Dan R. Brown has learned a wealth of lessons in his 35-year journey with Bo-Mac Contractors from chief estimator to his current post of 25 years as vice president. BIC Magazine recently visited with Brown to discuss his experience.
Q: What led to your position at Bo-Mac Contractors?
A: I began my career involved with heavy highway and bridge construction, primarily in estimating and project management. After some limited exposure to industrial civil, marine and piling construction, I accepted a position in estimating and project management with Bo-Mac and am very glad to be here today after many years.
Q: What is the biggest news at Bo-Mac right now?
A: Reaching Bo-Mac’s 50th anniversary in business! We are currently very active in what is likely the largest movement in the history of industrial and petrochemicals expansions in Texas and Louisiana, certainly in Bo-Mac’s history. The changes computerized technology, electronics and communications have brought to our business have been a remarkable journey. The incredible size of some of these industrial projects we are involved with was once simply hard to imagine.
Q: What is your best management tactic?
A: We all want to operate as good examples for our team members, in particular in the area of work ethics, and have a passion for the safe execution of the challenging work we perform. Helping motivate younger professionals to take extra interest in our field is a natural and instinctive character to us in senior management. We want them to understand the opportunities for career growth available to them. We need to know our ultimate measure of being successful in our careers will be those around us who we have helped prepare to take on leadership roles for the future to take us to continued growth and greater levels.
Q: What is your biggest lesson learned?
A: Rather stubbornly, following good advice in learning to entrust responsibilities and decision making to others who support us was a major breakthrough, and it should be for all of us at some point in our careers. Properly preparing others around us to execute their jobs in an effective manner allows us to go further in our careers and into other areas and markets. Thinking we need to do it all on our own and not trusting others to step up, make decisions and operate with authority will interfere with a company’s growth. This has been the biggest and hardest lesson for me to learn. Businesses will not continue successfully without some level of this learning process.
Q: What has been the most pivotal moment of your career?
A: Moving from functioning as chief estimator into the division manager over our piling operations was a critical moment. To move from spending days and nights primarily looking at plans, spreadsheets and, later, computers to safely managing field operations required quick and drastic changes. Managing people who knew so much more about what they were doing than I did, and they of course knew it too, was very difficult at first. Making a commitment to spend more time in the field and around our operations and field personnel was instrumental in making progress and gaining more understanding of the complexities our field managers face every day.
For more information, visit www.bomaccontractors.com or call (409) 842-2125.
