A Conversation with Harry Mashburn, CEO and Chairman, Mashburn Construction

By Alan Cooper

 

In 2016, Mashburn Construction is celebrating its 40th anniversary. A full-service construction company that provides construction management, design-build and general contracting, the company is headquartered in Columbia and also has offices in Charleston and Greenville, South Carolina.

 

MidlandsBiz:
Tell us about the early part of your career.

Harry Mashburn:
I attended NC State university where I earned an engineering degree. I married a girl from Darlington, SC who went to Meredith College, a small private women’s liberal arts college located in Raleigh, NC.

I worked a short while for a large company on a 33-story office building before going into the Army since I went through ROTC training to become an officer in the United States Army Corps of Engineers. When I came back two years later I worked for the same company for a short while in Charlotte before heading to Charleston to be the assistant field engineer on the team that built the original Gaillard Auditorium.  Then, I came to Columbia to be the chief field engineer on the Carolina Coliseum, the original basketball arena.

As we were finishing up that project, the company indicated that they wanted to send me to Virginia to build another arena. We had two children by then and we were getting tired of traveling.  I really liked Columbia and believed strongly in the future of this city. It’s the geographical center of the state, a university town, the center of government, and it has three interstate highways running through it.  This was a great place to settle and raise a family.

I went to work for McCrory Construction for five years and was involved with a number of office building and apartment projects. The recession of the mid-1970s dramatically affected a lot of construction companies so in 1976 I decided to take fate into my own hands and start Mashburn Construction.

MidlandsBiz:
Did you have an entrepreneurial background?

Harry Mashburn:
My father had a business, and, his father had a business, so I guess it’s in my blood. I had set a goal of being in business for myself by age 30. The logo that we used for our first forty years was one that I designed while I was a sophomore in college.

I sometimes think back and wonder how it would have worked out if I had stayed working for a big company. I’d probably be retired by now, but owning my own company is something that I am very proud of.

MidlandsBiz:
How did you finance the company?

Harry Mashburn:
I borrowed $10,000 from my mother-in-law and started out with some small jobs around town.  I had to put my house up as collateral in order to start taking on larger projects and qualify for a performance and payment bond. That was a bit scary, but part of being an entrepreneur.

MidlandsBiz:
How does one enter into the construction business these days?  Has the educational process changed at all?

Harry Mashburn:
My education was very technical; I recall spending a lot of time on differential equations (which is something that I am sure I wouldn’t even recognize today). Now, there are more practical and specialized curriculum. Clemson has an excellent degree in construction science and management so we hire a lot of their graduates, but we also hire many University of South Carolina grads.

What they didn’t teach me at the time was how to run a business.  My education allowed me to get out there and develop some practical work experience, but it’s critical to learn how to be a businessman, to be able to think through a business plan, and make decisions.

MidlandsBiz:
You’ve made it 40 years, how do you survive and thrive in the next 40 years?

Harry Mashburn:
That’s something I’m working pretty hard on now. I feel blessed to have two very ambitious, very hard working sons to lead this business into the second generation.  My son, Paul, is the company President and my son, Lee, is the Executive Vice President of Business Development.  They have very complementary skills. Paul is more of a numbers person, like I am, and concentrates on operations, and Lee is a more outgoing type and is the rainmaker concentrating more on business development and all preconstruction activities.  You know the old adage – shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in three generations – which means the entrepreneur starts the business, the next generation continues it on, and the third generation runs it into the ground. When the time comes, Paul and Lee will need to be smart about their exit strategy.

MidlandsBiz:
What is the core business of Mashburn?

Harry Mashburn:
We are a full-service construction company providing construction management, design-build and general contracting to our clients.  Most of what we do is private, commercial construction with our sweet spot sectors being health care, historical renovation, hospitality, industrial, institutional and church construction.  We also do some government work; we recently finished renovations of a courthouse in Manning and we are doing a recreation center in the Beaufort area.

At the moment we are building a lot of medical facilities, not only hospital work, but also assisted living. Given the aging population, upscale assisted living facilities offer a great alternative for couples looking for options for their parents.

MidlandsBiz:
How has the construction business changed since you first started?

Harry Mashburn:
When I was involved with the Coliseum here in town, I recall setting up the job trailer and there’d be a long line of people coming looking for work. That doesn’t happen anymore.  For a while we had carpenters, concrete finishers, dry wall, steel erectors etc. directly on our payroll.  But the problem is … there is always a down time between jobs so that is not very efficient. Today, we act more as construction managers, organizing and managing the entire process from design through punch list.  We sub contract out the specialty skills for our projects.

MidlandsBiz:
What are the first steps someone might take to get something built?

Harry Mashburn:
Whether you are a private or public developer, there are multiple ways to get something built.  You can hire an architect, they design something for you and then you’d bid it – send it out to general contractors for a proposal.

Or, you can hire a full-service company like Mashburn Construction and we can manage the whole process for you.  The most important phase of any construction project occurs before a shovel is put in the ground. We take an upfront approach to budgeting, scheduling, site review, project delivery and conceptual planning in a way that is tailored to your needs. Involving Mashburn concurrent with the start of design work adds management and control to the entire process.

MidlandsBiz:
What are some of the trends in construction?

Harry Mashburn:
When I was president of Carolinas AGC, our trade association, we had plan rooms, nine of them over two states. In the Columbia plan room, we’d have rolled up plans for every job that was out to bid and tables so general contractors and sub contractors could go in there and take a look at the project.  Today, you send a PDF file with the entire set of plans and specifications on it.

A structural beam is still a structural beam, so the core engineering has not changed.  The biggest trend that we see is the demand for more efficient use of energy, water and other resources.  That requires close cooperation at all stages of the project between the general contractor, the design team, the architects, the engineers, and the client.  The use of recycled materials, more efficient air-conditioning systems, and energy-efficient, waterless urinals are just a few of the myriad ‘green’ products that are out there.

The second biggest trend is the technology driving our systems and procedures behind the scenes is dramatically different.

MidlandsBiz:
Yours is a family business.  How does it become not about the Mashburns, but about a larger culture?

Harry Mashburn:
In the early stages of an entrepreneurial venture, it’s very easy to be constantly looking over everyone’s shoulder and to put informal systems in place.  But as you grow, and in order to grow, you can’t do that anymore. You need to hire talented people and put in place more formal systems. You have to write down what is important to the business (come up with a mission statement) and communicate this throughout the organization.  We had a company retreat several years back and came up with the following: be open and honest with one another; listen, attack the problem not the person; have fun.

People spend more of their waking hours in the workplace than they do at home. As a result, we built a comfortable place to work and invested a lot of money in our office building.  People who work for us are here because they like the family business as opposed to working in a big corporate structure.

MidlandsBiz:
What separates you from other companies in your industry?

Harry Mashburn:
Construction companies are not the mere tradesmen building something the designer drew up.  We are professionals providing a professional service. We’re part of a three-legged stool: the design team, the contractor, and most importantly, the client.  What most differentiates us from others is our focus on the customer.

MidlandsBiz:
What are some of the projects you’re most proud of?

Harry Mashburn:
We recently completed the Bohemian Hotel in Charleston (pictured left). It was a great example of a challenging project – very little room at the site, big finished areas, and lots of changes along the way. It was a huge task, but in the end, it is a beautiful building and the client was happy.

I am proud of the the Newberry Opera house because it has been a catalyst for revival of Newberry’s downtown. I am proud of the role that we have played in preserving many historic buildings in Columbia’s downtown along Main Street. It often costs more to renovate a building than tear it down and build a new one. Lee has guided several of our clients successfully through the process of applying for government tax incentives that are available to help owners save old buildings.

MidlandsBiz:
What are the key business metrics that you follow to make sure the company is on track?

Harry Mashburn:
Margins are thin in this industry so the most important metric is ‘know your costs’. Our project managers have to constantly analyze costs and know what the profit (or loss) is going to be on a project.  If you don’t control costs, you lose control of the project.

Another big one is projecting cash flow.  We might have twenty jobs going on at the same time, but what happens if they all end at the same time?

MidlandsBiz:
Whose job is that?

Harry Mashburn:
We have a Chief Financial Officer whose job it is to manage the financial end of our business and count the money.  Lee and Paul use that information to find new projects and match our people with the job.

MidlandsBiz:
What role do you see Mashburn playing in the community?

Harry Mashburn:
I have always been very active in the community. I was one of the founding members in the City Center Partnership project, I served on the SC State Chamber of Commerce, the Columbia Chamber, the United Way amongst many other civic responsibilities. You have to be involved in your community!  We encourage our people to get involved and we back that up by offering our employees the time to do so.

MidlandsBiz:
What do you like to do in your free time outside of work?

Harry Mashburn:
We like to spend time in the mountains and the beach.  Recently I find myself more attracted to the mountains.  I can’t sit out in the sun all day like I used to, especially in July and August. I enjoy the mountains in the summer because it’s 70 degrees with low humidity. I like to play golf in the mountains in the summer and go up there and sit by the fire and watch it snow in the winter.

MidlandsBiz:
After all this time, what are you most proud of?

Harry Mashburn:
Through all the growth over the past forty years, I am proud that we’ve been able to maintain a pleasant working environment, a family atmosphere. Businesses change when you change leadership, but I am confident that my sons have developed to the point where they can do a great job running this business going forward. We have a new logo, new focus, and a new energy.  Now, it’s about the next forty years.

 

 

 

 

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