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Bio
JIM DAVIS
PRESIDENT + CEO
As President and CEO since 1988, Jim is truly the heart of the company and views each and every person at DAVIS as family. For over 40 years, his foresight, intelligence, and genuine passion have helped transform a small family business into a nationally recognized construction leader. Jim’s pride in the company’s reputation for honesty and integrity is absolute; a reputation supported by the belief that corporate responsibility extends well beyond the bottom line. He consistently demonstrates this by his commitment to improving the quality of life for all employees and their families, as well as the community where we live and work through his involvement with the National Building Museum, Samaritan Inns, and the DC Students Construction Trades Foundation.
Jim strategically oversees operations and key project development, exemplifying teamwork, and his commitment to quality and excellence in service. As a fourth generation construction industry leader, Jim reflects the principles of hard work and innovation in everything he does. His well-honed instincts are invaluable, and his experience and perspective are essential as the company moves forward. His pride in continuing the good work his father began is abundantly clear and inspirational to all who work at DAVIS.
Show Notes
- Leader for almost 40 years and “day to day” activities- “Old guy that comes in and carries on” (6:20)
- Origins
- 4th generation Washingtonian (7:00)
- Great Grandfather became a guard at the Pension Building (National Building Museum) and subsequently started a company which was the predecessor of the Davis Companies (7:15)
- Was Chairman of the National Building Museum (8:00)
- Wanted to be like is Dad and went to job sites as a child (8:30)
- Laborer on Bechtel Corp. site in Gaithersburg- Company doing business with them since 1974 (8:40)
- Went to college at Virginia Tech– Studied Civil Engineering (9:50)
- Chief Justice of the Honor Society
- Met his wife
- Felt wanting to work for his Dad in construction was a blessing and gave him focus and direction (10:30)
- Contrast between his Dad and him (11:05)
- His Dad and Uncle broke up after their Dad handed the company to them in 1966
- 1960s and 1970s were very challenging for his Dad (11:35)
- Build relationships with all people he did business with (12:05)
- “People loved his Dad”- “Honest, Fair, Always did the right thing” (12:30)
- Credits his Mom for giving him the “happy gene” (13:10)
- Attended Woodward HS in Bethesda, MD (13:45)
- Competition with Clark Construction and Blake Construction– Big dogs in the market and tough to beat (14:20)
- Build relationships with personal attention to clients (14:30)
- Dad sold company to a British firm, Isis, in 1985 (15:00)
- He bought company back in 1990 using an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) (18:15)
- ESOP (15:45)
- Important to share
- Attract people to a company for building a relationship to “success for all” (16:00)
- People join seeking a long term vision (16:45)
- Invest in their people (17:10)
- First line of credit is performance and payment bonds limited their options to acquire the company at the time (18:00)
- His Dad offered a profit sharing plan to employees, which set the stage for the ESOP strategy (18:45)
- 100% of employees contributed a large portion of their retirement plans to the purchase (19:10)
- Helps with transitioning ownership
- Turnover in construction industry is high (21:10)
- Young people look for larger bonuses instead of long term retirement planning (21:30)
- Leadership meetings- near the beginning of a project where the owners lead the tone of the project (22:50)
- Partnership of trust (23:15)
- Pick the right clients to align with them (23:35)
- For many years there were no disputes; however, being a larger company there are now a few disputes (24:05)
- Best clients are “one time clients” who build once every 30 years or so (25:15)
- Help them to budget in advance (25:50)
- Most rewarding jobs (26:00)
- Niche of their firm (26:10)
- Building the trust about the realities of costs to meet the clients’ objectives
- Thorough pre-construction budgeting (27:00)
- Creative thinking to solve scheduling a cost issues (27:20)
- Being open, transparent and fair with people (28:45)
- Ratio of revenues for company- 55% general construction and 45% Interiors (29:40)
- Base building group- original building activities (29:50)
- Interiors group- Fast pace part of construction (30:00)
- Separate teams cause internal tension between teams from base building to interior work (30:30)
- Residential group- keeping the firm busy (30:55)
- Health care group- gaining momentum (31:15)
- Life Science group- unique requirements (31:30)
- Education group- public and private schools (31:55)
- Traditionally DC based company, yet moved to Philadelphia to accommodate client and employee needs (32:10)
- Corps of Engineering project in Philadelphia
- Considering further geographical expansion (33:30)
- Douglas Development relationship- Wants them to go to Buffalo, NY (34:00)
- Doug Jemal met him and he shook his hand to allow him time to pay off what he owed (35:00)
- 35 Year relationship
- Challenging projects (35:50)
- Uline Arena– Douglas Development (36:00)
- The building was originally for distributing ice and evolved to a skating rink and a performance venue- the Beatles first US concert (36:30)
- Building is like an eggshell (37:00)
- Concept was to build a building inside this structure (37:15)
- Davis had to set up a unique innovation, a monitoring system, to build this structure (37:30)
- Contractor of the Year Award (38:10)
- Antunovich Architects (38:25)
- Uline Arena– Douglas Development (36:00)
- Sustainability (40:00)
- “We throw everything away during the pandemic…we need to be conscious about our planet” (40:15)
- Citing Comstock project in Reston (Reston Station) with the largest underground parking garage for Fairfax County for the Metro parking underneath privately owned office buildings (40:30)
- Chris Clemente of Comstock has incentivized Davis to innovate (42:15)
- Cites new process of injecting CO2 into concrete called “Carbon Cure” to make it stronger- less cement and yet (42:30)
- Saving CO2 going into the atmosphere
- Challenging subcontractors- Water dispensers with branded water bottles for workers on site to stop buying and disposing plastic bottles on site (44:50)
- Considerable savings of disposable bottles (900 a day on a large site) (45:30)
- Solar power for electric batteries (46:15)
- Basalt rebar for reinforcing concrete structures (46:20)
- Precast panels with fully glazed windows in prefabrication (47:30)
- Built bathrooms for modular construction (48:30)
- Designing prefabrication is challenging (48:45)
- Challenging for wood frame buildings as they are part of structure (49:15)
- Changing finishes for prefabrication is difficult (49:40)
- Office to residential conversions (50:20)
- Thousands of “holes” in structure- scanned building and slabs to design parts in slabs (50:30)
- Credits for drilling holes (8,000 holes) from subcontractors (50:45)
- Selective demolition and research on existing buildings before starting construction (53:00)
- Mike Balaban story- 600 New Jersey Ave., NW (53:40)
- Brick office building where mortar failed- mix didn’t cure properly, such that all the mortar had to be replaced (54:00)
- Davis replaced the mortar without additional costs and both the seller, Lowe, and buyer, Elliot Spitzer, believed they could complete it (54:45)
- Capital One headquarters building- tallest building in the DC Area (56:00)
- Metropolitan Square renovation with Boston Properties (56:50)
- Ray Ritchey introduced him to his cousin, Vicki Davis, after a 30 yr. hiatus (57:15)
- 80 M St., SE– Mass Timber project with Hickok Cole Architects (58:30)
- Mass timber is more expensive than steel and concrete (59:10)
- Design/Build element is a big part of the connections (59:45)
- President Obama’s private office (1:00:30)
- Partnered with Diana Horvath to build his office
- Warrior Canine Connection (1:02:30)
- Barn renovation
- Ideas on a job- Empowering people (1:03:45)
- Water events- Automatic shutoff valve innovation (1:04:00)
- QR Codes- Delivering a box with rough in parts for subcontractors (1:04:55)
- Education efforts (1:05:45)
- In house training- Annual meeting for training (1:06:00)
- Go to Universities for internship and for DEI purposes (1:06:30)
- Summer internships for recruiting (1:07:00)
- Retention is challenging due to cost of living especially for people outside DC area (1:07:50)
- Aim at hiring locally origin folks
- Company Mission (1:09:00)
- “Redefining the way people experience construction by building success for all” (1:09:15)
- Creative thinking and partnership (1:09:30)
- 4D- Schedule tied to the model to allocate project progress, timing and coordination (1:10:30)
- Last Planner– looking at deadlines and backtracking each elements that go into the schedule (1:11:15)
- DEI consultant engaged post George Floyd tragedy to survey employees in the company (1:13:40)
- DEI Oversight committee, Employment Retention committee, Recruiting committee (1:14:20)
- Engaged in this effort ongoing indefinitely (1:14:50)
- Advocating to subcontractors to keep up in diversity (1:15:40)
- Core Values– Health and Safety, Prioritizing Sustainability, Investing in Innovation, Giving Back to the Community (1:16:00)
- Lessons for young people to excel (1:16:30)
- Hard industry- in charge of people’s lives (1:16:45)
- Follow your gut
- Story about a parking garage accident in 2002 pancaking down and four workers were killed (1:17:35)
- Response from company was extraordinary- go see the families of each worker who had died and took responsibility (1:17:45)
- No lawsuits and negotiated settlements with all lost workers (1:18:30)
- He prepared a book for people to deal with these types of situations (1:19:10)
- JBG kept working with Davis (1:19:40)
- Always check on what doesn’t look right and confirm (1:20:00)
- Pandemic impact
- Need to be with other people, but not in the same ways as in the past (1:21:15)
- Construction company worked through the pandemic (1:21:30)
- Safety ideas among all general contractors (1:21:50)
- Color coded workers in zones around large sites and allocated the workers accordingly to isolate workers who weren’t infected with COVID (1:22:20)
- Kept working in isolation (1:22:55)
- Voluntarily office workers are coming back to the office in his company (1:24:00)
- Mix of business will change (1:25:00)
- More education, health care, and institutions
- No Data Centers yet (1:25:30)
- Influences (1:26:15)
- Father and his current business partners have influenced him
- Ski Trip stories (1:27:00)
- Park City, UT annual ski trip for clients and architects
- Time together away from the office to get people to know each other (1:27:50)
- National Building Museum (1:28:50)
- Competitive Firms come together to help with the programs for this museum’s efforts for the industry (1:29:00)
- Wins
- Purchase of company at 30 yrs. old with an ESOP (1:20:45)
- Building the company to over $1B in project values (1:30:00)
- Response to the accident cited before (1:30:15)
- Giving Back
- Chairman of the Boys and Girls Club of Washington (1:31:20)
- Headquarters is on Benning Road, NE in DC- 70 contractors renovated their office for free- high quality space (1:31:45)
- Expansion in Prince Georges County
- Jubilee Housing (1:34:20)
- Chairman of the Boys and Girls Club of Washington (1:31:20)
- Life priorities
- Wife, & 3 Daughters and 2 grandchildren (1:34:50)
- Bicycles & Horseback-riding (1:35:30)
- Loves the people whom he works with (1:35:55)
- Loves solving problems- with people or with construction challenges (1:36:25)
- Loves building iconic structures (1:36:50)
- Advice to 25 yr. old self- sharing and connecting with people and doing the right thing (1:37:10)
- It’s been a great ride, Washington is the best!
Postscript
- Rameez Munawar found it inspiring and candid
- Takeaways
- Relationship business- people business
- Sets his firm apart from other contractors
- Doing the right thing
- Retuckpointed and replaced the mortar on an entire building- 600 New Jersey Ave. NW
- Aligning interests of employees
- Focusing on what’s next
- Relationship business- people business
- Risky for purchaser of building during re-mortaring, per above.
- Davis is a great partner to Jamestown (his company)
- Handshake agreement with Douglas Development acknowledgement
- Patience through adversity
- Happy gene
- Davis anticipates needs of clients
- Yolanda Cole reference
- Discussion of his experience with Hickok Cole and Davis
- Impact on people’s lives
- Conversions and interiors will predominate going forward
- Carbon Cure discussion
- Modular construction challenging
- ESOP issue- provided the equity to acquire the company
