Family Structure

By Kristen K. Tucker • Photos By John Blair

Situated on Congress avenue behind Eastland Mall in an attractive limestone and glass building is an Evansville company with a bold mission: to be the most respected, preferred, and consistently performing heavy civil contractor in the United States.

Only the cranes in the adjacent equipment yard or the tugboat in the machine shop hint at the magnitude and scope of work that has been done by Traylor Bros., Inc., for 63 years.

“The Traylor Bros. foundation lives on today, as we’ve focused on the niche market we serve,” says Christopher S. Traylor, co-president, along with his brother, Michael, of the corporation. “We pursue contracts that are very complex, highly engineered with a heavy financial investment, that if done properly will allow us to be more successful than your average contractor. Today, we have more work than we’ve ever had.”

Indeed the work is far from average civil construction. Since its inception, Traylor Bros. has built more than 100 tunneling projects and nearly 150 major bridge projects across the United States. Contracts underway today include tunnels in San Diego, Sacramento, Seattle, Columbus, and Atlanta, and bridges and floodwalls across the Mississippi Delta, much of which is post-Hurricane Katrina work.

Last month, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers opened the replaced McAlpine Locks in Louisville, Ky., a project Traylor Bros. has a long history with. “The McAlpine Locks are really important to my dad,” says Chris Traylor.

Building a Nation

Tom Traylor Sr. grew up in the construction industry. Both his father and grandfather were engineers. Tom’s father, William, founded Traylor Bros. in 1946, after serving in World War II as an engineer with the U.S. Navy’s legendary Construction Battalion. The know-how that he and his fellow seamen employed to build airstrips, roads, and bridges — at a scope and speed unmatched in the history of wartime construction — could also be used to build a nation.

Tom Sr. graduated in 1961 from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a degree in civil engineering and from Stanford University in 1963 with a master’s degree in business administration. One of the first jobs he helped build for his father’s company was the first reconstruction of the McAlpine Ohio River Dam throughout the 1960s. (The dam originally was opened in 1830 as the Louisville and Portland Canal bypassing the Falls of the Ohio, the only natural obstruction along the Ohio River.)

Says Tom Sr., “We’ve built many of the Ohio River bridges between here and Pittsburgh.”

Right now, Traylor Bros. is involved in 15 massive projects coast-to-coast and is awaiting bid awards on multiple projects.

In 2002, Tom Sr. handed over the reins of the company to his sons: Chris and Mike, who today serve as co-presidents, along with brothers Dan and Tom Jr., who are involved in divisions of the company related to West Coast real estate.

Chris lives in Evansville, home of the company’s headquarters and Heavy Civil Division, with his wife Niki and their three children. Mike lives near Los Angeles, where Traylor Bros. has a large office that houses multiple operating divisions, with his wife Michelle and their three children. The men see each other at least 15 times a year, often meeting at job sites, where each know the superintendents, foremen, and many employees on a first-name basis.

The generational transition that has taken place over the last seven years has been deliberate and steady. “Tom Traylor didn’t tell Chris and Mike to manage like he does,” says Ken Blair, director of marketing for Traylor Bros. “They don’t. Yet, they have led the company into a time of organic and exponential growth.” (Organic growth is commonly defined as growth from within, as opposed to growth from mergers or acquisitions.)

Tom says he is somewhat surprised at the company’s recent growth. “I remember years when we had five or six jobs going — and that was huge — and I’d get kind of nervous and think we’d better not take on anything else. Sometimes we didn’t look for new jobs for a year. Now, they take it all on.”

Both Chris and Mike credit their upbringing for their apparent fearlessness in this very risky and complex business.

“My dad is a creative thinker, a big picture guy who never gave my brothers and me a hard time, even when we messed up,” says Chris.

Tom says that then and now, he “never solves problems for his kids. Late in the transition, when the kids asked what changes might be implemented, I said, ‘Quit copying me on your e-mails.’”

Tom’s wife, Nancy, also gets credit from her sons, who call her “The Rock.” She was always the bond holding the family together in the challenging business.

“Every day you have to get a lot done,” Tom says. “You’re at the mercy of so much — including hurricanes and weather. You have to stay on a schedule. It’s a hard life. Some guys can do it; others can’t.”

It’s a hard life that the energetic Chris and Mike have embraced. Like their father, both men grew up visiting job sites and worked on heavy civil construction jobs for Traylor Bros. and with internships and co-ops throughout their college careers.

After graduating from Evansville Day School in 1990, Chris received a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Stanford University and in 1996 received a master’s degree in construction management from University of California, Berkeley. Mike is a 1985 graduate of Memorial High School and in 1989 received a bachelor’s degree in an interdisciplinary study program of civil engineering and geology from Duke University in Durham, N.C., where he also played NCAA Division I soccer. In fact, all four brothers are civil engineers, and all excelled in soccer. Dan and Mike each were named Most Valuable Players in the Indiana High School Athletic Association state soccer finals when they played on championship teams for Memorial High School.

Before he moved back to Evansville in 2001, Chris’s civil engineering career had taken him to Santa Cruz, Calif., Atlanta, San Francisco, San Diego, Evansville, Myrtle Beach, S.C., and Dallas.

“We started out as young engineers working with and working for these guys who are still with Traylor today,” Chris says. “So when we walk on a job site now, we talk about old times and our current projects. We respect each other.”

A New Business Model

While the core values of Traylor Bros. remain true to its heritage, the company’s business model has changed significantly over the decades, especially in the last few years.

“In the past,” says Tom, “we didn’t talk about our mission and values, it was just the way we did things. In the last five years, we are much more explicit and intentional in how we do our corporate culture.”

Early on in their tenure as co-presidents, Chris and Mike began development of a strategic plan to support the company’s mission to be the most respected, preferred, and consistently performing heavy civil contractor in the U.S. Working with a consultant and continually assessing their progress, the brothers believe the corporate strategic plan is serving as the road map for Traylor Bros.’ organic growth. “It is a powerful tool for our business,” Chris says.

At the top of the strategic plan is the company’s stated commitment to safety. With nearly 1,000 employees, most working away from the Evansville headquarters on project sites and involved in potentially hazardous work, safety is the company’s first priority.

Another key component to Traylor Bros.’ new business model is the successful partnering with other compatible heavy civil construction companies — the formation of joint ventures or “dream teams,” as Chris calls them.

When every job presents significant risk in terms of employee safety, cost estimating accuracy, and investment of equipment and capital, Traylor Bros. has found that the highly selective partnering with other companies allows them to mitigate these risks and take on more projects.

The bid process for massive civil construction contracts is laborious. “We invest a lot of resources in the bid,” Blair says. “It may take more than two months to prepare bids for the client, which could be the federal government, the Department of Transportation, a state, or a municipality.”

A joint venture scenario allows two companies to come together, compare notes, and discuss the estimating process, increasing the confidence both parties have in the bid the joint venture will submit to the project owner. Once a contract is awarded, the shared resources of the joint venture enable both parties to perform at their highest levels, Chris says, providing an additional set of checks and balances...

Read the complete article in the June/July issue!