By all possible measures, 2020 was, quite simply, one heckuva year for humanity. Contractors weren’t immune to the pandemic-induced fallout and pitfalls that began hitting the U.S. construction industry early last year, including project delays and cancellations, jobsites hit with COVID cases and, quickly thereafter, social distancing that often hampered productivity. And, as this year’s Southeast Top Contractors survey has shown, there were challenges to firms’ revenues.

However, one firm bucking the challenges of 2020 in a big way was Birmingham, Ala.-based Brasfield & Gorrie. Reporting its largest-ever regional revenue total of more than $3.56 billion in the Southeast Top Contractors survey, the contractor’s roughly 15% revenue gain distanced it from the competition, making for a strong No. 1 showing on this year’s ranking.

有多强？承包商的东南运输在今年的第2次排名公司的特纳官建设中几乎加倍，该建筑在去年报告了18.4亿美元。简单地说，孤立地看待公司的数字，人们可能会看到健康的收入增长，并认为2020年是该公司的另一个典型的一年。但是，绝对不是。

ATLANTA ACTIVITY:In January, the contractor topped out its 1105 West Peachtree project, a 31-story office building.
Photo Courtesy of Brasfield & Gorrie

Crisis Moment

2020年3月，随着Covid-19 Pandemast首先击中美国，布拉斯菲尔德和戈里忙着在亚特兰大完成皮埃蒙特医疗保健的新马库斯塔。最初计划完成8月份，承包商是希望在5月份包装工作。皮埃蒙特不可能等待这一点。它需要距离项目的额外132张床。

Piedmont Healthcare的首席执行官凯文·布朗呼吁大流行的初始发行“危机时刻”，凯文布朗表示，当项目所有者告诉该团队在4月初告诉球队需要这张床的时候，Brasfield＆Gorri犹豫不决。相反，承包商的回应，布朗说，是“让我们追求”。

然而，在那一刻，加速医疗保健项目将采取另一级别的“追随它”。一个大问题：城市检查员由于Covid限制而没有访问项目。新利18备用网址然而，皮埃蒙特和亚特兰大市之间的讨论与布拉斯菲尔德和Gorrie-Servended当地官员允许每天返回该网站。

“That was certainly key,” says Keith Johnson, East group president for Brasfield & Gorrie.

Suddenly adjusting to new jobsite safety protocols—and positive COVID cases—took a “few weeks of figuring out ‘how do we do this and still stay efficient?’” Johnson says. The team implemented the standard formula of working longer hours and bringing in extra crews, but they often came from other, momentarily paused projects nearby.

DELIVERING A CRITICAL RESOURCE:布拉斯菲尔德和戈里accelerated completion of a Piedmont Healthcare project last April to deliver 132 ICU beds to provide a needed resource for COVID patients.
Photo Courtesy of Brasfield & Gorrie

努力工作，胸部菲尔德和Gorrie-LED项目团队于4月13日发布了132张ICU床，从而提供了Piedmont和亚特兰大城市，以管理流行的关键资源。“他们为我们提供了交付，”布朗说，布拉斯菲尔德和戈里和其他项目团队，包括建筑公司的努力。

Overall, he says of the contractor: “They just do what they say they’re going to do and make it happen.”

MARCUS TOWER:在皮埃蒙特医疗保健的新马库斯塔举行了所需医院床的加速交付。
Photo Courtesy of Brasfield & Gorrie

Culture Matters

“以你想要对待的方式对待人们，做你说的是你要做的事情。”从奥本大学毕业后，约翰逊（Johnson）Johnson Johnson说，这条消息“已经从我走在门口。

“我认为这是一个人的”水果“来自哪里 - 人们相信，他们练习它，”他说。

The lead preacher of this mantra has often been Jim Gorrie, Brasfield & Gorrie’s CEO since 2011 and the son of founder Miller Gorrie. The message is meant not only to inspire project-by-project excellence but also to help the firm cultivate long-term clients.

Those aspirations are best served by a steady workforce, something the contractor has been able to achieve with longtime tenures such as Johnson’s, more the norm than the exception, and a “lot of third-generation employees,” says Gorrie.

“对我来说，更透露我们的公司完全是什么，”他说。That an estimated half of the contractor’s employees have spent their entire careers with Brasfield & Gorrie makes the CEO “so appreciative of the culture we have,” he says, adding: “Long-term Brasfield & Gorrie employees have sacrificed a lot to help us get to where we are.”

The contractor’s present location within the Southeast’s construction industry, simply put, is at the top and climbing. Including its Texas business, Brasfield & Gorrie has grown into a roughly $4-billion company, and done so completely organically.

With a focus on planning over what Gorrie feels is “a much longer horizon than our competitors,” the company tries to grow its current roster of clients by one or two new entities each year to help meet its annual growth goal of 5% to 10%. That growth will be built by keeping those clients, hopefully forever, he says.

“当我看着每个市场部门和我们getting to work with,” Gorrie says, “we’re very fortunate, and we don’t take it for granted.”

Testifying to the contractor’s stated commitment to delivering for its clients is Mike Plant, president and CEO of the Braves Development Co.

重复客户：三个球场中心项目重复我们的标志rk for the Braves Development Co.
Photo Courtesy of Brasfield & Gorrie

Last August, when Brasfield & Gorrie topped out BDC’s $340-million Three Ballpark Center office tower “months earlier” than the project’s schedule, Plant said in a press statement that the occasion provided “testament to the level of excellence Brasfield & Gorrie brings to the project every day.”

The contractor had previously helped build theAtlanta Braves’ ballpark, Truist Park—as managing partner of a joint venture that also included Mortenson, Barton Malow and New South Construction.

Plant’s praise of Brasfield & Gorrie’s ahead-of-schedule topping out of Three Ballpark Center—an 11-story, 306,000-sq-ft high-rise, core-and-shell office building—also served as proof of the faith he placed in the contractor.

“I made a decision early on that I was not even going to take this to an RFP,” Plant told ENR. “I went right to Brasfield and said, here’s the general conditions, here is your fee—tell me in 24 hours if you want the job.”

Plant wasn’t trying to drive an especially favorable bargain for BDC, he attests. Instead, he felt Brasfield & Gorrie deserved first crack at the offer.

“I put fair numbers on the table,” he says. “They earned the right for us to go back to them with complete confidence that they could do that job.”

不到24小时后，布拉斯菲尔德＆Gorrie是三个球场中心的承包商。

如果植物的信心在该公司的客户中普遍存在，因为坚定的希望是，布拉斯菲尔德和Gorrie应该有足够的机会在东南建筑行业的顶级保持可预见的未来。