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Business Lessons from a Founder

I have worked with and learned from amazing people on my journey – let's build together.

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Midwest Testing

Rich Laughlin is the current President of Midwest Testing, a full-service geotechnical, environmental, and materials engineering consulting firm that provides a wide variety of services, including field exploration, laboratory testing, engineering analysis, and construction observation. Headquartered in my hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, Midwest Testing was founded in 1985. Ever since, it has provided creative solutions for its clients while also offering the best and most accurate testing services possible. Midwest Testing’s state-of-the-art lab maintains the highest standard of testing for oil, concrete, asphalt and other materials used in the construction industry.

McCormick Distribution Center

If there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that good food brings people together. Any family chef knows just how important different spices are to bringing out the flavors of all kinds of dishes.

Ride the Wave: Week 3 Update

We headed way out west on our most recent leg of the Ride the Wave tour, and we sure saw a lot of great things happening on the ground at all of our building sites this past week. We started Monday off with a visit to Washington, and I stopped by Project Fireball in Spokane Valley and Quincy MWH06 in Wenatchee. I also visited Project Winlock in Winlock on Tuesday morning before heading on to the NP Chewy project in Reno, Nevada and Project Shelby in Sacramento, California. On Wednesday, we toured Project Big Bird in Tracy, California and a confidential facility in Bakersfield, California, before heading down to Otay Mesa (San Diego) to see progress on the Arcilla and Herminito building sites. We finished the week with stops at “The Cubes” and 303 Glendale, two of our new projects in Glendale, Arizona.

Clayco’s West Coast Expansion

Clayco is experiencing record-breaking growth, and so much of what we are doing has been concentrated on the West Coast, including states like Nevada and Arizona. This area of the country is growing in almost every market sector, and it has emerged as a center of commerce, innovation, and exploration on so many fronts. We’re proud to announce that we are expanding Clayco’s presence with the opening of a new office in the Los Angeles area to support all of our western work.

Pfizer R&D Facility - Chesterfield, Missouri

At Clayco, we believe that every one of our projects is important and play a crucial role in the neighborhoods and communities they are located in. Over the past year, perhaps none of these buildings has taken on a more important role for the entire world than Pfizer’s new research and development facility located just outside of my hometown of St. Louis in Chesterfield, Missouri. Designed in accordance with LEED sustainability certification standards, Pfizer’s cutting-edge research and development campus includes a combined 295,000 square feet of flexible laboratories and open office space, supporting its development capabilities in biologics and vaccine therapy. This brand-new project has not only become an important hub for Pfizer in the Midwest region, but is also currently the place where every Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine dose originates.

Ride the Wave: Week 2 Update

We really hit the ground running again this week on the Ride the Wave tour, starting off with a stop on Monday at one of my favorite building sites on the Atlanta campus of the Savannah College of Art and Design. SCAD’s new project will feature a brand new residence hall for its students as well as a dining hall, dedicated academic spaces, an auditorium, a campus store, and a parking garage. I love getting to be a part of SCAD’s growth, and I know this project is going to be such an important resource for its community!

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My Mock Death is Today

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The concept of earning is an instinct of mine

My first job was stamping cans at a little grocery market in exchange for candy at about 10 years old. The concept of earning was an early instinct of mine.

During my teen years, I had a car wash on my home driveway, after which I started doing small painting and odd jobs at neighbors’ homes for extra money, but mainly to avoid mowing my own yard by paying the kid down the street to do it. I could make more money doing the other jobs, which allowed me to pay him very little to do something I didn’t want to do that was much more time-consuming. Looking back, that was an entrepreneurial experience.