Audiffred, 42, has more than 20 years of experience in accounting and finance, having worked for a large public accounting firm and a manufacturing company prior to joining McCarthy as corporate controller in 1994.  A member of the McCarthy executive committee since 2007, he most recently served as vice president of finance, responsible for all company accounting and financial reporting.

“Over the past decade, our company has undergone a number of important changes, the most significant of which was our long-planned transition from a family-owned company to 100% employee ownership,” said Mike Bolen, McCarthy’s chief executive officer/chairman.  “Doug played an instrumental role in this conversion and has continued to enhance the sophistication of McCarthy’s finance function as our company has evolved.” Audiffred has also played a significant role in the advancement of the company’s modeling and forecasting capabilities; the creation of stand-alone internal treasury and risk management functions; and management and implementation of the McCarthy employee stock ownership plan (ESOP). He will be based at McCarthy’s corporate headquarters in St. Louis.

During Scherer’s tenure as corporate chief financial officer, the company experienced significant growth.  He played a key role in managing the growing business and served as the company’s first true corporate controller. “George created reporting and tracking mechanisms to assist in short-term and long-term business planning; led the company transition from family to employee ownership, including a 2008 transition to 100% ESOP; and oversaw the transition from a C-Corp to S-Corp structure,” Bolen said.  “His unique blend of strong accounting knowledge and business acumen has been instrumental in the company’s success for more than two decades.  He will be greatly missed.”

“I am honored to have been chosen to follow in George’s footsteps,” commented Audiffred. “In addition to continuing to build and maintain relationships with our financial stakeholders, I remain committed to protecting and enhancing an already strong balance sheet to build shareholder value for our employee owners.”

About McCarthy
Founded in 1864, McCarthy is one of the oldest privately held construction firms in America.  With 2008 revenues in excess of $3.4 billion, the 100% employee-owned firm provides construction management, design/build and general contracting services for clients nationwide.  The firm is ranked the 10th largest domestic general contractor (Engineering News-Record, May 2008).  In addition to its corporate headquarters in St. Louis, the company has additional full-service offices in Atlanta, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Dallas, Newport Beach, San Francisco, San Diego and Sacramento.  More information about the company is available online at www.mccarthy.com.

Kevin Kuntz becomes president of the Southeast Division headquartered in Atlanta, overseeing McCarthy’s operations in Georgia, Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.  A 25-year McCarthy veteran, he has held a variety of positions in the Midwest Division prior to this appointment, including vice president, operations based out of the St. Louis office. During his time in St. Louis, he served as chairman of the board of the Associated General Contractors’ St. Louis chapter and was a founding board member of the Construction Career Center, the first charter construction high school in the country.  He was selected to open McCarthy’s Atlanta office in 2005.

Scott Wittkop becomes president of the new Central Division headquartered in St. Louis, overseeing McCarthy operations in the remaining states east of the Rockies as well as its healthcare, science & technology, and St. Louis business units. Since joining McCarthy in 1986 as a project engineer, Wittkop has spent the last 23 years moving up through the ranks of the organization. In 2006 he became vice president, operations for the Midwest Healthcare Business Unit, following his service as a project director in Denver.  Wittkop has demonstrated outstanding leadership abilities and his energy, knowledge of the construction industry, and passion for building has prepared him well to step up to this new leadership role.

 “As a community builder, this transition enhances our ability to respond quickly to growing client needs,” said Derek Glanvill, McCarthy president/chief operating officer.  “It has been in the works since Karl made known to me his intention to retire some time ago.  The contributions he made during his remarkable 21-year career at McCarthy have positioned the division well for these important changes.”

Under Kloster’s leadership, the Division experienced major growth.  He nurtured some of McCarthy’s most enduring client and partner relationships, and his commitment to the St. Louis community helped make a significant impact on numerous charitable organizations in the region.  One of those relationships, Make-a-Wish Foundation, began when he led the fundraising drive to establish a regional headquarters.  Through the years Kloster, who served a 6-year term on their Board, supported the organization’s fund raisers by providing assistance with golf tournaments and other events.  In addition to Make-a-Wish, Kloster also served on the Board of Variety – the Children’s Charity of St. Louis.

“Karl has made a tremendous impact on both our business and the St. Louis community,” Glanvill added.  “We wish him all the pleasures of a long and happy retirement.” 

About McCarthy
Founded in 1864, McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. is one of the nation’s oldest and largest privately held construction firms.  The company provides general contracting, construction management, program management and design/build services for healthcare, education, parking, entertainment, retail, laboratory, biotechnical, microelectronic, and industrial facilities; office buildings; tenant interiors; mixed-use; and bridges and highways.  McCarthy is 100 percent employee owned.  More information about the company is available online at www.mccarthy.com.

“My role with the USGBC gives me credibility as I spread the word about sustainability to my colleagues, our clients and in my community,” Calato said.  “Volunteering my time to help Arizona be more sustainable is time very well spent.”

A resident of Tempe, Ariz., Calato assumes the leadership of the organization following a transition of the Arizona Chapter into three fully functional branches, designed to better serve the regional needs in Arizona. The new Northern, Southern, and Central Arizona branches will focus on education and building awareness about the LEED rating system (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) for measuring sustainable building design and green building construction practices, while the Chapter board will further statewide advocacy efforts.

“It’s an exciting time to be involved in green building – last year our chapter membership more than tripled to 800, and the number of LEED-accredited professionals went from 400 at the start of the year to 1,000 at the end of 2007 – so clearly there’s a lot of enthusiasm and support for green building in Arizona.”

About McCarthy
Founded in 1864, McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. is one of the oldest and largest commercial construction companies in the nation. Throughout this long history, McCarthy has consistently worked with clients, communities and partners to construct sustainable and high performance building projects, providing cost and constructability input in a project’s early stages and developing relationships with specialty subcontractors to complete the construction.  Today the McCarthy Green Team, consisting of hundreds of LEED Accredited Professionals from across the country, focuses specifically on continuing to bring the most advanced green building solutions to the firm’s projects. McCarthy is 100 percent employee owned. More information about the company is available online at www.mccarthy.com.

— Chad Dorgan, director, corporate quality, McCarthy Building Companies, Inc.

Becoming America’s best builder involves more than simply putting the slogan up in a company’s lobby. It takes a companywide passion to deliver on the promise of certainty for each and every client. And it takes putting your money where your mouth is.

McCarthy is one of the few construction companies in America to do just that. In 2006 McCarthy implemented its Quality Without Question program, and we have since put into place specific Quality-based procedures while heavily investing in trained Quality personnel and support materials.

“We did an in-depth analysis of our own practices, as well as the entire building industry’s experiences, and came to the conclusion that focusing on issues related to a building’s enclosure provided the best immediate value,” said Dorgan.

Four specific procedures (each with its own acronym) have been developed.

BUILDING ENCLOSURE COORDINATION PROGRAM (BECP): a team effort that starts in preconstruction and focuses on identifying constructability and performance issues in the design, and demonstrating sequencing and enclosure performance by using mock-ups.

WATER INFILTRATION PREVENTION PROGRAM (WIPP): a specific program that addresses protective measures to avoid water infiltration through construction, including site, building enclosure and building systems.

SITE SPECIFIC QUALITY PLAN (SSQP): each McCarthy project formalizes its quality activities into a site specific plan – with an emphasis on the ongoing verification of the work.

NON-CONFORMANCE RECORD – LATENT DEFECTS (NCR): used to identify, track and resolve quality issues, the NCR provides a better understanding of the systemic issues with building enclosures.

Every McCarthy project in America has put these programs into place – and, more importantly, every McCarthy employee understands and embraces why we’re going to such extraordinary steps. That’s what employee owners do.

“We’ve shown over and over that self performing can have a direct and positive project impact. It’s a big part of what makes us a little different.”

— Mike Bolen, CEO/Chairman, McCarthy Building Companies, Inc.

What is self-perform?
Unlike a traditional broker of construction services, a self-performing general contractor is a builder.

 Self-performing general contractors use their own labor force to accomplish a portion of a construction project, particularly critical path components such as steel erection, concrete work, and carpentry. A self-performing contractor brings qualified labor, specialized equipment, and building expertise to a project. These enable the contractor to identify and solve construction challenges, offer scheduling flexibility and demand a level of quality and safety a typical contractor can’t. Only about 25 percent of general contractors self perform.

How does self-perform work?
A builder may contract with a client to self-perform work based on the cost of the work plus mark-up. Or, a builder can submit a bid to self-perform a portion of the work and also solicit competitive bids from the subcontractor community. Contractors who build projects away from their home base can offer self performance by partnering with a local firm that has this capability.

A builder mentality can save money.
Self-performing contractors are true builders. Because of this they have a hands-on understanding of what it takes to get a project built. If hired early in the design process, they can add valuable input to preliminary drawings while it is still economical to make changes. They can provide counsel about availability and cost of building materials and provide efficient alternatives. While a project is under construction, a self performer helps a project stay on budget, because they are active in the market and know the real costs for relevant work.

Self performance keeps you on schedule.
Using their own crews, a self-performing contractor can set safety standards and drive the schedule more effectively. This is especially critical if a project is fast track. Time typically required to procure and orient new subcontractors is minimized. As a builder, a self performer brings a clear understanding of the pace of superstructure construction, which translates directly into the accuracy of scheduling relevant work, establishing goals and keeping the entire team focused. Self performing critical path components can eliminate subcontractor delays, which are often difficult to make up later. In addition, with fewer layers of bureaucracy, self performance enables a contractor to execute change orders promptly and proactively drive the schedule.

Self performance drives quality.
By employing its own forces, a self-performing contractor can set the standard of craftsmanship put in place on a project. Contractors who self perform regularly spend years developing and training a strong crew of professional craftsmen and project managers whose approach to their work is in line with their own. By contrast, in a busy construction market a subcontractor may be too stretched to put their best people on all of their projects, and a broker will not be able to control these personnel choices.

“We’re no longer content with improving just our own workforce’s safety performance. We’ve increased our focus on Total Project safety.”

— Gary Amsinger, vice president, safety, McCarthy Building Companies, Inc.

It was 1987. And McCarthy’s recordable incident rate was 34. Yes, you read that right. We believed, as did most of the industry, that you couldn’t afford to be safe.

The advent of employee ownership brought a new attitude to McCarthy. “The people getting hurt on our jobs weren’t just coworkers anymore. They were our partners,” explains McCarthy’s Gary Amsinger. “Nothing we do is more important than helping to ensure that our employees and team members return home safely to their loved ones each night. It’s simply the right thing to do.”

That attitude toward safety has become a critical part of McCarthy’s culture. “I think it’s safe to say that our folks are now very focused on safety. It’s a part of everyone’s core values,” continues Amsinger.

The results speak volumes. In 2006, McCarthy’s self-performing workforce totaled 5.6 million manhours of exposure. The company’s OSHA recordable incident rate was 1.54, and its OSHA lost-time case incident rate was 0.21 (the industry averages are 6.3 and 2.4, respectively).

One of the company’s operating divisions recently went 15 months without a recordable. Two divisions have gone 3 years (and still counting) without a lost-time incident. In the last five years, 5 projects have gone their entire construction duration without a recordable incident. And McCarthy recently learned that it is one of three finalists for the national AGC’s annual Construction Safety Excellence Award.

Hoping for and thinking about creating a safe work environment doesn’t make it happen. It takes commitment – both mentally and financially. At McCarthy it revolves around four basic tenets: communication, training, motivation and monitoring. Each and every employee that steps foot on a McCarthy project, including subcontractors understands our safety expectations via a McCarthy safety orientation. Our 31 full-time safety professionals set the tone. And every manager, superintendent and engineer ensures the message gets translated on site. “The skill sets our project teams employ to bring a project in on time and within budget are the same ones used to provide a safe environment for all workers.”

McCarthy’s approach avoids a set of safety “rules.” Instead, our approach centers around safety “guidelines” – thereby providing each manager with the tools needed to plan for safety on their jobsite. Developing partnerships with local/regional organizations is also a part of McCarthy’s approach. Six OSHA partnerships are currently active, covering 80% of the company’s projects.

In the last year, McCarthy’s approach has broadened to include a focus on Total Project safety. “We’ve always tried to influence our subcontractor’s safety practices on our sites, but we never had a way of really measuring their performance,” says Amsinger. McCarthy now tracks ALL safety incidents on every jobsite. Very few other, major construction companies do. In 2006, total hours of exposure amounted to 23.2 million manhours – with a Total recordable rate of 3.02 and a Total lost-time rate of 0.40.