James Elmer is a man with a lot of stories. And if you sit down with him for a few minutes, he’ll gladly share some tales about leaving his hometown of Spokane, Wash., working in the travel industry, building some of the West’s largest nuclear power plants, joining a dual shop company and, in the end, opening his own business right back at home where he started.
But his favorite story is how he found his heart in a construction industry association called Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC).
“When I found ABC, I knew I’d found my political home. It was a great feeling,” he says. “The merit shop philosophy mirrors the way I live my life.”
Elmer takes the reins as ABC’s 2010 national chairman just in time for the association’s 60th anniversary celebration.
With tremendous support from his friends and family, the president and founder of James Elmer Construction Co. will transition into retirement and take on the large responsibility of heading up the 25,000-member organization.
He’s placing his trust in his son, Rob, to take over the day-to-day aspects of running the business and seeking bids for design-build jobs while he travels to ABC chapters, influences policy in Washington, D.C., and headlines speaking events throughout the year.
The transition into the ABC leadership role is a natural one—almost one that was meant to be.
A Home for a Business
Elmer always knew he’d be a contractor, but not necessarily that his career path would take him back to his hometown. Spokane, a small yet cosmopolitan city just over the border from Couer d’Alene, Idaho, wound up being the perfect place for him to start a business and raise a family. With its roots in the mining industry, the city is known for beautiful natural resources, a strong tourism pull, and new opportunities in the medical and high-tech industries.
“I knew I wanted to be a contractor since I was five or six years old,” Elmer says. “I knew all I wanted to do was build.”
Growing up during the homebuilding boom of the post-World War II era, he had plenty of chances to stroll down to neighborhood jobsites and make friends with the carpenters, laborers and city inspectors, and lend a helping hand if they’d let him. Later, he worked odd jobs at the local grocery store, the railroad and the bowling alley. He graduated from Lewis and Clark High School and gained experience in the construction industry as an apprentice plumber.
He received an engineering and construction management degree from Washington State University-Pullman in 1970, and then landed his first job with Owens Corning in its power and process construction division in California.
The opportunity led him to a varied résumé of nuclear power projects, including the Rancho Seco Nuclear Generating Station in Sacramento County, Calif.; Trogan Nuclear Power Plant in Rainier, Ore.; and the Centralia Steam Plant in Centralia, Wash. He also helped install two reversible flow pump turbines at the Grand Coulee Dam along the Columbia River and worked on the Alaska Pipeline Project at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.
Eventually, he tired of the road and returned closer to home to work for his parents’ travel agency in the Tri-Cities (Kennewick, Pasco and Richland) in southeastern Washington.
At the time, the Elmers had two daughters: Carolyn, who now works as an accountant, and Tina, who now works as an investment counselor. (The daughters are parents to Elmer’s five grandchildren, all of whom live in the Spokane area.) Rob, the youngest child, was born right before the family moved from the Tri-Cities to Spokane to be closer to Elmer’s new job opportunity managing a small pipe insulation business.
Soon, another opportunity knocked—one that would get Elmer into the general contracting business, and ultimately lead him to ABC.
Elmer was working as a subcontractor at Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane when a general contractor onsite, Frank Bouten of Bouten Construction Co., said he had a $9 million hospital job for him in Pasco.
“One thing led to another, and I became his partner in a dual-shop general contracting business,” Elmer says. “It worked out very well for us for about three years.”
The company grew rapidly in the early 1980s to a nearly $4 million firm. In the end, however, the two partners outgrew one another, and it was time for Elmer to move on.
Elmer and Bouten bid against each other on another hospital job, and in a frustrating turn of events, Bouten won the job.
“You see that picture of a shoe lodged in the wall? That’s when I kicked the wall and said, ‘That’s it. I’m opening my own business. No more partners.’”
Building a Legacy
Elmer paid $17,000 for a small house on the industrial side of town, turned it into an office and opened his doors on Jan. 1, 1991.
James Elmer Construction Co. has become a fixture in the city through years of perseverance. It has built and restored several Spokane landmarks, including hotels, hospitals, schools and churches.
More than half the company’s volume is private design-build work, and through Elmer’s commitment to building positive relationships in the community, many customers have stayed loyal since the company’s start.
In 2001, Rob Elmer graduated from Washington State University. Despite his father’s urging to gain work experience at a larger firm, Rob decided to work for the family business right away.
“I tried hard to get him to work for another contractor, to learn from someone that really does it right,” Jim says. “But when Rob graduated, he said, ‘no dad, I want to come work for you, because you do it right.’”
That, Elmer says, is probably the biggest compliment he has ever received.
“I think every father would like to have his son follow in his footsteps. But you always have trepidation about it, when you hear about cases when three years later the business goes bankrupt.”
Their leadership transition, however, has been very successful.
“I’ve let him grow, grow, grow. He runs the crews, schedules the jobs, takes care of the estimators and project managers, and makes sure they’re lined up with work. I stick my nose in every once in a while just to see what’s going on,” Elmer says.
With this reassurance, Elmer is not nervous about being a small contractor pursuing the huge responsibility of a national leadership role with ABC.
“Without Rob’s support, it couldn’t happen. I sleep better. I don’t know about him,” he laughs, “but I don’t wake up dreaming about jobs at night any more.”
A Political Home
Working for a dual-shop company not only pushed Elmer to open his own business, but it also led him into an impassioned career of grassroots political involvement.
In the late 1980s, the U.S. House of Representatives passed anti-dual shop legislation that would have required open shop contractors that co-own a business with a union contractor to become signatory to the union contractor’s labor agreements.
Outraged by the proposed legislation, Elmer took an active role with the ABC Inland Pacific Chapter to help prevent the bill from moving forward.
“The next thing I knew, I was on a plane to Washington, D.C., to meet with my congressman and senators,” Elmer says.
In the years to follow, Elmer served as chairman of ABC’s Legislative Committee, Political Action Committee, Government Affairs Coordinating Committee—and finally, Executive Committee.
Never one to let down a friend or colleague, he always stepped up to volunteer if he was needed. “I just kept putting my hand up,” he says.
Elmer established close friendships with political leaders like George Nethercutt, a Republican member of the House from 1995 to 2005 representing Washington’s 5th Congressional District, as well as industry leaders like ABC’s recent past chairmen Dave Meyer, Carole Bionda, Gary Roden, Jack Darnall, Bill Fairchild and Jerry Gorski, whose names frequently come up in his stories.
Elmer’s passion for advancing free enterprise is evident as he strives to defend small businesses like his own. One of his biggest thrills was testifying before Congress on ABC’s behalf in 1999 against proposed Occupational Safety and Health Administration legislation that would have been detrimental to the construction industry. He also has served as a spokesman and expert on union salting abuse.
Elmer is ready to take on the challenges ABC members face today, such as bidding for public work in an increasingly competitive environment and the still-looming Employee Free Choice Act (“card check” legislation).
His vision as chairman is motivated by two main initiatives. The first is increasing ABC’s political clout.
“We are right on the edge of being the leaders and spokespersons for the construction industry,” he says. “And I want to enhance that and make it stronger. I’m thrilled by the opportunity to be chairman during a challenging political year.”
The second is improving construction training.
“We have to find a way—and we’re getting better at it through our workforce development and educational programs—to get the message out about opportunities in our industry,” he says.
“There’s always something special about being able to walk up on a jobsite and smell the fresh concrete and lumber, to see the welding sparks, to be part of something that’s really important. You’re making it happen, whether you’re working as a project manager, estimator, craftsman, electrician, carpenter or welder. You feel the joy and self-worth of that accomplishment.”