The 100-Year Club

Clark Construction Group, Ratcliff, PCL Construction Services and Norman S. Wright Mechanical trace their roots to forward-looking founders.

By Don Lipper

Drive for Diversification

Clark Construction Group LLC began modestly when George Hyman, an immigrant from Lithuania, became involved in construction during the time of "land runs," where new settlers would stake their claim in the area known as "Indian Territory," now the state of Oklahoma.

"At a time of no law, Mr. Hyman's work was done on the basis of a verbal agreement and a handshake between contracting parties," said Richard Heim, Clark's western region president. "This dependence on trust and honesty became the cornerstone upon which an entire corporation was built."

In 1906, Hyman moved to Washington, D.C. and started George Hyman Construction Co. "From the outset, Hyman was an aggressive businessman, not afraid to take risks in order to stay ahead of the competition," states the company's web site. "He was…the first builder to bring the steam shovel to Washington to replace the old method of excavation by mule and wagon. Shortly afterward, steam shovels became commonplace in the Washington construction industry."

The firm grew by tackling a variety of jobs, from residential housing to heavy engineering projects. That drive for diversity continued after A. James Clark took over the company's reins in the 1960s. He oversaw the company's most important early project, the $72.5 million L'Enfant Plaza in Washington, D.C., which took eight years to complete.

In 1977, Mr. Clark formed a second construction company, OMNI Construction, in order to pursue non-union projects in Washington, D.C. After completing its first project, the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown, OMNI Construction grew to capture a majority of the Washington, D.C. office building and hotel construction market. The George Hyman Construction Co. continued to perform union work in Washington, and further extended its reach across the country with projects such as Lincoln Center in New York City and the Ronald Reagan State Office Building in Los Angeles.

By the mid-1990s, pressure in the construction market to separate union versus non-union contractors had eased, and there was no longer a need to maintain these two separate entities. In 1995, OMNI Construction and the George Hyman Construction Co. merged to form Clark Construction Group LLC, with Clark assuming leadership of Clark Enterprises Inc., the firm's parent company.

The company started performing its own sheeting, shoring and foundations, rather than subcontracting it out. Clark began to offer more and more services in-house. Today, the Bethesda, Maryland-based construction services giant generates over $2.8 billion in annual revenue and is the largest privately-held general contractor in the United States. Last year, the company ranked fifth nationally in general building.

"Clark maintains its position in a variety of markets and type of contracts," said Heim. "We are very squarely in the public bid market, the negotiated market and we also have a very strong resume in the design build," he said. "We try to maintain that diversity instead of trying to specialize."

"Innovation has been a big part of our growth over the years, not just new technologies, but maintaining our flexibility to respond to changes in the marketplace," Heim added. "We were design builders before it became a buzzword today."

In 1987, Clark came opened its California offices. "When we first made the move out to California, it took us a while to understand how work was done out here," said Heim. "But we learned from our mistakes, and it has made us a better contractor."

Clark has offices in Costa Mesa and Oakland.

"The Space Launch Complex at Vandenberg Air Force Base forced us to completely step outside the box in our thinking," Heim added. "But we've seen that whenever we go into a new industry we have the tools to be successful at the job."

The three recent California projects include San Diego's award-winning PETCO Park; downtown Los Angeles' Caltrans District 7 Headquarters (which, in addition to numerous awards, achieved a Silver LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council) and the renovation and updating of the San Francisco Civic Center.

California is by far the largest division of the company, outside headquarters, and pulls in $500 million to $600 million in annual revenue. "We probably do triple the volume of the other branch offices," said Heim. "The West Coast plays significantly in the future growth of Clark as we look forward to the next 100 years."

The Value of Design

In 1906, Ratcliff's founder Walter Ratcliff was a young man overseeing the construction of the Hearst Mining Building on the UC Berkeley campus.
"During that time when a young man entered the workforce, he was given a gold pocket watch to mark his passage into adulthood," said Christopher P. "Kit" Ratcliff, AIA, LEED, NCARB, the third generation of Ratcliffs to head the firm. "He was leaning over to supervise how the concrete was being pored and his watch fell out and into the concrete. This was a crisis for him, he hated losing this cherished icon, but he was a practical guy and let the concrete set."

As a result, that historical building had a piece of him in it.

Over the last hundred years, each generation of Ratcliff employees has put a piece of themselves into a variety of projects. After World War II, Robert Ratcliff, who had worked in Chicago building Quonset huts, got a call from UC Berkeley saying they needed student housing for the sudden influx of GIs and they needed it fast.

"He quickly sketched out the foundations and stayed about ten minutes ahead of the contractor the whole time," said Ratcliff.

The Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital needed a fully detailed plan and all construction documents in three months. Other firms said it couldn't be done, but Ratcliff employees literally brought sleeping bags to the office to get the project done.

Over the years, the Ratcliff architects have designed healthcare, academic and civic institutions, including Mills College, Oakland Airport Terminal II, and dozens of Bay Area landmarks. The 75-person Emeryville firm received the 2005 American Institute of Architects-California Council Firm of the Year award.

Like most long lived companies, the firm survived its share of rough spots. Walter Ratcliff survived the Great Depression by scaling back his architectural practice and working with a bank to help homeowners retain their property. In 1980, the firm discovered a business manager had embezzled from the company.

Citing lessons learned, "If you read 'The Living Company' [which examined companies that have lasted over a century], it read like our value system. It's not about building a company just to make money…it is about finding new opportunities for the company to evolve and grow," said Ratcliff. "I think one reason we've lasted 100 years is that we are constantly updating ourselves. Our persona is constantly evolving so that we don't get ossified."

The firm's core beliefs first established by Walter a century ago: "To build is the ultimate act of optimism; structures must have enduring value for the client and for the community in which they exist; architects are stewards of the environment" have pushed the company to the cutting edge.

The Ratcliff team developed "Portfolio" construction administration software now widely used throughout the Bay Area region. In 2004, the firm's Committee for Environmental Design Resources developed the Green Matrix, a free, public web site that supports designers making green decisions throughout the design and construction phases of a project across the categories of the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) guidelines.

The firm, while honoring tradition, isn't bound by it. Ratcliff has never tossed a watch into the foundation of a building. "I never even got a gold watch. They give them to you when you retire. What use is that?" he said. "Besides, I have everything on my PDA."

Skill Set

PCL started with a nudge. In 1903, founder Ernest Poole traveled from Prince Edward Island to Manitoba. "We went to the local hotel where a man later came into the waiting room and asked if there were any carpenters among the crew. One old fellow immediately raised his hand and nudged me to do the same. This resulted in both of us starting to work the next morning," wrote Poole in a letter to his family. "Outside of some skills I had acquired in our workshop, I really knew very little of ordinary carpentry work, but I managed."

Over the next few years, Poole studied books and trade magazines about carpentry and design, and eventually enrolled in an architecture correspondence course. In the spring of 1906, he founded what eventually became the Canadian firm PCL. Today the Edmonton-based PCL family of companies is the largest contracting organization in Canada and, according to ENR, is the 14th largest contracting organization in the United States.

In 2006, Fortune recognized PCL as one of the 100 Best Places to Work in the United States. All PCL companies are 100 percent employee-owned by more than 1,680 salaried employees, working out of major offices in 25 locations across Canada, the United States and the Bahamas. All tolled, the companies have amassed an annual construction volume approaching $4 billion.

In the 1940s, Ernest Poole hand wrote what today are known as "Poole's Rules," which the company has been following for almost 60 years: