“A teacher once said: An arrow only moves forward after being pulled back. Maybe life isn’t punishing you. Maybe it’s preparing your next direction.” K.P. Vinayak “Observe how difficult it is to change yourself and you will understand how naive it is to try to change another person.” Voltaire “The more I study happiness, the more I realize it comes down to one thing: living in alignment with what truly matters to you. Not success. Not stuff. Just a life…
PERSPECTIVE: I started my after-college career with Kummer Construction Company in 1968. We grew into HBE Corporation and designed and built over 1800 medical and financial facility buildings throughout the United States. As Controller and Chief Financial Officer, I managed all the cash for this company through the growth and the mad-dash heyday years, working with owners to establish payment terms and conditions that worked for all parties participating in their projects. We were paid by the tenth of each…
I propose that this industry’s definition and continued practice of withholding retention is an outdated concept. With the changes in payment practices, retention is no longer the safeguard it was designed to be; it is now merely another “cost of capital” arrow in a quiver of inequities. Retention was designed to be a form of contingency for owners in a time when monthly applications for payment were prepared off a twenty-line-item list of descriptive work items and roughly approved by…
By: Ron Unterreiner, PEOPLE of Construction When diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging were the talk of the industry, I recall many conversations where leaders in our industry, including the major owners and general contractors, would publicly say that diversity was an important ingredient to the success of a project. A diverse workforce and inclusion of minority and women-owned firms was a positive and needed step in the right direction, regardless of the requirements placed on a project to meet certain…
PEOPLE of Construction Business Tips for First-Time Business Owners (Third in a series of Five) (Note: This blog is posted out of sequence in error so please click on previous posts for the entire five-part series) This is the third in a series of blogs intended to guide new business owners in the design and construction industry to the path of success. In the first blog, we talked about the importance of visibility, administrative/office organization, and accurate and timely accounting…
Summary of Thoughts Being a business owner, operating as a trade subcontractor, in the design and construction industry is not for the faint of heart. The competition is fierce; the terms and conditions that one has to follow are many and often times complex; the estimating process is laced with risk and uncertainty; the manpower requirements are impossible to schedule and manage; the margins are razor thin; and getting paid for your work on a timely basis can be a…
PEOPLE of Construction Business Tips for First-Time Business Owners (Fifth in a series of Five) This is the fifth and final of a series of five blogs intended to guide new business owners to the road of success within the design and construction industry. In this blog, I will discuss three business points that are important, if not essential, in achieving long-term sustainable success with your company. Those three points are the importance of choosing a lane and staying within…
PEOPLE of Construction Business Tips for First-Time Business Owners (Fourth in a series of Five) This is the fourth blog in a series of five and I have decided to stay on the outskirts of the plans and specifications and the many terms and conditions of engagement and talk about three more intangible business points that I feel are important and will help you get a seat at the table and maybe the next table. The three points we will…
PEOPLE of Construction Business Tips for First-Time Business Owners (Second in a series of Five) This is the second of a series of five blogs discussing essential ingredients of a successful firm competing in the design and construction industry. In the first blog, we discussed three business points that simply had to happen if a business owner was to find long-term sustainable success. Those three points were visibility, administrative/office organization, and accurate and timely accounting records. If you have not…
PEOPLE of Construction Business Tips for First-Time Business Owners As participants of my TableTop Discussions and readers of my “Guide to Better Business” books are aware, I like to present my business ideas by way of TOP TEN lists. I can easily find ten points that are important, if not essential, for new or existing business owners to keep high on their priority list if they are planning to achieve long-term sustainable success in this competitive industry. For this series…