BizCONSTRUCTION
BFL Construction Acquired by
JV Driver Group of Canada Local Company Now Backed by North American Giant By Jay Gonzales
In the four decades that Garry Brav built his construction company into one of the leading firms in Tucson, stability has been a constant. It may have come from his management style that kept his employees at BFL Construction from taking their experience and talents elsewhere. It may have come from a strategy to always be financially solid and never have any debt – a factor Brav said he recognized as common in the demise of construction companies all around him during the 45 years that BFL has operated in Tucson. Today, BFL Construction is taking stability to new heights after being acquired by one of the largest construction companies in North America – JV Driver Group of Canada. It’s a development that immediately puts BFL in competition with every construction company in the region, able to bid for the large projects – locally and regionally – that have been beyond its means until now. “It’s taken me 45 years to get here, continually marshaling our resources which are twofold – people and money,” Brav said. “You need both of those. If you don’t have the cash, you don’t have the bonding, and if you don’t have the people, you can’t perform the work because you don’t have the skill sets. “They’re both hard to find. They take years of ac-
cumulation. My frustration is that after 45 years, I could see that the runway to get to the next level was going to take at least another 10 years.” As Brav perused a recently published ranking of construction companies in the state by revenue, he pointed to BFL’s place on the list and noted that “here” is not where he wanted to be, although he would never say he was unhappy with what he’s built at BFL. Still, he wanted to be “there” as he pointed to companies that consistently rack up hundreds of millions of dollars in construction projects each year. In 2017, BFL Construction was providing construction management or design/build services for $82 million in construction projects and was headed for more than $100 million in 2018 prior to the acquisition by JV Driver. But that was where Brav said he wanted his company to be 20 years ago. He felt his company was big for Tucson, but small by the standards by which he wanted to measure it. “I want to be big for the state,” Brav said. “I love the challenge with bigger projects, the scope of them, the creativity that they permit and the opportunities for employee growth that come with being a larger company with larger projects.” continued on page 137 >>> Summer 2018
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