EP258: Overcoming Challenges in Construction: Insights from Mark Story of Commercial Construction Services

Hey, thanks for having me on, Brad.

Well, like you said, my name is Mark Storey. I've got 37 years of construction experience. I started out as a laborer, good ironwork, like we just talked about down in Evansville. I'm from Michigan originally. And I've spent a career on major commercial projects from, you know, federal data centers to hyperscale data centers with clients. I can't mention their names. Healthcare, aviation, semiconductor plants. And we really, we started, I started. CCS, I call it for short, Commercial Construction Services, because I just saw a need in our industry. We're going really fast. Companies and team members on these large projects don't have bandwidth to do all the things that are necessary to get them done. And we really enjoy teaching people and helping. folks to have bandwidth and get things done, stay on track, deliver quality projects, deliver quality, first-time quality work, and do it safely. So that's really why we started.

I believe so, yes.

They're 100% correct. We do not have enough tradesmen and women. to accomplish all the things that we need to do. And the other part of this is like, certainly everybody knows about the data center and the semiconductor, you know, blowing up really across the country. But the other part that people miss out on is in order for those facilities to survive, they need, or to be built, they need like... areas to prefab walls and mechanical and electrical equipment. So they need warehouses in close proximity of those facilities to make, you know, speed to market, right? So everywhere there's one of these or multiples of these facilities being built, there's mainly like tilt wall construction is what I'm seeing for distribution centers, warehouses, things of that nature. There's certainly a bunch of steel done as well. And so it's not just there on that campus. These areas, one of the projects I was on in a northwest city, Boise, Idaho, small market, we're bringing in folks from all over the country to get this worked on, literally for every corner of the United States. It's a good thing in a way, but it is impacting these smaller builders in the area as well. And how do they get things done and get things accomplished? So there's a lot of trades, just I'll just use Boise as an example because that's where I live. A lot of contractors coming from Utah and other states to help facilitate this other work that needs to be done.

And it's it's so up in Boise. I mean, there's a town mountain home about 45 minutes to the east of Boise that that 45 minute drive is going to be filled with. There's a huge development, a residential development. There's RV parks, there's hotels. And, you know, where do all these workers go when they get there? Right. They can't all live in trailers. And you have to have a place. for them to go stay so that they're safe and they can get to work in the morning like we all need them to.

So we are truly a field-led consulting firm. We are not, we don't come in and, you know, write you a note, hey, do these things and then peel out, right? We call it sprinkling fairy dust, right? So we are really in there. You know, like I said, I'm a construction worker at heart. And we come in, roll up our sleeves. We assess projects, assess project teams. We help them with long-term planning. A lot of times what happens is these projects, the lead superintendent will be sent to the project, you know, a month before the project starts. And if you're talking to... let's just say a $300 million or $400 million project, a month is not near enough time to plan that work and to have a good plan, right? So we see a lot of these projects, they're fighting a fire from day one, and that's not a recipe for success. So we go in, we bring structure to the project teams. A lot of times project teams are set up of the lead superintendent. Maybe they'd never done a $400 million job, right? This person doesn't know what they don't know. So we help them. You know, my experience of running billion-dollar projects, several billion-dollar projects, all the way down to, you know, $50 million projects is like, how do you structure the team? We talk about staffing and what is the right things. We help mold the team and get people in the right seats so they can be successful but still stretch them. And then we focus our efforts on planning and scheduling, teaching people visual planning. We look reviewing their schedule. We use in construction, we use a CPM schedule. It's a critical path schedule. And it's not always easy to see where you need everybody and why you need them there. So we do flow analysis on your schedule. We look for opportunities or optimization of your schedule. And then we wrap it all up in a bow with coaching. So I have a partner, Elevate Construction, in the planning and scheduling. And they have wonderful software that we use. I bring 37 years of operations and teaching folks how to build relationships and bring trades along to help them to be successful. And then we, like currently right now, we have a, we're coaching all the leadership of a business unit and the leadership of a project team. And that is the coaching thing for many, many years. That was, that was only. available to like C-suite professionals, right? And over, at least from my experience over the last 10 or 15 years, it's become a little more available to folks that are, I'm going to say that the boots on the ground folks, right? And so we've partnered with Debbie Lundberg is fantastic. We put together coaching programs. Like I have five people that I coach on this project in this business unit, and they're all the leaders, right? And then we're coaching them, and then we've partnered them with folks on their team. So project managers, project engineers, assistant superintendents, superintendents. So these folks are actually learning to be a coach, right? And it's pretty impactful what it will do for your team. As an example, who teaches? people in construction, how to have tough conversations. Right.

So if you were to talk about a team that is, say,30 people up to maybe 300 people, you need all those people swimming in the same direction, right? Yeah. And how do you do that? You don't do that by walking in and going and hiding in your office, right? Right. You got to figure out how to work as a team when things are, when tough things need to be discussed, you need to have those discussions. build strong relationships. And it really is about that, right? Building strong relationships. That way you have a good conversation about what works for me, what doesn't work for me. The other thing in construction is pride and ego gets in the way, right? I've talked about this in all the time. Yeah, every industry, right? Nobody wants to admit they don't know anything, right? Or they don't know something. And you got to be really comfortable in your skin to... chair in front of your peers at 30,40 contractors. Hey, I don't know what that means. So that coaching stuff helps with that, right? And it becomes organic and there's really pretty powerful stuff.

We can work for both. We typically work for the general contractor. But we do have, we are currently talking to some owners as well. Mostly it's easier for me to go in and I've built some really strong relationships across the country over 37 years. So a lot of people know who I am and thankfully. They've been willing to give me a chance. And it's pretty surprising, Brad, that we go to projects and project teams don't have good agendas for meetings. And in the commercial world, one of the number one things that I find every time I go to a project is people are complaining about meetings. And I immediately ask, like, what are you doing about it? And they're like, well, we've tried to do this. We've tried to do that. And it hasn't worked. And a lot of times it's just listening, putting your pride aside. throwing away the things that don't work. And then also we always say like, if it's not working, either fix it or throw it away, right? If you're not getting benefit from it, don't waste your time on it because chances are the rest of the room is doing that. And currently, as an example, I'm working on a, it's an Army Corps of Engineers project, great project teams. They're all complaining about their owners meeting and they've been there for two years. They've tried two or three different things. sitting down with them and we've already made some vast improvements and the team's like, wow. So we're like a fresh set of eyes and we already have set agendas that we are very cautious of. Like, you know, if we came to your company, Brad, I would want to know about your culture first. Right. So before we make an agenda and just say, follow this, right. We want to make sure that it plugs in and follows your culture of your company. Typically does is typically very close. Anyways, we want to talk about similar things at every meeting. We want to do shout outs. We want to talk about safety, quality, schedule. Where are we at? It's just the way you do it.

Yeah, it is. And if I can add on to that, so you're spot on. We want to work with clients that, number one, are innovative. They are prosperity minded. So that means in our mind, growing their people for the future. Right. It's like putting money in a bank account is what I always say. There's this myth in our industry that because a construction superintendent. is driving a pickup truck. They automatically know how to plan. They know how to schedule. They're great communicators. They know how to lead a meeting. And I'm not just picking on the superintendents. One of our clients the other day, I was having a conversation. We always ask for feedback, like, well, how could we be better and all this stuff? And he's like, Mark, before you guys got here, we didn't have a process for anything. And it's super frustrating because In construction, like a lot of times what I find is we're like a big blunt object that we just throw a big team at it and they'll figure it out. They're smart, they're hardworking, they're gritty, they'll figure it out. Well, what you find out when you kind of show them some processes, they're like, holy smokes, I don't have to work 16 hours a day, six days a week to get this done. I can create a plan, a visual plan. I can show it to everyone. I bring the trades in and get their collaboration and really have some.

at all not at all all right i mean you it

exact thing. I go to billion dollar projects, multi-billion dollar projects. I'll give you an example. I went to one. How was it? Two, three years ago now, I think two years ago. Several billion dollar project, hyperscale data center project had been underway for just say round numbers. Don't quote me exact, but about a year and a half project was somewhere round numbers, roughly a year behind schedule. Major, major general contractor, great general contractor. The job looked like a dumpster. It looked like a landfill. Right. It looked like a landfill. And this is so much of what we do, Brad, is about the right personalities working together, holding each other accountable, leadership, ownership. Right. And I'm not trying to toot my own horn. I had some support with some of this stuff, but a year and a half later, cleanest, safest, most productive, most profitable project in the history of a 40 year company. And it was all about getting organized, building camaraderie. Unfortunately, most of the time in some of these cases that some bad apples have to move along in order to eliminate the roadblocks so the rest of the team can be successful. And when you go to a project that you get, say,200 to 300 person team, that's a lot of personalities. And that is that is tough on leadership. And one of the one of the things I'll say not to get distracted, but before I did staffing for. like as an operations leader, staffing of projects instead of being on the project. I didn't realize, I didn't understand, like most of us, we don't understand how hard something is until we've done it, right? And I was no different. And staffing a project can be as challenging as building the project. So there's a lot to consider. And when people don't jive, things won't get done. So,

Yeah.

So a lot of times, and this is a challenge, and like I'm a general superintendent at heart, right? So that's what I've been doing for many, many years. And even myself, I have a plan. I know what I was going to do, but it was all up here in my head, right? So and handing. Trade partners, and this is not a slight to our trade partners or our craft, but if we hand someone a CPM schedule, if it's not a live schedule or they've been trained how to use that software, they won't see the links and where they have to go and what is their predecessor work or successor work. So we go to visual planning. A lot of people use Bluebeam. There's a lot of different softwares out there. And as an example, our civil superintendent on the project I'm on right now, He pulls up, we'll take the, we'll put all of the civil, like, site utilities and all that on a page with the foundation of the building. And he'll show, he'll highlight, this week I'm working from this structure to this structure. So everyone understand. And then he can communicate. He can also see that, like, the steel guy is erecting on the south side of the building. I can't. I can't get my trench in here. So he's got to communicate with the steel guy or the concrete guy. And everyone has a visual plan that's overlaid and communicated amongst each trade partner. Yeah.

the communication piece, everyone thinks, the mystery around communication, everyone thinks they have communicated, right? Oh, yeah. What we find and what we do is on this specific project, and we try to do it the same way on every project, right? If you think about construction, it's a mobile factory, right? Every building we build has foundations. Everyone has either steel or concrete structure, or maybe it's framing, structural framing. They all have concrete, steel, framing, drywall, roofs, all that stuff, right? So we look at it as if we can be very consistent about everything we do, like in our meetings. A lot of times we go to projects and meetings are, we have a meeting from 8 to 9, and we have a meeting from 9 to 10, and a meeting from 10 to 11, and everybody's racing for a time to get to the field so they can see what the heck is going on, right? So we streamline the meetings. Morning meeting. A lot of times we'll have a stand and deliver meeting. It's the same time every morning,6 to 7, whatever works on your project. And then we give the teams 2 to 3 hours, and they're out in the field, they're walking their zones, they're checking designs, whatever that is, walk zones to update the schedule because we update every day. And then we set a streamlined set of time, like say on this project,10 to 11 every day. There's a staff meeting. on Monday, OAC on Tuesday, Wednesday's schedule validation meeting, Thursday, you're going to catch me in a lie, Thursday, I can't remember what Thursday, oh, Thursday is our trade partner meeting, excuse me, and then Friday is we save that Friday for long-term planning, so we're looking into the future. But every day at the end of the day, this is what I want to get at, is we have Pond, plan of the next day, and every trade partner comes in. We have logistics maps up with they get to move the tiles around and put them those tiles, magnetic tiles, where they have a roadblock. And a roadblock is something that can be removed. So your example, I'm the roofer. I can't get to the roof because Mr. Civil Guy dug a trench, right? And we talk about that every day. So the trade comes in. They put their inspections up. They put their roadblocks up. We pull up a logistics map on a... on a monitor everyone draws on that where they're working so every trade partner is standing there huddled around this board and if I'm the concrete guy saying I'm putting a pump truck here concrete's coming in here and the civil guy has a chance to say, hey, wait a minute, that isn't going to work. And we look at each other in the eye and say, hey, does this work or not? Do we need to move things around? And that's where we get that give and take in negotiation, right?

That's correct. Specific to... concrete plans, we require that we have their pumping logistics plan a week in advance. Now, sometimes we're a little bit short of that, right? That's our goal. We expect it a week in advance. And if it's less than that, that's the exception, not the rule, right? In construction, we are fighting fires because we're doing things last minute and not planning ahead, right? And when you're doing that, don't be surprised at what you get, right? Your days are going to be set out in the field, just answering questions, solving problems, and you're not going to be able to get your stuff done. And that's where it turns into somebody working 16,18 hours a day because there's no plan, right?

Absolutely. Absolutely, you can. So this is interesting. I was just having this conversation today. And it's been a conversation for, I don't know. say the last 15 or 20 years, how do I apply the same things? Like if you go to one of these hyperscale data centers, there's a real focus on taking care of trades, right? Which shouldn't matter what size project you're on. You got to take care of the men and women that are building the building for you, right? You need them to be successful. By the way, that doesn't mean you just roll over, right? It's a partnership. So in this particular conversation, they're like, hey, I'm on these. hyperscale data centers, they have all these conditioned break rooms and all these conditioned restrooms and things like that. And people get stuck. They're like, how do I apply that to my little $2 million job? And I'm like, listen, like, yeah, you're probably not going to want those conditioned or have the budget for those conditioned restrooms. And sometimes they're not all that cracked up to what you got to be very careful if you're going to buy those. But how about you just have a very good plan for your restrooms and a plan for a break area. You know, one of the projects we're on right now, the first conversation I had with them about, and it's cold, it's very cold. I'm like, where are the craft eaten? And they're like, oh, we don't have any room for that. We don't have the budget for that. I'm like, hang on a minute. Then you go sit outside on the curb and eat your lunch and get out of the office, okay? And then maybe we'll have time to talk about this. It was really simple. We put up a couple temp walls. We got a couple electric heaters, set up a couple tables. It's not a huge project. There's less than 100 craft workers on that site. We set up a revolving lunch, right, and worked that out with the trades. So now everybody has the option. If they do have a company truck, they can certainly go sit in their company truck and have lunch, but they could also go into this little break area. And it was literally... Just a few hours of work to give these folks a clean space to eat, right? So we could do a similar thing that they're doing at Google or at Meta or a lot of these big data centers, just on a smaller scale. Right. Clean restrooms. We all have to use the restroom. And I go to jobs all the time, and I check the restrooms. I was on one last week, and I was like, hey, what are we doing, man? We've got four restrooms in there. I don't know,500,800 feet away from where people are working. It's cold. You know, somebody's got to go to the bathroom. Like, we can figure this out. Let's get four or six more restrooms. And how many times a week are you having them cleaned? And that's not adequate. So get it cleaned a couple times a week. Show some respect for the trades. And the pushback that I got is that it costs money. And I'm like, well, what does it cost when you don't get your project done on time? And trades, believe it or not, craftsmen and women can choose where the heck they're going to work, right? They ultimately, like, hey, you're sending me this job that treats me like crap, and I'm out. I'm going to go to this one that takes care of me.

Yeah, and I would say that what I challenged my owners when I worked for a GC or even my clients now, like, are you choosing the right clients to work with that, you know, if your owner's son or daughter was out here working, you know, and listen, it doesn't have to be super fancy, just clean and respectful, right? Size it appropriately for your project. And I just had this conversation yesterday, okay? prime example. And I was talking to a superintendent, senior superintendent, and he's like, hey, I had this project in Houston and we get this nasty winter every year. We get this ice storm thing that blows through. And I had an opportunity to think ahead and I got everything enclosed and put heat in there. And we were struggling to get craft workers. He's like, when we got that storm for two or three weeks, my project was overrunning with craft. It was... Just it was a godsend is what he said. He's like, it was amazing how much work we got done and what a shot in the arm that that gave our project. And people didn't want to leave because they knew I cared about.

Yeah, that's

Yeah, I think the opportunity is out there with the right clients. They're definitely, and it starts with the clients as well and the general contractor and aligning on what's important to them. And we like to say, you know, people first. So for commercial construction services, does it work for me and my team? Does it work for my client? Does it make sense? And then is it financially rewarding after that, right? So if the answer is no in any one of those buckets. got some hard decisions to make. And I think it's got to be one of the clients that I'm working with right now is they just started, and I'll probably say it wrong, people first. It's around safety. And it's around a lot of those things that we're just talking about is like, take care of the field and your office will benefit, right? It all comes along. You know, if you're removing roadblocks, create an environment somebody wants to be in. and getting folks paid, you're probably not going to have to worry about getting your work done. You're not going to have to worry about as many change orders because that environment that you're talking about right now that's not collaborative, first thing the general contractor says, well, oh, Joe, the framer fell behind. I'm putting him on notice. Instead of having that relationship with him, calling him in and saying, hey, Joe, what? what's going on because a lot of times you'll find out at least I have found out and I've jumped to conclusions a bunch of times and made that mistake it was something I did not recognize yeah and I think that relationship piece starts at the at the get-go I'll give you an example a good buddy of mine is Paul Paul Colombo he runs a tile company and when he was young his his mentor was handed His mentor was retiring and handing Paul off to me. Paul's your guy. And Paul's a real forward guy. And he came in and he's like, hey, I really appreciate the opportunity. I'm looking forward to working with you. What's the best way we can get started? And I'm like, hey, don't ever lie to me, right? Nope, don't. Don't keep bad news from me. I'm going to find out anyways. I want you right in here. I want you to tell me straight up. If you don't have manpower, you don't have material. If we haven't got your submittals pushed through, predecessor work is not done. Get in here and tell me so I can take care of it. And, you know, the old saying, bad news doesn't get better with time. And Paul and I have got a 20-year fabulous... And I've done the same thing with my framers and my concrete guys and all that stuff. And that's where it's got to start, I believe.

That's good on you. That's ownership, right? Yeah.

Yeah, I've got a great example. I love all the Jocko and Leith stuff, right? I mean, it's fantastic stuff. I wish the whole world spent a little more time on that. I think it'd be a much better place, right? So our plumber, I'm walking on job. I haven't been here in two weeks and I show up and the plumbers made a mistake. And it's bad coordination between the concrete and the civil contractor and the plumbing contractor and the GC. And so I'm walking the job with team members and I took a couple of photos and I found a couple of my teammates for the GC. And I said, hey guys, can you guys help me out with this situation? And one of the team members immediately said, oh, yeah, we should have never hired those guys. Man, they're just no good and all this. I'm like, hang on a minute. And they both had company shirts on. And I said, whose name is on the fence? Neither one of these people we're talking about, their businesses. This is our job. We have to own this. Yes, they made a mistake, but ultimately, this is our job. They're in this situation because we did not coordinate it. We did not follow the drawings and we did not. follow the schedule properly. And they both said, yeah, you know what? That's, that's a good point. Like we got to change our mindset. Yeah.

So one of the things that we do is If you are having meetings with your trades or your clients, ask them how it's going. We call them plus delta meetings. And believe it or not, there's a lot of people in the country that don't know what those are and that don't be offended by that. All it is is like, hey, what went well today in this meeting? And you have to be ready to accept some feedback, right? And don't be afraid of it. I would say embrace it. None of us are perfect. And say you're on a long-term project, however you started, whatever you were starting, just say it's meetings because we're talking about that. Those things morph over time. They change, right? Just like you're building, right? When you start your structure, you're putting utilities in and foundations, and then you go to your vertical structure, and then you're going to interiors. Like everything has to morph a bit, right? It's got to change. As far as visual planning, I would look into implementing Bluebeam or some type of software. It's pretty simple stuff. Even an old guy like myself can use Bluebeam and start tying that to your schedules. Just take small snippets of your project. Say you've got a generator yard to build, as an example, right? They're typically not big, but they're complicated because they have all the same things involved in that generator yard as you have in the building, right? All the utilities have to come and go from there. You've got to set the generators. You typically got fence. You've got concrete curving. And I would just build a small... flow chart of your work, right? What's your first activities, second activities, and highlight them and look at it. Does this make sense? Does this order make sense, right? Bring your trades in, get their feedback. A lot of times we fail and it's the old pride and ego thing. Like I told them to get that crap done, right? I told them, I sent them the schedule, right? And man, it is amazing how much you can learn. from your trades if you bring them in and you're collaborating with them. And be willing to hear the feedback.

Yeah. When it becomes personal, like I said, it's really tough to get back. And in one of the projects that I'm on right now, that's where they're at. They've been there for a couple of years. There's a lot of people, a lot of feelings. And it's gotten, it's really a toxic environment. And if everyone's focused on doing what's right for the project and the team members, right? And those are different things. And one may win out over the other. But we, you know, we always say people first and then the project and just what is right. Take all the emotions out of it. Let's and also be focused on constant improvement. You know, I mean, if you own a business, you know, the things you're struggling with. Right. Yeah.

And the thing of it is, like you said earlier, so when you mentioned a large project, I think it was Toyota that came into your area, what did it do to the local contractors, right? Did a bunch of the local. craft that you would use end up at that big factory and you wish you would have had them on your projects, right? That's what I'm seeing in a lot of markets. So, I mean, what's the couple thousand dollars more? Keep them interested, keep them happy because a lot of, not everybody's made for those big mega sites either, right? Not everybody wants to be on them and they're challenging. And not that what you guys are doing on a smaller scale isn't challenging, but there comes with a bunch of other stuff, right? that you wouldn't necessarily have building your custom hold.

How often do you see those two groups get together other than at bidding a project? Before you, you know, I know, at least for me, before my wife and I got married, we dated. It's literally no different. Like, if you're looking for a good plumber, electrician, go out and meet the people, get to know them. Do they fit your culture, right? Do you like what they're doing? And then go from there.

Either spend it now or you're going to spend a heck of a lot more later, right? That's what we always talk about, right? I mean, I know where you're headed if you don't make these changes, right? It's a pretty simple path.

So the prime example, like, so we do long-term planning. We focus on this and this starts at pre-con, right? A lot of times I was that superintendent. They're like, hey, Mark, job starts on Monday. You know, okay, where's the plans? I'll have them sitting on the desk as you're heading out the front door, right? And so we highly suggest and push our teams to get together and Look into the future. What are the plans that we need to have done, right? Is it temp power? Is it material hoist? Do we have a logistics plan for the project? Where's our dumpsters? Where's our toilets? Where's all these things? And I, a lot of times get team members are like, I don't have time to plan. I'm like, well, either do it now. You're going to do it anyways. And if you don't, like win the battle here in the war room versus trying to fight it out on the battlefield with no plan. That's right. So, and it's not perfect, right? There's always things, right? We have design, we have weather, we have missed coordination. But when you have a solid plan to start with, it's so much easier to pivot. And it's a shorter conversation. When you don't have any plan at all, you have to bring in every person and have this long conversation about every little thing. And you're going to do it every day of the week through the life of the project, right? Yeah.

Have patience to do that.

I can't remember the title, but hang on one second. It is Winning on Purpose. Okay.

It is a fantastic book. Who's the author? Um, I, uh, one of the things that I found is I'm not a great reader. Um, I never have been. So I have audible and I'm always on a plane somewhere. So I listened to audible books all the time and it's, uh, Fred rich, rich old, R E I C H H E L D. Okay.

Yeah. Thank you for having me on. I have a great conversation. Hope we can catch up. It's always good to catch up with a Midwestern person.

Well, I will tell you, we started our business and it took off really fast. So I didn't have some of the things in place where right now. building our website, which should be up and running here in the next couple of weeks, you can reach me at mark at story ccs. com or you can give me a call at 612-968-0257. And I mean, if somebody just wants to call and have a conversation, I'd be glad to share whatever I can. Awesome.

Oh, and they can find me on LinkedIn too. Sorry,

Is that what's the is

Thank you, too, sir. Have a great day.