment, McCormick Construction brings in people like John Ball of Top Quality Paving, Manchester, NH to work with employees. “John works with our paving people in the field extensively to ensure they’re laying the best quality asphalt that they possibly can through proper techniques and through the proper equipment.”
McCormick sees the necessity for a diplomatic approach to training and sees that approach in Ball’s delivery. “John Ball has a way of communicating with anyone from the newest rookie to the most seasoned veteran on how to do things a little better and gives them improvement. He is able to communicate to them without that person being in a defensive type position.”
Joseph McCormick Construction Co. Inc. does everything from site development work to asphalt paving. The Peach Street Square, Erie, PA., project on upper Peach Street in Erie required McCormick be involved in all stages of development, including the connector roads. The crew started with an open field and worked the site through its completion.
Growth is a strength in today’s market. Whether it’s keeping employees happy at their specialized tasks, keeping them safe, or updating their knowledge and skills, McCormick Construction is retaining workers who do more and more of just that each year: work.
The work varies from state to private, from moving earth to paving with asphalt, but McCormick’s ability to provide the customer with a quality product seems unwavering. Paul Lehrer, project manager for Wegmans Food Market in New York, granted a contract to McCormick, but only after much background checking.
“Basically, we put an ad in the paper. We invited them (McCormick) to bid and since they had never done work for us, we did extensive research on them,” says Lehrer. “We spent about a week doing research before we awarded the contract. We couldn’t find anybody to say anything bad about them.” And Lehrer actually tried to find something negative, to ease his conscience. “To be honest with you, it was a very complicated project and I would have felt more comfortable awarding it to somebody that I had worked with before. My boss basically told me, ‘if you don’t want to award them the contract, you give me a reason why I shouldn’t,’ and I couldn’t find anybody to say anything bad about them.”
Wegmans wasn’t the only owner who checked sources before awarding McCormick a contract. George Roth of Cafaro Co., Youngstown, Ohio, a real estate developer, describes what he found out: “Joseph McCormick is well known in the area. They have a good reputation. Obviously, their prices are good also. We (Cafaro Co.) generally don’t put people on the bid list unless we know they’re capable, good contractors.”
The project McCormick won from Cafaro Co. involved road work near Millcreek Mall,” says Roth. “Owen was successful in picking up that portion of work.”
Each successful project the contractor completed in conjunction with the mall project brought them new work. They put in a new entry road and connector road then won the bid to widen Interchange Road. “That was about $1.3 million worth of work, signalizing, curbing, concrete repairs, asphalt overlays, taking out super elevation,” says developer Roth. “Their work finished up for us and then they were also successful in picking up additional asphalt work in conjunction with this for the state of Pennsylvania so they had all the work out on Interchange Road. Since then, they’ve picked up a small parking lot we had for the Hill’s Store at Millcreek Pavilion and did all the curbing, scraping and paving there.”
Roth explains how McCormick’s business dealings are consistent with the quality end product. “They’ve gone above and beyond their normal contract requirements.” Not everything goes by the original plan on a project, so when the unforeseen happens, the contractor and client have to negotiate the best solution, which Roth thinks McCormick does well. “It’s only when you start tearing something up that you find what’s underneath it. There were numerous surprises (on Interchange Road) but none of them were a problem for McCormick. They handled them as they came up very well.
“They generally know what the best solution is, they recommend it, and we talk it over with our consultants and engineers and come to agreement on what needs to be done, negotiate that price and issue the change orders. They’re a fair contractor. Everything’s been fair and congenial and they do good work. Owen and his assistant, Bob Gwinn, have been very easy to work with, extremely fair in resolving the issues that come up in projects.
Paying attention to customer service is not reserved solely for the job site as far as McCormick is concerned. In the office, “we have three to four people that deal with customer inquiries on a daily basis. We’re very attuned to our customers’ needs. I, or one of the project superintendents, will immediately address any customer needs. As far as we’re concerned, there’s no silly complaint. It’s something that has to be handled immediately and given the appropriate attention.”
Growth depends on keeping customers satisfied with a quality product. Getting that quality product means being able to roll with the punches, as McCormick had to do on the Interchange Road project. At another project, the contractor had to get innovative to get a job done.
“We did three night jobs this year. That was a big challenge,” says McCormick. “The first one, SR-0005, was done in the April to May timeframe. It involved resurfacing a six-lane, main, east-west thoroughfare through Erie.” The crew milled the existing surface with a 2-inch (50-mm) mill, and then used a scratch binder leveling course and a wearing surface course. Then they discovered a problem: “We designed our own light plants, over the pavers and rollers, with John Ball. We found it more cost-effective and, the better reason, we found it more conducive to our paving operations (See “Like night and day,” Asphalt Contractor, August 1998).”
Ball explains they mounted fluorescent lights over the operator’s head to shine directly into the auger area. They also used a light stand 8 feet (2.5m) high above the paver with six 500-watt floodlights. In the middle of the paver and the hopper was mounted a street light on a pole and a mechanic mounted 500-watt lights to magnets, which were literally stuck to the sides of the hopper and edger plate.
With innovative practices, good customer service and quality work, McCormick Construction is producing what it takes to win more bids. That means growing the company. With expansion on the horizon, Owen is setting some goals for the company. “We hope to be the top quality producer in the state. We want to always produce a quality product for our people, (and) our customers, and we want to continue expanding those services.”