Colt Builders: Behind the Scenes

BEHIND THE SCENES: A PEEK INTO COLT BUILDERS’ SERVICE DEPARTMENTS

Colt Builders has a structure of its own in its operations, with teams dedicated to ensuring everything on the job sites runs smoothly. With pivotal roles in everything from hiring to safety, these departments keep Colt on track. And all together, these teams live up to Colt’s mission to build both people and communities.

COLT OPERATIONS: ESTIMATING, PRE-CON, & SAFETY

Colt Builders believes in building up—and that requires a lot more work than just the people on the job site. Unlike its competitors in the industry, Colt provides a full-range service experience for its clients, and with that promise comes a host of back-end departments who ensure that the people putting the walls together are doing so by using the right materials, staying on budget, and adhering to safety principles.

All together, the estimating, preconstruction, and safety departments make Colt what it is: a detail-oriented team dedicated to maintaining high standards for their projects. Their hard work “behind the scenes” on every single build keeps Colt’s world-class standards as high as they should be.

“What sets Colt apart from other contractors is its culture of adventure and the talented teams that work together to make the company tick. I’ll put the Colt team against any other team in America.” —MICHAEL CORCORAN, CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER

No Guessing Games: The Estimating Department

Ryan Burd is head of the estimating department, and before a single nail gets hit, his team is the first to touch the job. Together, Ryan and his colleagues determine a cost estimate for every project, including labor, materials, and more.

“We’re very service-driven,” says Ryan. “We try to provide our customers with the best service we can, and that starts with the estimating.”

Like most industries, budget is one of the most critical factors for a construction project. Being awarded a project comes with a sense of trust from the customer, and in order to maintain that good faith, Colt knows that providing an accurate monetary outline is necessary.

In order to provide the best possible estimate for their clients, Ryan’s team is pioneering a new program to help create detailed estimations; the in-house system will take into account historical data and current material pricing to create as detailed a report as possible. By combining expertise with technology, Ryan is ensuring Colt is providing an experience unique to the industry.

“We can produce an estimate quicker and with more accuracy,” explains Ryan. “And to the client, that matters.”

Preparation Makes Perfect: The Preconstruction Department

Once an estimation is complete, a project gets handed over to the preconstruction department. This team acts as a bridge between the estimating department and the teams on the job sites, and takes the project to the threshold of a job site.

“We strive to identify problems early during plan reviews by recognizing tricky or difficult framing details, coordinating shop drawings with structural plans, and writing RFIs when plans and details have missing information,” explains Jim Junkin, head of the department. “We pave the way for our people in the field to be successful so they can frame things once and frame things correctly.”

Unforeseen challenges can occur on any job site, but by investing time and resources into preconstruction planning, costs are lowered and jobs get done faster. And overwhelmingly, the clients appreciate it. “Our clients love it when we can meet their scheduled milestones,” says Jim.

“It’s exceptionally satisfying to have the opportunity to work with a group of folks of such tremendously high amounts of character and integrity. Especially notable is the willingness of everyone in the organization to contribute large amounts of blood, sweat, and sometimes tears over the course of the past year. Despite a tremendous amount of disruption in everyone’s lives and the business community, everyone has just found a way to buckle down and meet our commitments to the business and the communities in which we all live.”“It’s exceptionally satisfying to have the opportunity to work with a group of folks of such tremendously high amounts of character and integrity. Especially notable is the willingness of everyone in the organization to contribute large amounts of blood, sweat, and sometimes tears over the course of the past year. Despite a tremendous amount of disruption in everyone’s lives and the business community, everyone has just found a way to buckle down and meet our commitments to the business and the communities in which we all live.” —MIKE GREEN, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER

“Safety Green” Vest Brigade: The Safety Department

Once the preconstruction team has finished their assessment, projects are opened up to the people on the job site itself, and that’s where the safety department steps in.

“The Colt culture runs through everything we do, including safety,” explains Bill Cuddeback, head of the department. “We’re a small department, but we work hard to educate and enable our site, our people, and our production managers to incorporate safe manners into the way they put up a building.”

Construction is rife with opportunities for injury and accident, but Colt is committed to keeping every worker on site in compliance with safety guidelines and necessary precautions to ensure that no one gets hurt. This means not only frequent site checks by members of the safety team but a robust training program that happens when the teams aren’t working on a job.

“The safety team plays a supportive role for every team,” says Bill. “Our safety program enables our site people and our production people to incorporate safe practices into the way they put the building up. Safety is part of our program operations rather than an accessory.”

Bill’s job includes both site inspections and safety training so that, at the end of the day, “Every single worker who shows up to a site can go home in the exact same condition. A safe, protected workforce is the best workforce.”

“I think Colt’s overall goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what we provide. The goal is to do business with people who believe what we believe.” —JANUSZ SAKOWICZ, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT

A Promise to Build Communities

A common phrase at Colt is “time invested equals time gained”—a belief that hard work off site leads to a better, higher-quality product in the end.

As Ryan says, “I don’t think there’s too many framers that are doing what we do. We really approach our projects differently than our competitors.” And that unique approach makes all the difference.

COLT HEADQUARTERS

Building a Brand: The Business Development Department

The Colt Builders business development department, home of our marketing team, is where the company’s overall branding voice is established and maintained. They are inspired by the Colt culture, and it is the forerunner of everything they do as they focus on growth across the nation. Takara (Kara) Lawrence puts it this way: “By maintaining a unified appearance and branding voice, we help manifest our vision in each of our regions. We pride ourselves on our ability to reach our customer base from a national level while ensuring local management.”

Tech-Savvy Construction: The IT Department

Like every industry, technology has revolutionized the way construction works. Norm Santos and his team ensure that Colt Builders is at the forefront—utilizing the latest innovations in technology to lead the market while providing human-focused customer service. “As a team, we strive to create an effortless experience company-wide when interacting with technology,” says Norm. “We aim to detect and solve issues before they become a challenge, and if we aren’t able to accomplish that, we work hard to provide a helpful and human approach to solving technical challenges.”

Cultivating Culture: The Human Resources Department

Maureen Main believes a positive and inclusive culture can transform a company, which is why, as head of the human resources department at Colt, she makes the culture her focus. “Our team works to excel at the pillars of the Colt culture, which means we work as a team to discuss and collaborate ways to support the employees of the company,” she says. Colt knows that building people is just as important as creating strong structures, which means Maureen makes integrity and honesty her primary goal. Simply put, the team “does what we say we will do, when we say we will do it.”

Hitting the Books: The Accounting Department

While accounting may seem intimidating, Crystal Evans sees it as storytelling for a business. Crystal’s team analyzes raw financial data to determine how best to grow the company. “We strive to provide our people with information they need so they spend less time in the field on lower-priority tasks and instead keep their focus on maintaining the job’s margins,” says Crystal. And with the financial plan at the center of every build, they know how important it is to keep their part of the “machine” running smoothly. “Whatever we can do to streamline and more efficiently relay the financial picture of the individual jobs and the company financials as a whole—this is our focus,” she says.

“Colt stands out for its unyielding commitment to ‘doing the right thing.’ Even in the face of historic and extremely challenging times, Colt did not waver from its true north and remained steadfast in its determination to do the right thing—by its employees, its customers, and its community.” —JANE IMPERATORE, CHIEF RISK OFFICER