August 13, 2024 • 38 mins
In this episode of the FMI Built-In podcast, host Scott Winstead, President of FMI Consulting, sits down with Les Snyder, Executive Vice President of Development and Infrastructure Construction for Brightline West.
With more than 40 years of experience across all sectors of the construction industry, Les' background uniquely positions him as an exceptional leader. During this conversation, he dives into how to create consistent, sustainable and profitable growth for the business, touching on:
- Strategy and Vision
- Future Leaning Systems and Processes
- Human Capital and Leadership
- Markets and Sectors
- Company Culture
Don't miss these valuable insights—tune in now!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello and welcome. I'm Scott Winstead, FMI Consulting President. I'm really excited
(00:06):
to share my conversation with Les Snyder with you. Les is a 44-year industry veteran
with an extremely impressive track record, having served a number of high-profile industry
firms in top leadership positions. He currently serves as Executive Vice President in charge
of construction for Brightline West, the nation's first true high-speed passenger rail system
between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. He is the outgoing President of AGC of America, the
(00:31):
industry's largest trade association with over 27,000 members, having just passed the
gavel in March of this year. Prior to his current post, Les served as President of Shikun and
Benui, a U.S. subsidiary of SMB USA for three years. He was President and CEO of I-plus
Icon USA for eight years prior to selling the business to SMB USA. Prior to that, he
(00:54):
was President and COO of Barton Mallow Company for seven years. And previously to that, he
was Executive Vice President of American Bridge Company for nine years. I must admit, I had
a hard time nearing down the key themes to explore for this episode, given the wealth
of diversity of Les's experience, as there were no shortage of topics we could have touched
on, each of which could have filled an entire episode. Just off the top of my head, Les
(01:19):
has firsthand experience in driving growth, both organic and via mergers and acquisitions,
both on the buy and the sell side, with joint ventures, with various ownership models, having
lead firms that are privately held, both employee and family owned, foreign owned, publicly
traded, and private equity backed, and also with a wide variety of project delivery systems.
(01:41):
Welcome to the show, Les, and thank you so much for being here.
Thank you, Scott. You know, I'm very happy to be here and honored for your invite. With
such an introduction, I am truly humbled and also pretty proud. But even more, your introduction
reminds me that throughout my construction industry career of how many true friendships
I've been blessed to build along the way, and you are one of those. So thank you again,
(02:04):
and let's dig in.
Well, the feelings mutual lesson. And again, thank you. So as I mentioned in the intro,
I feel like I should start this with a bit of a preamble and just say that, you know,
we could easily touch on a number of topics, given everything you've experienced. We could
talk about your current role with Brightline West, whether it's P3s or high speed rail.
But actually, it's your prior experience having led a number of high profile industry firms
(02:28):
that I'd really love to dig into if you're up to it.
I sure am. I'm excited to do it, Scott.
All right, well, let's start out with growth and scale. You know, kind of tracing the steps
back through your career journey. One of the consistent themes has been your ability to
come into an organization and drive consistent and sustainable profitable growth. So I'd
love to start there. And just as you think about growth, what are the levers that you
(02:51):
tend to prioritize when you think about growing a construction enterprise?
There's a lot to think about there. Where I've gotten to this point, Scott, is some
very important pieces of growth. And, you know, I should preface that one of the things
I've also learned along the way is there's times to grow, and there's companies that
(03:12):
aren't ready to grow. And there's also the opposite. Times not to grow and companies
that aren't ready for it. And I must say, I've learned and been, you know, as you mentioned,
successful many times, but I've also learned through the School of Hard Knocks. And that's
formulated some of these feedback that I have on these levers. But first and foremost, strategy
(03:32):
and vision. You know, it could be just a saying to many people. I've been involved in situations
early in my career that, you know, we go through a business plan and the five-year strategic
plan and it literally goes on the shelf. You know, if you're going to successfully grow,
that strategy and vision has got to be out on the desk every day and being communicated
(03:56):
and reinforced regularly to the folks in the company. Otherwise, don't try it. So that's
my first one that I'd point to. The other thing is markets. You know, what is the current
geography and what are the industry sectors that the company is currently aligned with?
(04:16):
And then where could we expand? You know, we're going to go to open another office, which
I have to say that is always sounds good and sounds like a lot of fun, but be prepared
because it should be more hard work than it is fun. And then the industry sectors is always
you should be looking around while we operate, for instance, in the automotive industry.
(04:42):
What are those characteristics and why are we successful there? Like with millwright
trades or anything that we can carry into the power industry. So another facet of growth.
And then there's my really favorite areas that need to be explored when you're growing
is the leadership that's in place and a to go back to the old saying from good to great,
(05:06):
but are the right people on the right seats in the bus? Never any more appropriate saying
that goes along with are we ready to grow and where we can take it? And then there's
the human capital. One, it's very simple. Do we have resources cover what we're currently
doing? Do we have them developed to the point? And then what is our scale that we can take
(05:28):
it to the next level as far as growth? And one of the things that is tough to pay attention
to I've seen it missed. I've missed it, but systems and process. And as easily as that
said, you better be able to have future leaning systems and processes in place before you
kick off your growth spurt. You know, it's just flat essential. And otherwise, you're
(05:53):
going to be constantly digging out of holes through your growth, the most likely incurring
losses and profit. But it's one of those things that get missed quite a bit before the journey
on a growth trajectory has begun. I think you said a mouthful less. I mean, there's
so many things we could unpack there. I mean, flower to summarize essentially have a plan,
(06:14):
but then you have to work the plan to use a cliche. Just the having of the plan is the
easy part, right? Then the real hard, hard, hard stuff comes into play. And and as you
talk about strategy, and you talk about markets, and you talk about segments, I'm reminded
it really strategy is about choices. You know, and choices involve filtering and filtering
is a bit of a superpower because there's a number of general contractors or construction
(06:39):
managers are just contractors in general, be it specially trader heavy civil that want
to be jack of all trades and do everything. But filtering being a superpower, it's just
as important to decide what not to do as it is decide what to do. And I think that's something
that gets lost in the shuffle a lot of times when firms go through a strategy process or
strategic planning and just that that reminder that hard choices are a part of it. And if
(07:04):
you're not making them, you know, the strategy is probably only going to be as effective
as everybody else's is. Yeah, you remind me of one of the themes that I've come out over
all these years, and it's called discipline. We want to have fun doing what we're doing
where extraordinarily risky business that, you know, many others just don't want to participate
in. But with that risk brings to your point, Scott, a lot of choices, carefully choosing
(07:28):
those, those choices along those lines and maintaining discipline to follow up. And also
have the discipline to change those choices when they aren't working.
Exactly. I'd love to kind of double down on one of the concepts you talked about this
concept of scale and scaling. You talked about, you know, there are times to grow and there
are times to not grow based on where the organization is currently. It's one thing to kind of grow
(07:53):
the organization, look back and realize that the company and the people aren't with you.
And so how do you build the infrastructure to make sure that it is matching, you know,
the growth ambitions of the company? So can you talk more about, in your experience, how
you've gone about scaling companies to make sure that you've got the infrastructure and
the sound systems and processes like you mentioned?
(08:15):
It's got spot on in some of the observations, but from my perspective, scaling must be directly
tied to that strategy and vision. And it's about what is it going to take? We've all
seen the picture of this strong and bold leader standing out on a rock with his fist in the
air and full speed ahead, we're going to charge ahead. And I bring that up because I never
(08:40):
see the picture of behind that leader, whether there's enough people that are going to follow
that charge. And that's exactly what this is about. Because as a reference scaling to
the strategy and vision, predominantly that leader must have the ability to communicate
that strategy and get the people that are work together to believe in that vision. Otherwise,
(09:04):
you're not going very far.
Right.
So capacities of the human capital and the organization. And it really comes from a variety
of directions and never took me a while to learn this, but it's not just about what everybody
shows up each day at work. It's about, you know, what was your family life like? How
(09:24):
far are they willing to go? Are they willing to travel? I mean, a lot of times in the construction
industry or most all times, we're going to have to expand geographically. What's the
home life like? Are they willing to go? Some are, some aren't. So those capacities and frankly,
the troops believing in that they should grow. Because there's obstacles sometimes that there's
(09:46):
many people that say, why should we do this? You know, I'm happy. I'm making my salary
and making my bonus.
So I emphasize that as I call it, the capacities of human capital, the organization are really,
really important. And then to what degree, what level of development is the top talent
privileged in and leadership? And, you know, we'll probably talk about this a little later,
(10:11):
but development is not training. Sitting people in a classroom, and we've been there before.
I've heard it plenty of times, you know, sitting people in a classroom and teaching them how
to take off concrete quantities is not development. And we find that the stake being made an awful
lot. What I'm getting at is truly figuring out where the top talent lies. Why are they
(10:36):
the top talent? And how are we going to take that and develop that into the point that
someday they're going to be on their own managing an office, managing a different sector of
the business in your company. But there's an awful lot of attention that needs to be
paid there. But frankly, the real core of this is company culture. Easily said, not easily
(11:00):
figured out. I've learned it's rarely changed, but it evolves in the line with the alignment
of the strategy. I'll give you some examples like, you know, supervision and craft, are
they willing to travel? Are the incentive programs in place to encourage growth? And
if they're not, you better get them there. Willingness to share the upside. His ownership
(11:22):
looked around and figured out that we got to encourage these folks to embrace the new
vision. And then also encouraged and or new but related markets sectors because, you know,
to our earlier points, there's discipline and so forth. And those choices are going
to take you down a path that aren't a couple months, but it ends up being years. And that
(11:44):
choice has been made incorrectly or without sound vision strategy. You're gonna spend
a couple years wasting or maybe losing some money.
Yeah, it's the one step forward, two steps back, right? If it's not aligned. It's a
lot of friction you introduced to the system. You mentioned something that is of interest
to me and that's how do you approach folks in your organization that don't want to grow?
(12:07):
And that's not a value judgment. They just they're comfortable with where things are.
They like the culture. They like things as they are the status quo. I'm just curious
if you have a rule of thumb or a mental model is to how you interact with those folks and
kind of what those conversations are like.
Great question. I love it. And my answer to that is making sure they understand they still
(12:27):
have a place in the organization. Growth isn't about throwing everything that has worked
in the past and throwing away to take on some new strategy and vision. We've got to keep
the base and that base is going to help feed that growth and expansion for the people that
aren't encouraged or not looking to do much growth in their career. That's fine. We need
(12:51):
those people to the most important thing that many times gets missed that they understand
that. And that's just as important as where we're going and how we're expanding and going
in other places. But that is such a key point that gets overlooked many times, Scott.
I love that answer. It's funny because I think the human nature, the tendency of leaders
(13:13):
is to try to negotiate and try to convince the other person as to why they should want
to grow, which is a bit of a fool's errand. I think just the importance of making sure
that everybody's got a place if they're doing their job and doing it well and they buy into
the values. I think that's such a critical piece of advice.
Moving on the growth theme, switching gears a little bit from the organic. I'd love to
(13:36):
tap into your experience around the M&A front. You've obviously been on the buy side, you've
been on the sell side, you've managed to drive integrations and you've been on the other
side of integration. So kind of playing off of that. Curious if you could narrow down
the critical drivers of successful acquisitions in your view.
(13:56):
The one thing is you bring up mergers and acquisitions. And in matter of fact, even recently, a peer
that I was talking to is talking about succession in their company. And they said, well, if
all this doesn't work, we'll just sell the company. And I said, there's a little bit
more to it than that. And my point of bringing that up is it's hard. Mergers and acquisition
(14:19):
are hard. And it needs to be taken seriously and it takes you out of the element. And I
compare it to having, you know, while we work many, many long hours in the construction
industry. When you decide whether buy side or sell side and go down the M&A trail, you've
just taken on your second job. Because you cannot, to be successful, cannot let that
(14:42):
M&A activity interrupt the ongoing business. And it's so easily done if you're not paying
attention.
But from a buy side, I really want to go back and emphasize what is my overall strategy.
You can look around. We all know there's plenty of companies out there and one can sound good
(15:03):
or not. But is it a fit? You know, is it fit the geographic expansion you decided to go?
Does it fit the market sectors you're deciding to grow? Or the clients around, you know,
the direction you're taking your company? And again, it gets back to that culture. An
example that I'll put forth, if you're a company that's a design builder and you're doing a
(15:27):
lot of private work and you've been successful along that way and, you know, you're like
located in, you know, let's say Pennsylvania, and you come across this company that's basically
a design bid builder that's located in a geographic area of southern Virginia you want to go after.
I don't think that's a fit. It's going to take you years to get that culture evolved
(15:51):
to fit into your business. So there really has to be a tailoring of the targets you pursue.
The other thing on buy side, which I'll get back to when we talk about sell side too,
is I come back around to these systems and processes. Buying a company, especially in
construction, is the decision that you have to plan for. And part of that is systems and
(16:14):
processes. And if you do not have that in place, do not begin your acquisition journey.
It will basically destiny to failure. You will not be able to get the information back
from costs and be able to control estimates and all those kind of things. A lot of us
are, you know, we believe we're ready in the construction industry and everything, but
(16:37):
test it. I mean, go back out, check out your ERP, look at your cost accounting systems.
Where do I have weaknesses and so forth? Because once you make that move to acquire, you're
going to see a lot of things that you maybe didn't expect and you're while you're integrating
and modifying and getting that company put together. On the sell side, I find it interesting
(17:00):
because, you know, they're similar relationship to these, these issues. But recent experience,
you need to identify and how you're going to react to your targeted acquires. You basically
build a marketing plan of your firm around that. If you're owned by private equity, there's
(17:21):
a belief that private equity is going to be your acquire. Quite possible. But there's
also other companies, you know, big businesses, whether they're privately held, employee owned,
looking for expansion. Or in the case that I was recently involved with is a strategy
that we developed and built our company sell plan around is a platform of a international
(17:47):
company. And there's different things for each case. But I stress that while you decide
to sell your company, it's a decision that takes a lot of planning. And like I said,
identify and plan around who you think your targeted acquirer is. Integration again, once
(18:08):
acquired is a huge issue, especially when typically there's scale issues, right? The
acquire can be much larger or however the scale is. And that difference in size is going
to create those first pieces of how we put things together and how we merge people. And
it's a very, very complicated exercise that you got to follow a lot of discipline with.
(18:34):
But those are some key points here. But all in all, successful mergers and acquisitions
evolve around planning, planning, planning. And that is going to be the successful point
because at the end of the day, the reason I open this is hard, and it ain't going to
get easier as the old saying goes. So with a plan, you got a lot of those things solved
(18:58):
and there's still going to be things that bubble up. But merging acquisitions are a
great way to grow and accomplish succession plans. And so I encourage them when they're
the right fit.
It's a great point. Some of the firms that we would look to as being the sort of models
of what good acquisitions and a good acquisition strategy looks like, they're very clear on
(19:19):
their strategy. In other words, we get calls all the time, hey, we want to acquire companies.
The first question we have is what are you solving for? How is this extending your stated
strategy? And if that's not clear, then there's work to do before you start to go out and
go shopping, so to speak. So great discussion around growth and scale. I would love to talk
(19:40):
more about just ownership models because they can be incredible levers to drive success
and growth for a business. And you've, I think, experienced just about all the different
variations on a number of themes when it comes to various ownership models. You know, having
worked with privately held businesses, both family owned and employee owned, publicly
(20:02):
traded companies, international companies, even private equity backed. I'm curious if
in your experience, you've seen a through line or something that would sort of define success
regardless of what the ownership model is.
Yeah, that's a great question. It provokes a lot of thoughts, Scott. But what immediately
comes to my mind, that thread is leadership. When I say that, there are each different
(20:28):
ownership profile. There's obviously leadership, but that leadership needs possess variations
on how to run the company and where it's going to take forward. But without strong leadership,
and this is typical of any business, and that might see like a saying, but that strong leadership
(20:50):
has to really be able to fit with the ownership model. But that's, that's what takes us forward.
And it's not just a CEO or CEO or CFO. I'm talking about leadership all the way into
the field forces, talking about development programs that we called ours, the one that
actually FMI helped us develop and became pretty acknowledged in the industry is we
(21:12):
called it leadership development, but super superintendents were in it. And they would
ask me, why am I in this leadership development? I said, well, how many people do you lead
a day? Well, let's see, it's a couple hundred today. It's like, well, you qualify next,
let's move on to that. So I really want to say it's just not at the top level, it's
throughout the organization. And that theme is consistent and throughout every organization,
(21:37):
no matter what the ownership structure is. But then there's that variations on how we
plug it all together that's driven by the ownership model and incentives, of course,
and how they're distributed. Yeah, I love the, I love the conversation with the superintendent
just because if you think about the, the financial model of any construction firm, whether it's
a CM or whether it's a specialty trade labor intensive firm, you look at the P and L material
(22:02):
subcontracts labor and equipment, that's 90% plus or minus of the P and L and superintendents
have a direct impact on the success or failure of the income statement. It's a great reminder
of how everybody's a leader. Following up on that theme as you think about leadership
and development, I'm curious, when you think about high potentials and the development of
(22:24):
high potentials, you know, what comes to mind and what have you seen really work with that
sort of next level of talent in an organization? I have a lot of answers to that question.
Hopefully I can get them all out there. But first of all, there's, it's just one of my
passions and, you know, I reflect back on my career and where I started and, you know,
(22:46):
not to forget that I'm third generation in this business and a grandfather and father in this
business or great mentors. But, you know, early in my career, especially my first run
at a president of a company that spent every day, every morning that he was in town, coming
through the estimate department and talking to us and what are you doing and those kind of things
(23:08):
and as I moved on, you know, there were folks that were in senior leadership positions that I
would have a question and, you know, they maybe reluctantly because they're busy, but they at
least take the time with me to answer it. And I truly have never forgotten that. It took me a long
time to understand the value of that as I moved in and through my career track. But directly to
(23:32):
your point with high potentials, pay attention. If you really want to, you know, have a strong
company, paying attention to your high potentials and your top talent is crucial. It is worth that
time. I would tell you there's times that's painful that, you know, maybe it's going out for a beer
and I got to get back to the office and finish what I was doing. And that's what it's all about.
(23:57):
And, you know, we, the volume programs are important, but it has to run through the organization. It
can't just be the president or the, you know, it has to be part of senior leadership's
discipline and direction is to mix and mingle and get out there, answer questions. The other thing
(24:18):
that is we're getting there in the construction industry, I believe it's going to get much faster,
but we're not there yet. It's the timely knowledge transfer that we got to engage in.
You know, our new generations that are coming are tech savvy and, you know, our older generations,
(24:39):
we utilize it, but not nearly to the degree. And we got to figure out better ways to take all those
superintendents and project managers and all the ways they've built and lessons learned and
transfer that to our up and coming generations. Technology can do that. But, you know, part of
all that is figuring out how to put them all together and get that to happen. The more senior
(25:03):
generations start to respect how fast answers can come, contrary to them taking several hours and
realizing that use of technology and get that answer within minutes. And then all in all, it's
getting whether, you know, the type of potentials in the new generations of talent in your company
is making sure they know one another and that they interact and network. And that's just so
(25:26):
important. You know, all of our businesses across the world were so interrupted by COVID.
And we hear all the stories of the challenges and so forth, but I really feel in our construction
industry, it's even more important because we're a business that happens from the headquarters
to field offices to write it at the work site and so forth. And that networking and understanding
(25:48):
of people and people skills only comes by being together and having activity together. So,
it's a big part of the way I see bring up talent.
Great observation and there's a number of things that we can talk about there.
Just a reminder of the importance of the investment of time. You know, nothing replaces time and
letting people know that you care about their success and their development.
(26:10):
Kind of that old relationship bank account sort of philosophy, you know, you got to put a whole lot
of deposits, you know, in the account for people to help them along their career journey because
somebody probably helped you with it along the way. Certainly, that's the case in my situation.
So, we've talked about a lot of great topics and really, I think, touched the treetops of
(26:31):
most of them, right? We could go a lot deeper on a lot of these things. I'd love to pivot a little
bit and talk just about, you know, personally your career and your inflection points. I know
you're not one to sit back and reflect given your drive to keep on going and keep growing and keep,
you know, keep learning and keep, keep developing and leading. But I'd love your take on your own
(26:52):
career specifically, you know, what would you say are the inflection points that have most defined
your career? I love the question, Scott. It provokes a lot of thoughts. I referenced it a
little earlier, but when I got out of engineering school at the University of Pittsburgh, you know,
actually went to work for a company that I didn't realize I was at a waiting job in my great business
(27:15):
restaurant in Pittsburgh and that when I walked in for the final interview, I'd actually been waiting
on them for the last four years of my college career and, you know, I had other competing
offices, but that was it because we knew each other, right? So, right out of the gate, teaching
and learning about relationships was proven right there, but it was a company that, I'll
(27:36):
tie all this together, but everybody started estimating as a young engineer. And that wasn't
really the vision I had of where I want to start my career. I want to jump into the field and run
projects and go there, but it was a great way to teach you the basics because the theory was,
until you know what things cost in the construction industry, which is vital,
you're not going to be successful later. And I'll never forget that and it's proven to be
(28:00):
the right place to start all along the way. Fortunately, when I raised my hand, I went
into operations and project management and then, you know, talk about a major turning point in
inflections. There was an opening in business development, you know. So, here's my vision.
I have three generations of this construction person that I'm going to be and now I got to go out and
(28:25):
follow a bunch of people and go play golf. Like, that's just not in the cards. But I sat and
reflected on it quite a bit and it was a major turning point in my career and I'll get to that
is because I made a decision that wasn't what it was going to be. You know, I was going to go and
figure out how to convince clients how, you know, we were the best company on the job and how I
(28:45):
understood the build and why I could communicate all the people I was going to bring from my company
to go figure out how to build their job. And I just took that on and it was in my younger
days of the career. But I would tell you that we increased sales significantly
was a lot of negotiated work and I couldn't have been prouder of that accomplishment.
(29:10):
But it really is the years went on that piece and that career move that I so didn't want to do
was one of the biggest moves I ever made my career. So it was really very special.
And then, you know, as we we went on and you'll hear this in the construction industry, but
you know, it is so important that going from the whole operation side and running work and
(29:36):
doing those things and then having the opportunity and in my case, it was go open a satellite
office in Florida for an organization. There's such a big, big difference. And the most successful
operations director, whoever you have might not be the best business person that can actually
take on all this and not the abilities. It's the stresses and the determination and the
(30:00):
persistence to fall down two or three days in a row and pick it back up. And then you know,
and go after and go get work. And so a lot of those lessons built on that and, you know, that whole
concept of engaging and starting to run my career through running a business versus just a project,
(30:21):
major change. And then as we went on being introduced to different ownership forms and
everything, we're just lessons and volumes of lessons upon volumes that I'll never forget. But
at this point, the mergers and acquisitions as I earlier referenced, you know, it's just, it's
hard, but when you're successful, it's really satisfying because you've merged business and
(30:45):
culture and relationships and all those pieces. And then I look at what today brings and, you know,
as we're looking to start something that's never been done in the US, it's hard to, by the way,
but we're going to do it and it's going to be very successful. But, you know, something that all
up is there's just always, it's your choice. There's so much in front of you at any stage of your
(31:07):
career in the construction industry. You can go places, see things, and you've got to build those
opportunities. And, you know, hopefully along all those parts that I just provided for you, Scott,
folks can see not just my model, but there is so much to do here and you never have to stop.
And that's just a great advantage to be in the construction business.
I love the story about the business development role that you didn't want being one of the,
(31:32):
one of the greatest lessons of your career. I think that's such a good takeaway for so many folks.
Kind of keeping in that theme, knowing what you know now, what advice would you go back and give
to your 25-year-old self as you were kind of getting, getting started in the industry?
First, the answer that comes to mind is patience. There are a lot of times and you learn your lessons,
(31:54):
which is the contrary to this, about making mistakes. And just, are you with an organization
that's going to permit you to manage you? As long as they have control of your mistakes
and teaching you, they're not in danger. And that's a really hard skill or discipline to bring the
organizations. But it's, it's an EQ piece, right, a leadership that, I got top talent here. We know
(32:20):
they're going to make mistakes and we got to let them, but we got to manage it. And that's how I
piece together that I would tell myself to have more patience, but also tell myself, don't quit
pushing, right? Pushing and stretching is the way you keep moving the business, you keep companies
going. And in my book, it's about growth and successful growth. But again, that piece of patience
(32:46):
never hurts. I love the idea. Are you with a firm that permits you to make mistakes?
And so long as the company has the guardrails and the controls in place, so you can allow for that.
But I'm always fascinated, had a recalling a conversation with a CEO that, that you know,
and we're talking about, he always gets a chuck out of any time he hears somebody in his organization,
(33:10):
some leaders say, well, so and so is not ready. So and so is not ready for that next, whatever it is.
And his response is always, well, were you ready? When you got promoted into like, did you have it
all figured out day one before you actually showed up for the job? Nobody is right. Everybody's
learning on the job to some degree. And so I think there's an element of how do you create a safe
(33:31):
enough environment, but push people beyond their comfort zone. That's where the growth happens.
Really, really fascinating stuff. So we've talked about a lot. I'd love to, you know, since I have
you here, I'd love to pick your brain on just the industry overall. So if we were to zoom out for a
little bit, you know, beyond kind of the companies you've worked with, and just get you to look into
(33:52):
your crystal ball and think about, you know, what do you think the construction industry looks like
10 years from now? I love that question. And exiting my past president position at AGC of America,
which gave me an opportunity to see so many more folks and companies and everything. So it's a
I'm at a stage where I even have more to that answer to answering that question that I ever had
(34:15):
before. But number one, the generations that are upcoming are as impressive as I've ever seen.
Their desire and really looking towards being successful in the construction industry is
it's off the charts. They're definitely displaying what the new generations bring forth. But I am
(34:38):
one that believes that they will take this industry and they will take it on a track that we in my
generation never envisioned. The technology piece, the construction industry, I'm a fan that make it
go faster. We'll get there. But it needs to go faster. And, you know, if we look five years,
(34:58):
10 years down the road, this gen these generations are upcoming will be we'll have some of the best
gamers on heavy equipment, right? We'll have gamers that are operating robotics to put Masonry Block
and so forth. And then that causes me to also remind ourselves that I also see the trend that,
(35:21):
you know, I've been wanting to work to change for so many years that this is a great place to be.
The construction is a great place to work. It's a great thing to take home to your family when you
are a carpenter, operator or whatever and say, this is what I did today. And, you know, we are
making progress. Again, I'm impatient here on these pieces, but we'll get there. But what I want to
(35:47):
really remind everybody is as we push technology, we will even need more trades to be in the construction
industry. In our country today, we're seeing more growth than we ever have before. It's not going
to stop. We got to rebuild our entire infrastructure system and the pace of change is just in data
(36:11):
centers and all of these things. We're going to see a construction industry as vibrant, robust,
that it's ever been in its history. And for that, we need all the resources to come. Technology,
craft, super smart people and those that really want to be there and do things that others
consider impossible. I really love the vision that, you know, what's coming out here. And then last
(36:35):
but not least, because I've always been a proponent, I think we're going to see a much higher use of
alternative project delivery systems that's a passion of mine and we need to, right? Public
agencies are figuring it out. Again, we got to help them, but there's too much talent, too much
expertise and everything that we got to engage and make a value in the pre-construction design process.
(36:59):
And when we can do that, projects are going to be so much more successful. I'm not a data
fiend on trying to figure out what are successful and what aren't. I just know there was more
contractor involvement and design pre-construction that's successful. I've lived it my whole life
and again, tying it all to all the technology and the talent that's coming up. It's going to be
(37:21):
it's going to be a proven fact as we go. So in summary, Scott, I just have a really strong passion
to see this business be as vibrant, robust as I said, as ever in its history. And we got the talent
and resources that will be coming together because we're going to attract it. I love it. What a great
place to end the conversation, Les. Again, I can't thank you enough. I appreciate your time as always
(37:44):
and your wisdom and your insights. And we'd love to have you back anytime, anytime you'd like. Anytime
you have a hole in your calendar, we'd love to have you back. But thank you so much.
Thank you, Scott. Greatly enjoyed it and always great luck to everybody. Stay safe out there.
As always, thank you so much for listening. And please remember to like or subscribe to the podcast
so you don't miss an episode.
Hello and welcome. I'm Scott Winstead, FMI Consulting President. I'm really excited
(00:06):
to share my conversation with Les Snyder with you. Les is a 44-year industry veteran
with an extremely impressive track record, having served a number of high-profile industry
firms in top leadership positions. He currently serves as Executive Vice President in charge
of construction for Brightline West, the nation's first true high-speed passenger rail system
between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. He is the outgoing President of AGC of America, the
(00:31):
industry's largest trade association with over 27,000 members, having just passed the
gavel in March of this year. Prior to his current post, Les served as President of Shikun and
Benui, a U.S. subsidiary of SMB USA for three years. He was President and CEO of I-plus
Icon USA for eight years prior to selling the business to SMB USA. Prior to that, he
(00:54):
was President and COO of Barton Mallow Company for seven years. And previously to that, he
was Executive Vice President of American Bridge Company for nine years. I must admit, I had
a hard time nearing down the key themes to explore for this episode, given the wealth
of diversity of Les's experience, as there were no shortage of topics we could have touched
on, each of which could have filled an entire episode. Just off the top of my head, Les
(01:19):
has firsthand experience in driving growth, both organic and via mergers and acquisitions,
both on the buy and the sell side, with joint ventures, with various ownership models, having
lead firms that are privately held, both employee and family owned, foreign owned, publicly
traded, and private equity backed, and also with a wide variety of project delivery systems.
(01:41):
Welcome to the show, Les, and thank you so much for being here.
Thank you, Scott. You know, I'm very happy to be here and honored for your invite. With
such an introduction, I am truly humbled and also pretty proud. But even more, your introduction
reminds me that throughout my construction industry career of how many true friendships
I've been blessed to build along the way, and you are one of those. So thank you again,
(02:04):
and let's dig in.
Well, the feelings mutual lesson. And again, thank you. So as I mentioned in the intro,
I feel like I should start this with a bit of a preamble and just say that, you know,
we could easily touch on a number of topics, given everything you've experienced. We could
talk about your current role with Brightline West, whether it's P3s or high speed rail.
But actually, it's your prior experience having led a number of high profile industry firms
(02:28):
that I'd really love to dig into if you're up to it.
I sure am. I'm excited to do it, Scott.
All right, well, let's start out with growth and scale. You know, kind of tracing the steps
back through your career journey. One of the consistent themes has been your ability to
come into an organization and drive consistent and sustainable profitable growth. So I'd
love to start there. And just as you think about growth, what are the levers that you
(02:51):
tend to prioritize when you think about growing a construction enterprise?
There's a lot to think about there. Where I've gotten to this point, Scott, is some
very important pieces of growth. And, you know, I should preface that one of the things
I've also learned along the way is there's times to grow, and there's companies that
(03:12):
aren't ready to grow. And there's also the opposite. Times not to grow and companies
that aren't ready for it. And I must say, I've learned and been, you know, as you mentioned,
successful many times, but I've also learned through the School of Hard Knocks. And that's
formulated some of these feedback that I have on these levers. But first and foremost, strategy
(03:32):
and vision. You know, it could be just a saying to many people. I've been involved in situations
early in my career that, you know, we go through a business plan and the five-year strategic
plan and it literally goes on the shelf. You know, if you're going to successfully grow,
that strategy and vision has got to be out on the desk every day and being communicated
(03:56):
and reinforced regularly to the folks in the company. Otherwise, don't try it. So that's
my first one that I'd point to. The other thing is markets. You know, what is the current
geography and what are the industry sectors that the company is currently aligned with?
(04:16):
And then where could we expand? You know, we're going to go to open another office, which
I have to say that is always sounds good and sounds like a lot of fun, but be prepared
because it should be more hard work than it is fun. And then the industry sectors is always
you should be looking around while we operate, for instance, in the automotive industry.
(04:42):
What are those characteristics and why are we successful there? Like with millwright
trades or anything that we can carry into the power industry. So another facet of growth.
And then there's my really favorite areas that need to be explored when you're growing
is the leadership that's in place and a to go back to the old saying from good to great,
(05:06):
but are the right people on the right seats in the bus? Never any more appropriate saying
that goes along with are we ready to grow and where we can take it? And then there's
the human capital. One, it's very simple. Do we have resources cover what we're currently
doing? Do we have them developed to the point? And then what is our scale that we can take
(05:28):
it to the next level as far as growth? And one of the things that is tough to pay attention
to I've seen it missed. I've missed it, but systems and process. And as easily as that
said, you better be able to have future leaning systems and processes in place before you
kick off your growth spurt. You know, it's just flat essential. And otherwise, you're
(05:53):
going to be constantly digging out of holes through your growth, the most likely incurring
losses and profit. But it's one of those things that get missed quite a bit before the journey
on a growth trajectory has begun. I think you said a mouthful less. I mean, there's
so many things we could unpack there. I mean, flower to summarize essentially have a plan,
(06:14):
but then you have to work the plan to use a cliche. Just the having of the plan is the
easy part, right? Then the real hard, hard, hard stuff comes into play. And and as you
talk about strategy, and you talk about markets, and you talk about segments, I'm reminded
it really strategy is about choices. You know, and choices involve filtering and filtering
is a bit of a superpower because there's a number of general contractors or construction
(06:39):
managers are just contractors in general, be it specially trader heavy civil that want
to be jack of all trades and do everything. But filtering being a superpower, it's just
as important to decide what not to do as it is decide what to do. And I think that's something
that gets lost in the shuffle a lot of times when firms go through a strategy process or
strategic planning and just that that reminder that hard choices are a part of it. And if
(07:04):
you're not making them, you know, the strategy is probably only going to be as effective
as everybody else's is. Yeah, you remind me of one of the themes that I've come out over
all these years, and it's called discipline. We want to have fun doing what we're doing
where extraordinarily risky business that, you know, many others just don't want to participate
in. But with that risk brings to your point, Scott, a lot of choices, carefully choosing
(07:28):
those, those choices along those lines and maintaining discipline to follow up. And also
have the discipline to change those choices when they aren't working.
Exactly. I'd love to kind of double down on one of the concepts you talked about this
concept of scale and scaling. You talked about, you know, there are times to grow and there
are times to not grow based on where the organization is currently. It's one thing to kind of grow
(07:53):
the organization, look back and realize that the company and the people aren't with you.
And so how do you build the infrastructure to make sure that it is matching, you know,
the growth ambitions of the company? So can you talk more about, in your experience, how
you've gone about scaling companies to make sure that you've got the infrastructure and
the sound systems and processes like you mentioned?
(08:15):
It's got spot on in some of the observations, but from my perspective, scaling must be directly
tied to that strategy and vision. And it's about what is it going to take? We've all
seen the picture of this strong and bold leader standing out on a rock with his fist in the
air and full speed ahead, we're going to charge ahead. And I bring that up because I never
(08:40):
see the picture of behind that leader, whether there's enough people that are going to follow
that charge. And that's exactly what this is about. Because as a reference scaling to
the strategy and vision, predominantly that leader must have the ability to communicate
that strategy and get the people that are work together to believe in that vision. Otherwise,
(09:04):
you're not going very far.
Right.
So capacities of the human capital and the organization. And it really comes from a variety
of directions and never took me a while to learn this, but it's not just about what everybody
shows up each day at work. It's about, you know, what was your family life like? How
(09:24):
far are they willing to go? Are they willing to travel? I mean, a lot of times in the construction
industry or most all times, we're going to have to expand geographically. What's the
home life like? Are they willing to go? Some are, some aren't. So those capacities and frankly,
the troops believing in that they should grow. Because there's obstacles sometimes that there's
(09:46):
many people that say, why should we do this? You know, I'm happy. I'm making my salary
and making my bonus.
So I emphasize that as I call it, the capacities of human capital, the organization are really,
really important. And then to what degree, what level of development is the top talent
privileged in and leadership? And, you know, we'll probably talk about this a little later,
(10:11):
but development is not training. Sitting people in a classroom, and we've been there before.
I've heard it plenty of times, you know, sitting people in a classroom and teaching them how
to take off concrete quantities is not development. And we find that the stake being made an awful
lot. What I'm getting at is truly figuring out where the top talent lies. Why are they
(10:36):
the top talent? And how are we going to take that and develop that into the point that
someday they're going to be on their own managing an office, managing a different sector of
the business in your company. But there's an awful lot of attention that needs to be
paid there. But frankly, the real core of this is company culture. Easily said, not easily
(11:00):
figured out. I've learned it's rarely changed, but it evolves in the line with the alignment
of the strategy. I'll give you some examples like, you know, supervision and craft, are
they willing to travel? Are the incentive programs in place to encourage growth? And
if they're not, you better get them there. Willingness to share the upside. His ownership
(11:22):
looked around and figured out that we got to encourage these folks to embrace the new
vision. And then also encouraged and or new but related markets sectors because, you know,
to our earlier points, there's discipline and so forth. And those choices are going
to take you down a path that aren't a couple months, but it ends up being years. And that
(11:44):
choice has been made incorrectly or without sound vision strategy. You're gonna spend
a couple years wasting or maybe losing some money.
Yeah, it's the one step forward, two steps back, right? If it's not aligned. It's a
lot of friction you introduced to the system. You mentioned something that is of interest
to me and that's how do you approach folks in your organization that don't want to grow?
(12:07):
And that's not a value judgment. They just they're comfortable with where things are.
They like the culture. They like things as they are the status quo. I'm just curious
if you have a rule of thumb or a mental model is to how you interact with those folks and
kind of what those conversations are like.
Great question. I love it. And my answer to that is making sure they understand they still
(12:27):
have a place in the organization. Growth isn't about throwing everything that has worked
in the past and throwing away to take on some new strategy and vision. We've got to keep
the base and that base is going to help feed that growth and expansion for the people that
aren't encouraged or not looking to do much growth in their career. That's fine. We need
(12:51):
those people to the most important thing that many times gets missed that they understand
that. And that's just as important as where we're going and how we're expanding and going
in other places. But that is such a key point that gets overlooked many times, Scott.
I love that answer. It's funny because I think the human nature, the tendency of leaders
(13:13):
is to try to negotiate and try to convince the other person as to why they should want
to grow, which is a bit of a fool's errand. I think just the importance of making sure
that everybody's got a place if they're doing their job and doing it well and they buy into
the values. I think that's such a critical piece of advice.
Moving on the growth theme, switching gears a little bit from the organic. I'd love to
(13:36):
tap into your experience around the M&A front. You've obviously been on the buy side, you've
been on the sell side, you've managed to drive integrations and you've been on the other
side of integration. So kind of playing off of that. Curious if you could narrow down
the critical drivers of successful acquisitions in your view.
(13:56):
The one thing is you bring up mergers and acquisitions. And in matter of fact, even recently, a peer
that I was talking to is talking about succession in their company. And they said, well, if
all this doesn't work, we'll just sell the company. And I said, there's a little bit
more to it than that. And my point of bringing that up is it's hard. Mergers and acquisition
(14:19):
are hard. And it needs to be taken seriously and it takes you out of the element. And I
compare it to having, you know, while we work many, many long hours in the construction
industry. When you decide whether buy side or sell side and go down the M&A trail, you've
just taken on your second job. Because you cannot, to be successful, cannot let that
(14:42):
M&A activity interrupt the ongoing business. And it's so easily done if you're not paying
attention.
But from a buy side, I really want to go back and emphasize what is my overall strategy.
You can look around. We all know there's plenty of companies out there and one can sound good
(15:03):
or not. But is it a fit? You know, is it fit the geographic expansion you decided to go?
Does it fit the market sectors you're deciding to grow? Or the clients around, you know,
the direction you're taking your company? And again, it gets back to that culture. An
example that I'll put forth, if you're a company that's a design builder and you're doing a
(15:27):
lot of private work and you've been successful along that way and, you know, you're like
located in, you know, let's say Pennsylvania, and you come across this company that's basically
a design bid builder that's located in a geographic area of southern Virginia you want to go after.
I don't think that's a fit. It's going to take you years to get that culture evolved
(15:51):
to fit into your business. So there really has to be a tailoring of the targets you pursue.
The other thing on buy side, which I'll get back to when we talk about sell side too,
is I come back around to these systems and processes. Buying a company, especially in
construction, is the decision that you have to plan for. And part of that is systems and
(16:14):
processes. And if you do not have that in place, do not begin your acquisition journey.
It will basically destiny to failure. You will not be able to get the information back
from costs and be able to control estimates and all those kind of things. A lot of us
are, you know, we believe we're ready in the construction industry and everything, but
(16:37):
test it. I mean, go back out, check out your ERP, look at your cost accounting systems.
Where do I have weaknesses and so forth? Because once you make that move to acquire, you're
going to see a lot of things that you maybe didn't expect and you're while you're integrating
and modifying and getting that company put together. On the sell side, I find it interesting
(17:00):
because, you know, they're similar relationship to these, these issues. But recent experience,
you need to identify and how you're going to react to your targeted acquires. You basically
build a marketing plan of your firm around that. If you're owned by private equity, there's
(17:21):
a belief that private equity is going to be your acquire. Quite possible. But there's
also other companies, you know, big businesses, whether they're privately held, employee owned,
looking for expansion. Or in the case that I was recently involved with is a strategy
that we developed and built our company sell plan around is a platform of a international
(17:47):
company. And there's different things for each case. But I stress that while you decide
to sell your company, it's a decision that takes a lot of planning. And like I said,
identify and plan around who you think your targeted acquirer is. Integration again, once
(18:08):
acquired is a huge issue, especially when typically there's scale issues, right? The
acquire can be much larger or however the scale is. And that difference in size is going
to create those first pieces of how we put things together and how we merge people. And
it's a very, very complicated exercise that you got to follow a lot of discipline with.
(18:34):
But those are some key points here. But all in all, successful mergers and acquisitions
evolve around planning, planning, planning. And that is going to be the successful point
because at the end of the day, the reason I open this is hard, and it ain't going to
get easier as the old saying goes. So with a plan, you got a lot of those things solved
(18:58):
and there's still going to be things that bubble up. But merging acquisitions are a
great way to grow and accomplish succession plans. And so I encourage them when they're
the right fit.
It's a great point. Some of the firms that we would look to as being the sort of models
of what good acquisitions and a good acquisition strategy looks like, they're very clear on
(19:19):
their strategy. In other words, we get calls all the time, hey, we want to acquire companies.
The first question we have is what are you solving for? How is this extending your stated
strategy? And if that's not clear, then there's work to do before you start to go out and
go shopping, so to speak. So great discussion around growth and scale. I would love to talk
(19:40):
more about just ownership models because they can be incredible levers to drive success
and growth for a business. And you've, I think, experienced just about all the different
variations on a number of themes when it comes to various ownership models. You know, having
worked with privately held businesses, both family owned and employee owned, publicly
(20:02):
traded companies, international companies, even private equity backed. I'm curious if
in your experience, you've seen a through line or something that would sort of define success
regardless of what the ownership model is.
Yeah, that's a great question. It provokes a lot of thoughts, Scott. But what immediately
comes to my mind, that thread is leadership. When I say that, there are each different
(20:28):
ownership profile. There's obviously leadership, but that leadership needs possess variations
on how to run the company and where it's going to take forward. But without strong leadership,
and this is typical of any business, and that might see like a saying, but that strong leadership
(20:50):
has to really be able to fit with the ownership model. But that's, that's what takes us forward.
And it's not just a CEO or CEO or CFO. I'm talking about leadership all the way into
the field forces, talking about development programs that we called ours, the one that
actually FMI helped us develop and became pretty acknowledged in the industry is we
(21:12):
called it leadership development, but super superintendents were in it. And they would
ask me, why am I in this leadership development? I said, well, how many people do you lead
a day? Well, let's see, it's a couple hundred today. It's like, well, you qualify next,
let's move on to that. So I really want to say it's just not at the top level, it's
throughout the organization. And that theme is consistent and throughout every organization,
(21:37):
no matter what the ownership structure is. But then there's that variations on how we
plug it all together that's driven by the ownership model and incentives, of course,
and how they're distributed. Yeah, I love the, I love the conversation with the superintendent
just because if you think about the, the financial model of any construction firm, whether it's
a CM or whether it's a specialty trade labor intensive firm, you look at the P and L material
(22:02):
subcontracts labor and equipment, that's 90% plus or minus of the P and L and superintendents
have a direct impact on the success or failure of the income statement. It's a great reminder
of how everybody's a leader. Following up on that theme as you think about leadership
and development, I'm curious, when you think about high potentials and the development of
(22:24):
high potentials, you know, what comes to mind and what have you seen really work with that
sort of next level of talent in an organization? I have a lot of answers to that question.
Hopefully I can get them all out there. But first of all, there's, it's just one of my
passions and, you know, I reflect back on my career and where I started and, you know,
(22:46):
not to forget that I'm third generation in this business and a grandfather and father in this
business or great mentors. But, you know, early in my career, especially my first run
at a president of a company that spent every day, every morning that he was in town, coming
through the estimate department and talking to us and what are you doing and those kind of things
(23:08):
and as I moved on, you know, there were folks that were in senior leadership positions that I
would have a question and, you know, they maybe reluctantly because they're busy, but they at
least take the time with me to answer it. And I truly have never forgotten that. It took me a long
time to understand the value of that as I moved in and through my career track. But directly to
(23:32):
your point with high potentials, pay attention. If you really want to, you know, have a strong
company, paying attention to your high potentials and your top talent is crucial. It is worth that
time. I would tell you there's times that's painful that, you know, maybe it's going out for a beer
and I got to get back to the office and finish what I was doing. And that's what it's all about.
(23:57):
And, you know, we, the volume programs are important, but it has to run through the organization. It
can't just be the president or the, you know, it has to be part of senior leadership's
discipline and direction is to mix and mingle and get out there, answer questions. The other thing
(24:18):
that is we're getting there in the construction industry, I believe it's going to get much faster,
but we're not there yet. It's the timely knowledge transfer that we got to engage in.
You know, our new generations that are coming are tech savvy and, you know, our older generations,
(24:39):
we utilize it, but not nearly to the degree. And we got to figure out better ways to take all those
superintendents and project managers and all the ways they've built and lessons learned and
transfer that to our up and coming generations. Technology can do that. But, you know, part of
all that is figuring out how to put them all together and get that to happen. The more senior
(25:03):
generations start to respect how fast answers can come, contrary to them taking several hours and
realizing that use of technology and get that answer within minutes. And then all in all, it's
getting whether, you know, the type of potentials in the new generations of talent in your company
is making sure they know one another and that they interact and network. And that's just so
(25:26):
important. You know, all of our businesses across the world were so interrupted by COVID.
And we hear all the stories of the challenges and so forth, but I really feel in our construction
industry, it's even more important because we're a business that happens from the headquarters
to field offices to write it at the work site and so forth. And that networking and understanding
(25:48):
of people and people skills only comes by being together and having activity together. So,
it's a big part of the way I see bring up talent.
Great observation and there's a number of things that we can talk about there.
Just a reminder of the importance of the investment of time. You know, nothing replaces time and
letting people know that you care about their success and their development.
(26:10):
Kind of that old relationship bank account sort of philosophy, you know, you got to put a whole lot
of deposits, you know, in the account for people to help them along their career journey because
somebody probably helped you with it along the way. Certainly, that's the case in my situation.
So, we've talked about a lot of great topics and really, I think, touched the treetops of
(26:31):
most of them, right? We could go a lot deeper on a lot of these things. I'd love to pivot a little
bit and talk just about, you know, personally your career and your inflection points. I know
you're not one to sit back and reflect given your drive to keep on going and keep growing and keep,
you know, keep learning and keep, keep developing and leading. But I'd love your take on your own
(26:52):
career specifically, you know, what would you say are the inflection points that have most defined
your career? I love the question, Scott. It provokes a lot of thoughts. I referenced it a
little earlier, but when I got out of engineering school at the University of Pittsburgh, you know,
actually went to work for a company that I didn't realize I was at a waiting job in my great business
(27:15):
restaurant in Pittsburgh and that when I walked in for the final interview, I'd actually been waiting
on them for the last four years of my college career and, you know, I had other competing
offices, but that was it because we knew each other, right? So, right out of the gate, teaching
and learning about relationships was proven right there, but it was a company that, I'll
(27:36):
tie all this together, but everybody started estimating as a young engineer. And that wasn't
really the vision I had of where I want to start my career. I want to jump into the field and run
projects and go there, but it was a great way to teach you the basics because the theory was,
until you know what things cost in the construction industry, which is vital,
you're not going to be successful later. And I'll never forget that and it's proven to be
(28:00):
the right place to start all along the way. Fortunately, when I raised my hand, I went
into operations and project management and then, you know, talk about a major turning point in
inflections. There was an opening in business development, you know. So, here's my vision.
I have three generations of this construction person that I'm going to be and now I got to go out and
(28:25):
follow a bunch of people and go play golf. Like, that's just not in the cards. But I sat and
reflected on it quite a bit and it was a major turning point in my career and I'll get to that
is because I made a decision that wasn't what it was going to be. You know, I was going to go and
figure out how to convince clients how, you know, we were the best company on the job and how I
(28:45):
understood the build and why I could communicate all the people I was going to bring from my company
to go figure out how to build their job. And I just took that on and it was in my younger
days of the career. But I would tell you that we increased sales significantly
was a lot of negotiated work and I couldn't have been prouder of that accomplishment.
(29:10):
But it really is the years went on that piece and that career move that I so didn't want to do
was one of the biggest moves I ever made my career. So it was really very special.
And then, you know, as we we went on and you'll hear this in the construction industry, but
you know, it is so important that going from the whole operation side and running work and
(29:36):
doing those things and then having the opportunity and in my case, it was go open a satellite
office in Florida for an organization. There's such a big, big difference. And the most successful
operations director, whoever you have might not be the best business person that can actually
take on all this and not the abilities. It's the stresses and the determination and the
(30:00):
persistence to fall down two or three days in a row and pick it back up. And then you know,
and go after and go get work. And so a lot of those lessons built on that and, you know, that whole
concept of engaging and starting to run my career through running a business versus just a project,
(30:21):
major change. And then as we went on being introduced to different ownership forms and
everything, we're just lessons and volumes of lessons upon volumes that I'll never forget. But
at this point, the mergers and acquisitions as I earlier referenced, you know, it's just, it's
hard, but when you're successful, it's really satisfying because you've merged business and
(30:45):
culture and relationships and all those pieces. And then I look at what today brings and, you know,
as we're looking to start something that's never been done in the US, it's hard to, by the way,
but we're going to do it and it's going to be very successful. But, you know, something that all
up is there's just always, it's your choice. There's so much in front of you at any stage of your
(31:07):
career in the construction industry. You can go places, see things, and you've got to build those
opportunities. And, you know, hopefully along all those parts that I just provided for you, Scott,
folks can see not just my model, but there is so much to do here and you never have to stop.
And that's just a great advantage to be in the construction business.
I love the story about the business development role that you didn't want being one of the,
(31:32):
one of the greatest lessons of your career. I think that's such a good takeaway for so many folks.
Kind of keeping in that theme, knowing what you know now, what advice would you go back and give
to your 25-year-old self as you were kind of getting, getting started in the industry?
First, the answer that comes to mind is patience. There are a lot of times and you learn your lessons,
(31:54):
which is the contrary to this, about making mistakes. And just, are you with an organization
that's going to permit you to manage you? As long as they have control of your mistakes
and teaching you, they're not in danger. And that's a really hard skill or discipline to bring the
organizations. But it's, it's an EQ piece, right, a leadership that, I got top talent here. We know
(32:20):
they're going to make mistakes and we got to let them, but we got to manage it. And that's how I
piece together that I would tell myself to have more patience, but also tell myself, don't quit
pushing, right? Pushing and stretching is the way you keep moving the business, you keep companies
going. And in my book, it's about growth and successful growth. But again, that piece of patience
(32:46):
never hurts. I love the idea. Are you with a firm that permits you to make mistakes?
And so long as the company has the guardrails and the controls in place, so you can allow for that.
But I'm always fascinated, had a recalling a conversation with a CEO that, that you know,
and we're talking about, he always gets a chuck out of any time he hears somebody in his organization,
(33:10):
some leaders say, well, so and so is not ready. So and so is not ready for that next, whatever it is.
And his response is always, well, were you ready? When you got promoted into like, did you have it
all figured out day one before you actually showed up for the job? Nobody is right. Everybody's
learning on the job to some degree. And so I think there's an element of how do you create a safe
(33:31):
enough environment, but push people beyond their comfort zone. That's where the growth happens.
Really, really fascinating stuff. So we've talked about a lot. I'd love to, you know, since I have
you here, I'd love to pick your brain on just the industry overall. So if we were to zoom out for a
little bit, you know, beyond kind of the companies you've worked with, and just get you to look into
(33:52):
your crystal ball and think about, you know, what do you think the construction industry looks like
10 years from now? I love that question. And exiting my past president position at AGC of America,
which gave me an opportunity to see so many more folks and companies and everything. So it's a
I'm at a stage where I even have more to that answer to answering that question that I ever had
(34:15):
before. But number one, the generations that are upcoming are as impressive as I've ever seen.
Their desire and really looking towards being successful in the construction industry is
it's off the charts. They're definitely displaying what the new generations bring forth. But I am
(34:38):
one that believes that they will take this industry and they will take it on a track that we in my
generation never envisioned. The technology piece, the construction industry, I'm a fan that make it
go faster. We'll get there. But it needs to go faster. And, you know, if we look five years,
(34:58):
10 years down the road, this gen these generations are upcoming will be we'll have some of the best
gamers on heavy equipment, right? We'll have gamers that are operating robotics to put Masonry Block
and so forth. And then that causes me to also remind ourselves that I also see the trend that,
(35:21):
you know, I've been wanting to work to change for so many years that this is a great place to be.
The construction is a great place to work. It's a great thing to take home to your family when you
are a carpenter, operator or whatever and say, this is what I did today. And, you know, we are
making progress. Again, I'm impatient here on these pieces, but we'll get there. But what I want to
(35:47):
really remind everybody is as we push technology, we will even need more trades to be in the construction
industry. In our country today, we're seeing more growth than we ever have before. It's not going
to stop. We got to rebuild our entire infrastructure system and the pace of change is just in data
(36:11):
centers and all of these things. We're going to see a construction industry as vibrant, robust,
that it's ever been in its history. And for that, we need all the resources to come. Technology,
craft, super smart people and those that really want to be there and do things that others
consider impossible. I really love the vision that, you know, what's coming out here. And then last
(36:35):
but not least, because I've always been a proponent, I think we're going to see a much higher use of
alternative project delivery systems that's a passion of mine and we need to, right? Public
agencies are figuring it out. Again, we got to help them, but there's too much talent, too much
expertise and everything that we got to engage and make a value in the pre-construction design process.
(36:59):
And when we can do that, projects are going to be so much more successful. I'm not a data
fiend on trying to figure out what are successful and what aren't. I just know there was more
contractor involvement and design pre-construction that's successful. I've lived it my whole life
and again, tying it all to all the technology and the talent that's coming up. It's going to be
(37:21):
it's going to be a proven fact as we go. So in summary, Scott, I just have a really strong passion
to see this business be as vibrant, robust as I said, as ever in its history. And we got the talent
and resources that will be coming together because we're going to attract it. I love it. What a great
place to end the conversation, Les. Again, I can't thank you enough. I appreciate your time as always
(37:44):
and your wisdom and your insights. And we'd love to have you back anytime, anytime you'd like. Anytime
you have a hole in your calendar, we'd love to have you back. But thank you so much.
Thank you, Scott. Greatly enjoyed it and always great luck to everybody. Stay safe out there.
As always, thank you so much for listening. And please remember to like or subscribe to the podcast
so you don't miss an episode.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
Introducing… Aubrey O’Day Diddy’s former protege, television personality, platinum selling music artist, Danity Kane alum Aubrey O’Day joins veteran journalists Amy Robach and TJ Holmes to provide a unique perspective on the trial that has captivated the attention of the nation. Join them throughout the trial as they discuss, debate, and dissect every detail, every aspect of the proceedings. Aubrey will offer her opinions and expertise, as only she is qualified to do given her first-hand knowledge. From her days on Making the Band, as she emerged as the breakout star, the truth of the situation would be the opposite of the glitz and glamour. Listen throughout every minute of the trial, for this exclusive coverage. Amy Robach and TJ Holmes present Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial, an iHeartRadio podcast.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.