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Chicago Committee on Design

It was great to be selected as a member of the Chicago Committee on Design. We recently had our inaugural meeting, and I’m glad that I was a part of it. The Chicago Committee on Design is made up of 24 local leaders and urban design professionals hand selected by Chicago’s Department of Planning and Development to work with Commissioner Maurice Cox on important development projects and urban design initiatives. Its main purpose is to offer expertise, guidance, and suggestions for DPD as well as the members of the project’s development team, and meetings are also open to the public for feedback and testimony. The Committee will advise the city and developers about innovative, attractive, and cost-effective elements with members who are leading architects, artists, academics, and real estate professionals.

July 28, 2021

2021
Impact
Community

Broadway Chapter

Broadway Chapter in Fort Worth, Texas offered a special opportunity to work closely with the Near Southside community and its Art South program to offer a local emerging artist the chance to design a mural for the project’s facade. After receiving submissions from over 84 talented artists, Eric ‘Drigo’ Rodriguez was selected by the community as the winner. Drigo’s mural is titled “Cosmic Journey” and is a 5,000 square foot, five-story piece that speaks to the diversity and vibrancy of its surrounding community with its colorful imagery. Covering the southern facade of the parking garage, the mural is emblematic of a community-first approach to building and also building stronger bonds with people throughout the neighborhood. It was just unveiled in June and has added an entirely unique dimension to the project.

July 26, 2021

2021
Inspiration
Innovation

Blue Origin’s Historic Launch

Today’s launch of Blue Origin’s first crewed mission is a first on so many fronts, and it was really exciting to watch. It also signals that we’ve entered into a whole new era in space exploration and travel. The mission’s success is sure to open a lot of new doors for even more people to get to experience what was once unthinkable and unimaginable not too long ago. From the start, I knew that Clayco’s work on the Blue Origin Engine Facility project would be so important to the manufacturing process of their rocket engines. Designed by Lamar Johnson Collaborative, Blue Origin's Engine Plant in Huntsville, Alabama won Engineering News-Record's Best Manufacturing Project in the Southeast for 2020. This facility manufactures seven of the LNG fueled BE-4 rocket engines that provide nearly 4 million pounds of thrust to Blue Origin's New Glenn Rocket.

July 20, 2021

2021
Adventure
Life Lessons
Essays

Your Boardroom Sets the Tone Op-Ed

I just wrote an op-ed article that’s featured in Crain’s Chicago Business on the topic of diversity in our boardrooms. It’s something that I really care a lot about, and I think other CEOs need to take a more active role in addressing the barriers that prevent many people from underrepresented backgrounds from becoming members of a company’s senior leadership team. For me, diversity is a core part of doing business and ensuring that everyone has an equal chance to succeed. We have a responsibility to elevate and support the people who work hard for us each day, and Clayco is proud to have a strong set of diversity initiatives that are some of the most groundbreaking and impactful in the construction industry. We set an example for others to follow, and it’s inseparable from who we are as a company.

July 16, 2021

2021
Adventure
Life Lessons
Essays

The Debra and George W. Couch III Biomedical Research Building

One of the most important causes that I support is the search for cures and therapies in the field of rare disease, and it’s part of the reason why I continue to be involved with the Board of Trustees at the University of Chicago Medical Center, the Central Institute for the Deaf, and the Scientific Advisory Council for the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. When Clayco was chosen to help design a new 6-story, 215,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art research lab facility for Washington University School of Medicine, we brought all of our planning and building expertise to the project and ultimately maximized its budget and scope, including adding an additional floor, an additional bay, lab convertibility, and floor-to-floor heights that contained the coordinated MEP systems without excess or costly plenum space.

July 12, 2021

2021
Business
Clayco

June's Featured Architect: Ralph Johnson

Ralph Johnson is an award-winning architect who has a deep understanding and appreciation of his hometown of Chicago. His work is instantly recognizable by many who know the city well, and he has added to a long and proud tradition of the Windy City setting new standards with its innovative architectural landscape. Born on the South Side of Chicago, Ralph Johnson was destined for a bright future in architecture, since he grew up right down the street from Frank Lloyd Wright’s infamous R.W. Evans House. He received his Bachelor of Architecture in 1971 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and he went on to receive his Master of Architecture from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design in 1973. Johnson found that by entering numerous architectural competitions in the years after graduating, he began to develop his own personal approach to design and forge his own path. It would eventually take him back to Chicago to work for a firm he dreamed of being a part of. He joined Perkins&Will after coming back to his hometown, where he has worked ever since.

June 30, 2021

2021
Inspiration
Architecture

Clayco Named ENR 2021 Midwest Contractor of the Year

It is a real honor to be recognized by ENR’s editors as Midwest Contractor of the Year, and it’s something that speaks to the hard work and commitment of our team members across the country who helped make this happen. Last year was a challenge for everyone and being able to come out on the other side stronger than before is something that I’m grateful for. When other companies were cautiously pulling back, we decided to spring forward into action. We made a lot of decisions to fight back against COVID-19, and we always went with what felt right and did so with the safety of our people in mind. From working with the Center for Disease Control to develop better guidelines to keep the construction industry working, to encouraging employees to get vaccinated and doing $3.8 billion in 2020 revenue, Clayco has proven that we can always get it done, no matter what.

June 29, 2021

2021
Adventure
Life Lessons
Essays

June's Featured Artist: Nathaniel Mary Quinn

Nathaniel Mary Quinn is an artist whose incredible work stays with you. Known for his captivating collage-like portraits, Quinn has created a distinct style that is a unique blend between mixed media drawings and paintings of fragmented figures that play with the viewer’s perception of identity. Quinn was born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, where he grew up in the Robert Taylor Homes public housing project. It was here that he discovered an early passion for drawing, and when was in the ninth grade, he received a scholarship to study at Culver Academy boarding school in Indiana. While enrolled there, Quinn was told that his mother had passed away suddenly, and when returning home from school for Thanksgiving, he also found that the rest of his family had abandoned his childhood home with no explanation.

June 26, 2021

2021
Impact
Inspiration
Clark Art Collection
Art

Ride the Wave Continues

Yesterday we picked up our Ride the Wave tour in my hometown of St. Louis, Missouri. We visited several of our job sites across the metro area and it was great to see all of the progress being made on these ambitious projects. First, we stopped off at Project Millie, a 270,000 square-foot warehouse distribution center near the St. Louis Lambert International Airport. Next, we checked up on our Delmar Divine project, which is a renovation and reimagining of the former St. Luke’s Hospital campus that will transform a historic building into an innovative hub for social innovation and enterprise. Our final stop took us to Chesterfield, Missouri, where we visited Wildhorse Village. Once completed, it will be a brand new 80-acre urban center that includes cutting-edge offices, beautiful apartments, and natural public spaces.

June 23, 2021

2021
Business
Clayco

The Importance of Finding Your Core Values

When I was in junior high school, my principal, Mr. Graham, made a big push for all of us students to identify and develop our own set of values. Of course he gave some great examples to follow. The assignment stuck with me, and years later after getting married and starting a family, I made it a point to write down and remember some of the values that would become a guiding light for me through some tough challenges. They’re still the ones that hold true for me to this day, and I can’t stress enough how important it is for each of us to find what we value in life and do everything we can to remember and stick to those ideals. My values have shaped me into the person I am today, and I think it’s also important to constantly share your values with others.

June 9, 2021

2021
Adventure
Life Lessons
Essays

LGC’s Building an Inclusive Chicago Event

On Friday, I had the opportunity to join with Chicago’s Deputy Mayor for Economic and Neighborhood Development Samir Mayekar in an important conversation organized by Leadership Greater Chicago for its 2021 Daniel Burnham Fellows cohort. “Building an Inclusive Chicago Part 1: Race, Equity and Economic Development” focused on how we can all pitch in to make our city a more level playing field for every Chicagoan, and I was happy to be a part of it. During our conversation moderated by Maria Wynne, the CEO of LGC, we spoke in-depth about the ways that we can work together to help ensure an equitable reopening of Chicago and its core business district. As more and more people return to downtown offices after working remotely during most of the pandemic, it’s more important than ever that we help build our city back stronger and more inclusive than before.

June 7, 2021

2021
Adventure
Life Lessons
Essays

Come Back to the Office Now!

There’s been a lot of talk in the news lately about how to best bring employees back to the office after over a year of working remotely. It’s a conversation that has changed a lot in recent months, with the vaccine becoming more widely available, proven methods of a safe workplace, and cities and towns lifting restrictions on everything from indoor dining and exercise classes to mask mandates and social distancing. While most of our competitors in the industry, especially on the design side, are working from home and have been for over a year, Clayco and our subsidiaries, Lamar Johnson Collaborative and Ventana, are fully back in the office, and we never left the field. In fact, we were busier than ever on job sites across the country, and we have been leaders in proving that you can work together in-person safely, even during the uncertainty of the pandemic.

June 4, 2021

2021
Adventure
Life Lessons
Essays

Wildhorse Village

In Chesterfield, Missouri, not too far from where I grew up, we’re currently hard at work on a massive multi-use development that’s going to be a complete transformation for the area. Serving as a brand-new urban center for the suburb, Wildhorse Village is going to offer 1 million square feet of office space, 150 for-sale residences, 500 apartments, and 100,000 square feet of retail space that spans across 80 acres of land. We’re delivering on this outstanding project through Clayco’s integrated services that leverage both CRG and Lamar Johnson Collaborative. Once completed, Wildhorse Village will include scenic lakefront locations for working, living, and playing and will include some amazing amenities like boardwalks, parks, an amphitheater, and a boathouse.

June 3, 2021

2021
Business
Inspiration
Innovation
Architecture

May's Featured Architect: Frank Gehry

There are very few architects that are as widely celebrated and recognized today as Frank Gehry. Honestly, at this point, Frank stands alone at the top. A constant innovator, a disruptor of traditional practices, and a creative visionary, Frank has designed iconic buildings that are found all over the world, and each of them is more stunning and unique than the next. His works stand alone and are unaligned with any traditional styles, and he’s played a crucial role in shaping a whole new chapter of architecture and design. In addition to being known as a revolutionary, Frank is also famously known for being unapproachable and is often dubbed by people in the industry as being difficult to work with. In my personal experience spending some time with Frank a few years ago, I found the complete opposite to be true.

May 30, 2021

2021
Inspiration
Architecture

Supporting Alderman Burnett at Fulton East

As the first next-generation office building in the nation, Fulton East is built for the future. In addition to 85,000 square feet of floor-to-ceiling glass skyspace, this groundbreaking project includes health protection measures, like a hands-free elevator system, plasma disinfection technology, and touch-free secure access systems. My favorite feature of Fulton East is its amenity deck that includes 2,925 square feet of vegetated space and reflective roofing that earned the building LEED certification for reducing the project’s urban heat island effect. There was no better place to host a fundraising event for Alderman Walter Burnett, Jr. who currently represents Chicago’s 27th ward. For 26 years, Alderman Burnett, Jr. has been a great advocate for the communities he serves, and he’s a leader who has shaped Chicago in many ways.

May 26, 2021

2021
Adventure
Life Lessons
Essays

PayneCrest

David Payne is an electrical engineer and the CEO of PayneCrest, an award-winning electrical contractor company that handles highly complex electrical and communications projects for commercial and industrial customers nationwide. David acquired PayneCrest around the same time that I started Clayco and has successfully grown his company to what it is today, weathering many of the storms in the industry over the past 35 years. He was even named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2014. Like Clayco, PayneCrest has strong ties to the St. Louis community while continuing to grow its presence nationally. We have worked with PayneCrest on important projects like the Washington University School of Medicine Mid Campus Center, and more recently we worked together on Pfizer’s Research and Development Facility. Their expertise in electrical service distribution has helped us build stronger foundations for our buildings and delivered some outstanding results. They take on projects that span industries and consistently help solve challenges with their engineering capabilities.

May 24, 2021

2021
Business
Clayco

Recent Feature: ENR’s Critical Path Podcast

I recently had the opportunity to sit down and have a conversation with Jeff Yoders and Aileen Cho for ENR’s Critical Path Podcast. It has always been one of my favorites to listen to, and it’s a great platform for industry experts to share their knowledge and views on everything that’s happening in construction. During the Exec Talk, we spoke about a wide range of topics, including the terrific response I’ve received from the Ride the Wave tour, the many ways Clayco has adapted during the pandemic to keep our team members safe, and how important I think it is to get everyone back in the office. I also shared some of my thoughts on OSHA’s vaccine guidelines, current trends in the economy, and how far we still have to go to improve employee diversity in the construction industry.

May 19, 2021

2021
Adventure
Life Lessons
Essays

In Memory of Helmut Jahn

I am so saddened to hear of the passing of my good friend, Helmut Jahn, who passed away in a tragic bicycle accident. He was truly one of the great architects of the world, and also one of my greatest inspirations. By designing iconic buildings like Terminal 1 at O’Hare International Airport and the James R. Thompson Center, Helmut played an important role in shaping Chicago’s architectural landscape, as well as its continued growth and future. Helmut also designed one of my all-time favorite projects, The Joe and Rika Mansueto Library at The University of Chicago. He had a personality as big as the scope of his buildings, and he was definitely a “star-chitect” who brought so much joy and light into the lives of all those who had the pleasure of knowing him.

May 10, 2021

2021
Adventure
Life Lessons
Essays

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.

May 7, 2021

2021
Business
Clayco

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.

May 3, 2021

2021
Business
Inspiration
Innovation
Architecture

April's Featured Artist: Bisa Butler

Known for her stunning and colorful quilted portraits, Bisa Butler seamlessly blends a passion for storytelling with the dynamic medium of textiles to create vibrant works of art that document the Black experience. Butler was born in New Jersey in 1973, where she first learned sewing techniques passed down to her from her grandmother and mother. Her father was an immigrant from Ghana, and Butler drew inspiration from the colorful fabrics and garments of his homeland, as well as batiks from Nigeria, and prints from South Africa. After majoring in Fine Art and graduating cum laude from Howard University, she wanted to use art as a way to communicate and highlight the stories of people who far too often have been marginalized.

April 29, 2021

2021
Inspiration
Art

April's Featured Architect: Maya Lin

Artist, architect, and memorialist Maya Lin was born in 1959, into a family of artists. Her mother was a poet and literature professor and her father a ceramicist and the dean of Ohio University’s College of Fine Arts. Both of her parents fled China in 1948 in order to escape Communist rule. During her childhood, Lin already demonstrated a propensity for mathematics, ceramics, and a keen interest in nature—all of which have become central in her works. Though she was trained as an architect, she prefers to describe herself as a designer. Lin has designed a range of works from public and private buildings, to memorials and landscapes. She is best known for her memorials that have a historic character—the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. and the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama. It was the Vietnam Veterans Memorial that earned her success very early in life, winning the competition for her design at the age of 21. Remarkably, she had not even completed her undergraduate studies at Yale University when she won. She has also completed several large sculptural landscapes of note, such as Groundswell at Ohio State University, Wave Field at the University of Michigan, and Eleven Minute Line in Wanås, Sweden. Lin and her work have received many awards, including the National Medal of Arts and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, both awarded to her by President Barack Obama.

April 26, 2021

2021
Inspiration
Architecture

Earth Day Book Review

On Earth Day, when Shawn was about 7 years old, I was working from home for some reason (very rare) and Shawn ran by me and I noticed he had a shirt on with an animated cartoon of the Earth. I beckoned him over so I could get a better view and was horrified to see that he had a t-shirt on that read “SAVE THE TREES” on the front in bold letters. My immediate reaction was to tell him to get rid of that shirt because we (Clayco) are who the trees are being saved from. That was true then and it’s still true now. My company probably cuts down more trees that are “in the way” at our projects than any other building company in America. Although we now work hard to mitigate our footprint, we have a long way to go. Now we try to not just understand our footprint and completely mitigate it, but also take into account the BIG picture and work towards helping our clients achieve their ambitious plans in this same regard. Like SAFETY, these types of initiatives require a top-down/bottom-up strategy within a business. The first step to that is “The Greening of Bob Clark”. It’s a journey, and I can promise my company and I are on the right path.

April 22, 2021

2021
Inspiration
Books
Beyond Book Club
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster by Bill Gates, Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells, Dirt to Soil by Gabe Brown, For the Love of Soil by Nicole Masters, Where the Water Goes– Life and Death Along the Colorado River by David Owen

Let’s Get Back to Work, Safely and Vaccinated

Shots of the COVID-19 vaccine in arms are picking up quickly across the country, and a few companies are starting to call people back to work, including Clayco. One of the most important things about Clayco is our company culture, and we can’t sustain it if everyone continues to work remotely. We’ve asked our office employees to return on May 10th, not only because I believe our employees do their best work when they’re together in the office, but also because we want to set an example for other companies to show that workplaces can be safe if you implement the right training and precautions. Because safety is always our highest priority at Clayco, we’ve done a lot of work recently to ensure we have an even safer workplace than ever before. In addition to social distancing, desk spacing, masking, rotating employees in and out of remote work, and other creative ideas, Clayco has developed an extensive vaccination policy, encouraging all of our employees to get vaccinated once shots are readily available with exceptions for medical or religious reasons. By doing this, we can better protect the people we work with and the communities we interact with.

April 14, 2021

2021
Adventure
Life Lessons
Essays
Candida Alvarez

March’s Featured Artist: Candida Alvarez

March’s featured artist of the month is Brooklyn-born, Candida Alvarez. She is well-known for her bold and colorful creations such as the piece featured above. I became acquainted with her work through her involvement within Chicago and the Art Institute of Chicago. The painting featured in the Clark Collection, titled “No Chickens,” is particularly special because we added it while it was still being made. Since 1998, Alvarez has been a tenured professor of Painting and Drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Alvarez works in a range of diverse mediums, including but not limited to sculpture, collage, and painting. Her work is often highly complex. It is full of pop, historical, and modern art references, while also incorporating world news and personal memories.

March 21, 2021

2021
Impact
Inspiration
Clark Art Collection
Art

Some Of My Favorite Books

I was recently asked to create a list of my top 5 books of all time. It’s difficult to narrow down my top 5, or even my top 50 books of all time. If you ask me in 6 months, my answer may even be different. However, here are some that come to mind.

March 4, 2021

2021
Inspiration
Books
Beyond Book Club
Gods and Generals by Jeff Shaara, The Stand by Stephen King, Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read, The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman, The World Without Us by Alan Wiseman, The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells, Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam by Fredrik Logevall, We Were Soldiers Once…and Young: la Drang – The Battle That Changed The War In Vietnam by Harold G. Moore, Joseph L. Galloway, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer

Beyond Black History Month: Celebrating Black Artists Year-Round

We’ve entered a new year, and we have a new administration, yet the challenges that we face as Americans are as old as any of us can remember. Every February, we celebrate Black History Month and then feel like we have done our part in recognizing both the adversity and the contributions of Black Americans in the making of America as we know it. However, I would argue that recognition limited to this one month, the shortest month of the year in fact, is not enough. Understanding and celebrating Black history is critical to the unification and healing that our country so deeply needs. What has been obvious to Black communities for the past couple of centuries, has finally made its way into broader American awareness, amplified by the events of 2020. This awareness is most welcome, but it is our response to the awareness that will be the most important thing.

February 24, 2021

2021
Impact
Inspiration
Clark Art Collection

The Books That Inspire Me to Think Big

Recently I decided to read, in quick succession, an assortment of books about phenomenal business and tech leaders. I’ve found that reading related books one after the other usually leads to new insights that come from seeing the similarities and the differences.

February 14, 2021

2021
Inspiration
Books
Beyond Book Club
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone, The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company by Robert Iger, How Google Works by Eric Schmidt and Jonathon Rosenberg

Centene Centre - Clayton, Missouri

My relationship with Centene dates back to 2008 when Clayco won its first project with the company to build a 21-story office tower, complete with a beautifully-designed public plaza and a 1,700-space parking garage. Working with Mr. Neidorff at Centene has been one of my greatest experiences. This first project was completed in 2010 and brought new life to Clayton, Missouri. Before the construction of Centene’s headquarters, the area was suffering from the financial collapse brought on by the economic recession. Clayco managed to develop a strategic financing plan, resulting in the entire facility being nearly fully leased in less than 15 months. The entire district was elevated as businesses quickly moved in and more people were present and supporting the businesses in the area. After this first success, of which we are very proud, Clayco was awarded the $770 million project of expanding Centene’s headquarters, providing a new structure that is adjacent to the current Centene Plaza. This expansion is also expected to create 2,000 new jobs for the state of Missouri, which is particularly important in these times.

February 9, 2021

2021
Business
Clayco

Delmar Divine - St. Louis, Missouri

Delmar Divine, in my hometown of St. Louis, is a project that is near and dear to me. Located on Delmar Boulevard, the project is currently underway turning the original building of St. Luke’s Hospital into a community hub for at least 30 of St. Louis’s nonprofit organizations. Beyond that, it will be the epicenter for the transformation of an entire community. It is a rare example of a project that doesn’t necessarily excite me from a building perspective, but because of the potential it has to positively impact a community that has long been neglected. The building itself has a symbolic significance in the neighborhood. St. Luke’s was important historically because it was a catalyst for hospitals becoming a place of training, research, and medical advancement. In the same way, Delmar Divine proposes to be a place of social innovation and advancement. It will do so by providing the space and the resources to nonprofits who are doing important community work. St. Louis is a national leader in terms of nonprofits, and Delmar Divine will help to increase their impact and bring about shifts in the neighborhood. It will not, however, be a space solely for nonprofits — Delmar Divine will also have a community meeting space, 150 residential units, and a cafe for the tenants, residents, and surrounding community.

January 30, 2021

2021
Business
Clayco

Titan Electric

For over 12 years, Titan Electric has been a strong partner for many of Clayco’s projects in the Chicago market. Successfully performing design-build electrical work, they’ve helped us quickly complete complicated projects such as the Zurich North American Headquarters parking garage, Cook County Hospital, Berner Foods in Cherry Valley, IL, Project Tarpon (Amazon traditional non-sort), and Crossroads building “A” in Channahon, IL, among many others. Titan Electric consistently works to find cost-effective ways to adhere to budget constraints on projects, all while delivering top quality work, with the utmost attention paid to safety. Led by Vice President Derek Olenek, the communication, planning, coordination, and overall leadership have led to projects being finished on time and achieving excellence in terms of client satisfaction. Olenek is always the first to say “How can I help?” or “What can I do?” when a hurdle presents itself in the midst of a project. Titan Electric is a partner that I never have to worry about on a project team. They help lead the way and get it done, time and again.

January 12, 2021

2021
Business
Clayco

ICON Mechanical

ICON is a full-service design-build mechanical firm that has on-site pre-fabrication ability. ICON has been working with Clayco since 2004 when we first partnered together on the design-build of the Cortex One facility. From the beginning, ICON has been a solid and capable partner. They have been an advocate for the advancement in technology and creative thinking that Clayco brings to the table, helping to improve the project delivery process and overall end-product for our clients. They are always eager to help us with our most difficult assignments. ICON was recently instrumental in helping us implement our new approach to prefabrication and modularization. This method was successfully applied to our Pfizer project in Chesterfield, MO, where they built all of the pre-fabricated core walls that lead to millions of dollars saved and a tremendous improvement to the overall schedule. The President of ICON, Mike Bieg, said: “The collaboration between all of the partners involved is what made this project a big success. By communicating with our partners during the process, we were able to adjust traditional decisions to minimize risk while ensuring we were not only completing the work on time but also ahead of schedule.”

January 12, 2021

2021
Business
Clayco

100 Above The Park - St. Louis, Missouri

100 Above the Park, a luxury residential tower designed by Jeanne Gang and built by Clayco, is the latest addition to the city’s diverse architectural splendor, and hopefully just the beginning of a new era. It is certainly one of the most incredible buildings to be built in St. Louis in the past century. It is a spectacular monument to modern architecture and has the important job of shaping up St. Louis’s western skyline. In terms of design, the facade is scalloped and the building is leaf-shaped, making it incredibly unique. It has been designed in such a way as to help residents connect with nature, and the shape of the building allows for plenty of outdoor space for a quarter of the building’s apartments. There are also communal outdoor spaces providing excellent views and shared luxury amenities. One of the coolest things about the design of the building is that it maximizes light and efficiency and it has been Green Globe certified for sustainable and energy-efficient design. Every unit in the whole building has a corner living room with floor-to-ceiling windows.

January 11, 2021

2021
Business
Clayco
Bob

Clayco Rising — A Hub for Diversity and Inclusion Impact

In building, everything starts from the ground up. 25 years ago, we started building diverse and inclusive practices into our company, while also shifting things in the industry. We were the first to introduce a diversity and inclusion program, and have continued to pave the way by breaking through the barriers of income, race, sexual orientation, and gender that are prevalent in the construction industry. Over the past 25 years, we have focused on developing and nurturing relationships, creating opportunities, and remaining accountable in all our operations when it comes to making sure people of color and women have equitable opportunities. We have done so through many initiatives over the years, including some of our most notable programs like CCDI, M/WBE mentorship, Clayco NOW, and our extensive community outreach. Another key area in which we focus on inclusion is in our subcontractor and partner relationships.

December 17, 2020

2020
Business
Clayco

Hit Refresh by Satya Nadella

I recently reacquainted myself with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s book Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft’s Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone. It is required reading for my senior team. Nadella sums up the book perfectly when he writes: “This is a book about transformation.” It is about the transformation that Microsoft is undergoing with Nadella at the helm, but it is also about how Nadella himself has been transformed in the process, and his philosophy that one of the most important human qualities is empathy. Empathy, Nadella insists, is at the heart of how companies, society, and individuals must transform. The book is written in three main sections: his early life and journey to Microsoft, the story of Microsoft’s transformation-in-progress, and his views on technology and the future. One thing I appreciate is that Nadella wanted to write the book now, while everything is happening, so that the reader can share in the story alongside him, rather than looking back in retrospect. He wants it to be a picture of the mess, not the final product. This is the reality of having a significant leadership role in a company — it is always a work in progress with many obstacles to overcome and things to improve. Nadella shows this magnificently. It’s also written in a way that is really simple to digest and tames the complexity of subjects like the cloud and artificial intelligence for the average person.

December 17, 2020

2020
Inspiration
Books
Beyond Book Club
Hit Refresh The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft's Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone
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