If he had to do it all over again, Billy McElroy might have been a football coach. But, as a general superintendent for Atlanta-based Hardin Construction Company, he hasn’t landed too far off the mark—only his playbook consists of pouring concrete, lifting steel and coordinating subcontractors.
“In a lot of ways, I am the coach. I’m the guy calling all the plays, executing the plays,” he says.
A born leader and a formidable figure on the jobsite, McElroy possesses all the qualities of a great coach. People trust him. They respect his authority. He tells a great story, and when he talks, people listen. He knows the details of the game like the back of his hand, but more so, he knows how to explain them. As a mentor, McElroy has a gift for encouraging young field professionals and emerging managers to succeed in the construction industry. For him, it’s a labor of love; he remembers what it was like to be in their shoes.
Growing up in a small town in Tennessee, he never expected to pursue a career in the construction industry, let alone build landmarks across the Southeast.
“I thought I’d be a coach, teacher, a lawyer or something else,” says McElroy, or “Mac” as his friends call him back home.
His father—a carpenter, World War II Seabee, hardware store owner, tire plant worker and construction superintendent—always had building in his blood. McElroy’s older brother, Dave, a former Hardin Construction vice president, followed in his father’s footsteps and earned an engineering degree at Memphis State University.
But as a high school student, Billy McElroy didn’t know construction would be his destiny in life. He took a summer part-time job working the night shift for Goodyear Tire, where he only lasted four weeks.
“I hated it. And I was terrible at it. I had an ornery, cranky supervisor. One night, he was going to write me up for the second time. I told him to save his ink and walked out,” McElroy says.
This didn’t go over well with his dad, so McElroy drove north to seek work in Milwaukee, where his brother had taken a job as a construction superintendent. He jumped in as a laborer and carpenter’s helper; it suited him, so he went back for four summers to learn the basics and earn some steady cash.
McElroy’s test scores and athletic skills earned him a football scholarship to Vanderbilt University. After attending college there for a few years, he transferred to University of Tennessee at Martin, close to his hometown, to study English.
Like many 21-year-olds, he had no plans after college. He took a job as a bouncer. “I was just waiting to figure out what I would do with my life. I didn’t have any real ambition; I was just having a good time.”
In 1982, a call from his brother, who had moved to Little Rock, Ark., to work as an assistant project manager for Hardin, changed everything. There was an opening in Memphis for a job accountant: an entry-level position paying only about $13,000 a year.
“I called Atlanta, and they asked me to send my résumé. Of course I didn’t have a résumé. I had to go to the library and check out a book on how to write business letters. I got out my old typewriter that I got as a graduation gift. As I was sitting there, I realized my only qualifications were football player, fraternity brother, bouncer—and the four summers I’d worked in construction.”
To his surprise, he was invited to interview in Atlanta and was hired to work on a small condominium project along the Mississippi River.
McElroy’s tasks—logging in the number of workers onsite, tracking the subcontractors’ progress, ordering lumber and materials—were a good introduction to the basics of managing a job. Ultimately, however, he discovered the position mostly involved pushing paper and making coffee for the guys in the field.
McElroy’s next assignment took him to Florida to work as a job accountant for a small project in Fort Myers and then another in Deerfield Beach. He became bored quickly, and his boss took notice.
“He asked me, ‘what would you really like to do, anyway?’ And I said, assuredly, ‘I’d like to be out in the field.’”
Ask and You Shall Receive
In 1984, Hardin promoted McElroy to field coordinator on a large multi-story office project: Brickell Bay in Miami. “They wanted me to look after the whole project. But I was green as a gourd. I went to my superintendent [Hardin’s Rob Collins] and said, ‘I’m in over my head.’ ”
Collins had faith McElroy would learn the ropes. He gave McElroy a project checklist and assured him everything was going to work out fine.
But endless questions from the crew members sent McElroy running to ask Collins for advice. “I’d run down 25 floors to go see Rob. He’d flip open the drawings, and I’d write the answer down verbatim. Then I’d run up the stairs and read off Rob’s answer.”
It was trial by fire, but in the end, it was the best experience McElroy never knew he needed. “By the end, I caught on a little more, but I was still really green.”
McElroy was a quick study, and soon he found himself learning from Hardin’s best superintendents on jobs across the Southeast. Unlike his school days, when he used to say a B+ would suffice, McElroy wanted to excel at his craft. “It didn’t hit me until I worked in construction. The light went on. If I was going to succeed in this industry, I’d have to show them I could do it the best.”
He was promoted to superintendent in 1990, and for the next several years he led teams on projects including the Marriott Grande Ocean in Hilton Head, S.C., Woodlands Mall in The Woodlands, Texas, and several commercial buildings in Atlanta.
As he ratcheted up successes on these jobs, McElroy earned a reputation as an outstanding leader with the power to motivate the best work out of his crews, subcontractors and fellow managers.
“It was a long road, but I attribute my success to all those superintendents I worked for in the past. They taught me how to do things, and they also taught me how not to do things,” he says. “You mold your own personality into your own jobs.”
Born for the Job
McElroy marvels at the opportunities he’s been given, and he credits his brother for pushing him in the right direction. Considering his charisma out in the field, many people are surprised when they learn of his days cooped up in a jobsite trailer.
“They say, ‘You were born to do this,’ ” he laughs. And he can’t disagree. As his 28th anniversary with Hardin approaches, he still loves his job.
“I’ve only worked for one construction company all my life. I’ve forged so many friendships with the other guys at the company, it’s like we all grew up together. It’s an amazing feeling, to have been a part of this. I feel very grateful and very blessed that Hardin wanted to take a chance on a guy like me, and succeeded.”
McElroy shows his gratitude by giving back to the industry. He not only participates in career fairs and college recruitment efforts, but he also invests personal time helping his superintendents and foremen troubleshoot problems and learn from their experiences. He doesn’t hesitate to call a group of guys into the trailer to have coffee and shoot the breeze after work, like he used to do with his father.
McElroy’s greatest advice to college students: Even after years of formal classroom education, be prepared to make mistakes. “When you get on the jobsite, all of that stuff is going to be a pittance of what you’re going to need to know. It’s going to take you a while to get there,” he says. “We learn from what we do wrong, not what we do right. You’re going to bend some nails, so to speak. The trick is not bending too many.”
And when a mistake does happen? “You pat them on the back and tell them to get back in the game,” he says.
Another humbling lesson is admitting when you don’t know how to solve a problem. “I know I don’t have all the answers, but I know who to call who does. That’s the most important thing to know in this business.”
The learning curve can take up to five years, McElroy says, because it takes three or four jobs to gain a solid footing. Only then can a superintendent or project manager step back, delegate and watch a building take shape.
“When I hire guys, I tell them, you’ll be a better manager by working out in the field for a couple of years. Not everybody realizes that’s really where we make our money—out in the field.”
Wearing the mark of a true leader, McElroy won’t settle for slacking on his watch. He’ll be tough, but honest. “There’s a lot of mediocre people in this world. One thing I don’t like is people who settle for mediocrity. If you don’t set the bar high, you’re not going to go very high. You get what you accept in life.”
And for McElroy, only an excellent performance is an acceptable performance.
Pinnacle Project
With this hardworking attitude and dedication to perfection, McElroy was Hardin’s choice to build Atlanta’s Sovereign/3344 Peachtree, an impressive 50-story mixed-use tower he calls the most difficult job of his career. It is currently the tallest building in the Buckhead neighborhood.
The project, completed in 2008, was riddled with challenges: a complex geometry, algebraic logistics and a tight worksite. On a 3-acre footprint, Hardin and its subcontractors built an 11-story parking deck with three underground levels; on top of that rests a 2-story lobby and 18 stories of office space, each with a different floor plate. The 27th floor alone took eight weeks to build, on top of which the team poured and constructed another 22 floors of multimillion-dollar condos.
The job abutted Peachtree Street on one side and a hotel on the other, and it required immense attention to detail and coordination with a diverse team of players.
“At one time I had 12 superintendents working for me. I joked that I had to do a roll call every morning,” he says.
The fact that it was one of his toughest jobs makes its accolades, like being named the Urban Land Institute’s Atlanta Project of the Year, ring even sweeter. “This is Billy’s best performance to date in his career,” says Bob Dunn, senior vice president at Hardin. “His dad would be extremely proud of the man and superintendent that he is today. I know I am.”
With the respect and admiration of his supervisors and peers for his dedication to the company and its employees, McElroy received Hardin Construction’s third-ever Excel Award in 1994.
Currently, McElroy is building two unique jobs: a new track and soccer facility at Auburn University, and a temple renovation for the Church of Latter Day Saints.
When his schedule allows, he finds quiet time to relax in the mountains of North Carolina, along the eastern border of Tennessee, where he and his wife enjoy spending time with their four grandkids. He finds time to fish and to golf. And he tries to read upwards of 20 books a year, anything from biographies to political thrillers. This summer, he took his 13-year-old granddaughter, a softball player, to Oklahoma City to see the NCAA softball tournament. “She’s a great athlete, but a better kid. We have a good time together,” he says.
Editor’s Note: To recommend someone to be featured in Construction Executive’s series on craft professionals who work their way up to leadership positions, contact Lisa Nardone, nardone@abc.org.