Mainline Contracting

From the ground up┬áMainline Contracting is an entrepreneurial company started by Randy Garrett, who developed it with financial director Gina Moore and director of estimating Doug Greenlee into North CarolinaÔÇÖs premier groundwork specialist. John OÔÇÖHanlon talks to the fourth shareholder, COO Les Basnight, about plans to expand. Mainline Contracting of Durham, North Carolina, was always the first contractor on the site, because that was its specialtyÔÇösite preparation and utilities, with a special fondness for storm drainage, sewer and water lines. Founder Randy Garrett always thought the business had the potential and vision to be a major player. In 2004, with annual sales around $7 million, he decided the time was right to take advantage of the building boom and start the transformation from specialty subcontractor to general contractor. To help do this, he brought in someone with experience in international contracting. Les Basnight knew Mainline as a customer and had a high regard for its capabilities, so he was happy to take on a key role in its future growth.Four years on, Mainline Contracting has shown it can deliver all these early expectations and more. In 2008 it recorded a turnover of more than $75 million and was rated by Inc. magazine as the tenth-largest contractor in its specialty and the 207th fastest-growing business of any kind in the whole nation.It has been a time of great change and great achievement, says Basnight, now chief operating officer and a co-owner. ÔÇ£We put into place a business plan to grow the company and expand the services we offer. We decided to become a turnkey, full-service site contractor. Grading, surveying and staking, paving and curbs, landscaping, lightingÔÇöwe would do it all and give our clients a single point of contract for their entire project apart from the building.ÔÇØThat was the vision. Making the most of its long-established partnerships, Mainline bid successfully for public and private work from hospitals and medical centers to airports, shopping centers and transport projects. ÔÇ£Right now we have two airports under contract: a new taxiway for the FedEx hub at Greensboro and an extension at Smith Reynolds airport at Winston-Salem. WeÔÇÖve just finished a hospital project, and weÔÇÖre doing sizable roadway projects at Charlotte and Wilmington, as well as shopping centers and schools.ÔÇØ And Mainline enthusiastically takes on its traditional work too, having just broken ground on a major sewage and water project at Louisburg.Retail is becoming an important sector for Mainline, and Basnight is excited about the Quail Crossing project that JDH Capital is building at Wake Forest, in a fast-growing residential area. ÔÇ£We just broke ground on this one, which is a landmark shopping center around a new 38,000-square-foot Bloom store. We have a lot of exciting stuff going on, if not quite as much as weÔÇÖre used to,ÔÇØ he says, introducing the inescapable matter of the recession.The whole construction industry is digging in, and the priority for Mainline too will be to weather the storm. ÔÇ£At a time like this, you learn to celebrate small successes. These days weÔÇÖre managing a lot tighter. At the same time, I think itÔÇÖs making us manage better. WeÔÇÖre not having as much fun as we used to, but itÔÇÖs not all doom and gloom, and there will be some real opportunities out there as well.ÔÇØAfter its years of growth, Mainline is going to use the next months to catch up on processes and procedures. ÔÇ£Some people would call our growth rate insane,ÔÇØ he says. ÔÇ£We now have a superb team, but our main challenge then was getting the right management in place. When youÔÇÖre small you manage everything yourself, but pretty soon you have to hire people who can do it as well or better than you. We wrestled with having the training and the processes and procedures to keep up with the growth.ÔÇØThe small successes he speaks about are gained through attention to detail, and the whole company has gone through what looks very much like a lean transformation. ItÔÇÖs a bottom-up initiative, with tactical teams in the companyÔÇÖs locations at Raleigh/Durham, Winston-Salem and Charlotte. The teams look for ways to find efficiencies, come up with innovative ideas and look for ways of bringing value. These ideas are fed to the executive team and shared throughout the company, says Basnight. ÔÇ£ItÔÇÖs looking at things weÔÇÖre not accustomed to doing but that we need to do to stimulate our employees and ourselves as managers, to think out of the box. How can we save money by being smarter? How can we avoid waste and add value? How can we be leaner, smarter and better?ÔÇØ These three words, he adds, are written on a wristband worn by every Mainline employee right up to the CEO. Mainline is an unusually customer-focused contractor: one of its mantras is ÔÇ£unanticipated value for the client.ÔÇØ ÔÇ£We call it value engineering,ÔÇØ says Basnight. ÔÇ£Maybe thereÔÇÖs rock on the site that has to be taken off. We would suggest to the client that we bring our rock crushers onto the site, crush that rock and make aggregate for the roads. Moving dirt costs a great deal in terms of time and money. We have a 3D modeling program where we can lay out a project and tell the owner that if we raise the site by three inches, you wonÔÇÖt have to haul this dirt off, or if we lower it by six inches, you wonÔÇÖt have to haul any dirt in. We make recommendations like that on just about every project. The earlier the owner gets us involved, the more value we can add.ÔÇØFor this year, donÔÇÖt expect to see Mainline grow quite so fast. But it still intends to make its mark nationally and internationally as a prime contractor. Already licensed in Virginia, Georgia and Alabama, as well as the Carolinas, it has no intention of cold calling outside of these territories. All of its expansion will be at the request of its clients, says Basnight.And Mainline will definitely not economize on its training and internship programs. ÔÇ£We provide the resources for our people to succeed and extensive training so they can use it, and thatÔÇÖs money well spent. ItÔÇÖs our future and the future of our industryÔÇöwe will not survive without training young people for the future.ÔÇØ  ÔÇô Editorial research by Tim Conlon┬á