Wisconsin Commercial General Contractors Constructing World-class Excellence Locally
As seen in… U.S.News & World Report, June 23, 2008
The master builder concept has been around for millennia. It was master builders who created Europe’s great landmarks, for example. Today’s construction industry, however, tends to consist of general contractors and construction managers. But one Wisconsin commercial general contractors working to adapt the master builder model to the 21st century.
J. P. Cullen & Sons, a Wisconsin general contracting firm founded in 1892, has been consistently ranked among the top 400 contractors in the United States and is the only Wisconsin-based contractor to have achieved the prestigious ISO 9001:2000 Certification. But those accolades arena’t enough for Cullen’s 600 employees, says Corporate Director of Marketing Tristan McGough. “We want to create buildings that stand the test of excellence,” he says. “Buildings that have substance and aesthetic longevity.”
As a master builder, Cullen is solely responsible for each project. “We take every possible step on the road to delivery and fold it into our contract,” says McGough. “We’re 100 percent accountable for everything that happens on a job site, including the coordination of the entire panorama of trade and talent that needs to come onto the site.” And that talent consists of one of the most highly trained staffs in the industry. “In construction, there’s always going to be an element of on-the-job improvement,” says McGough. “But we not only have a system for circulating information about recently developed industry advances to the necessary employees, we also have Cullen Construction College.”
Over the past 100 years Wisconsin Commercial general contractor J. P. Cullen has developed an educational system that enables employees to become Professional Constructors and Master Builders. “It’s a hierarchical order of obtaining more and more precise information and applying more advanced knowledge in an employee’s particular construction trade. We also teach the overall philosophy of master building,” says McGough. The success of all that training is evident in the company’s safety record. In fact, its experience modification ratio (EMR), calculated according to reported accidents and impacting workers’ compensation rates, are just 83 percent of the industry average. And, according to McGough, that includes numbers for the high-risk construction trades, such as iron working and masonry. “Some companies sub those jobs out and don’t count those accident figures when calculating accident rates,” he says. “Our rates would be impressive even if we didn't include those numbers. Considering they are included, our rates are phenomenal.”
Wisconsin General Contractors Building a Greener Future
One of the ways in which J. P. Cullen & Sons is adapting the master builder model to the 21st century is its new emphasis on green building. “There are three ways we green a building,” says McGough. “First is with construction practices. We recently completed the Lakeland School in Elkhorn, Wis., in which we were able to recycle 82 percent of construction waste. Even with more and more builders taking on recycling efforts, that’s a leading-edge number.” The second way is by working with an architect to deliver a LEED® certified facility, according to the standards set by the U. S. Green Building Council. An owner has to want this particulary goal and willing to committ to, perhaps, a greater investment at the front end in order to capture and enjoy savings over the life-cyle of the building. As our third approach to greening a project, Cullen can work with a building owner to customize sustainability goals. “We can use design-driven practices, based on the owner’s preferences, that will enable them to recoup some of the building’s costs over the life-cycle of the building,” McGough says. “The green movement is having a major impact on the construction industry,” he continues. “And that’s a direction we’re more than happy to move in. Because we earn our living through construction, but building a better world is our way of life.”