The Contractor's Playbook: Built2Win

Chris Coghlan
  • 5.0 (7)
  • Careers

Built 2 Win is a performance-driven media platform for contractors who are done surviving chaos and ready to lead at a higher level. We fuse elite performance principles with real conversations from top contractors, operators, and leaders to strengthen the five components that drive long-term success: Foundation, Frame, Engine, Operations, and Crew. This show exists to elevate the contractor’s voice, restore pride in the industry, and create a community where high performers can learn from the best, sharpen their leadership, and help leave the construction industry better than they found it.

Episodes

  1. Sep 5

    He Couldn't Afford a Hammer. Then He Built a $100M Construction Company.

    There's a hammer hanging in the lobby with a piece of PVC and duct tape where the handle should be. "We could not afford a new hammer."   Chris Coghlan sits down with Ben Burgess, P.E., founder of Burgess Civil, who started in June 2014 with a tiny bit of working capital, five men hired off Craigslist, and one rented office behind a real estate receptionist he asked to pretend she worked for him. Twelve years later: Burgess Civil employs roughly 200 people, has about $100 million in backlog, $130 million in DOT bonding capacity, and the site package on the USF football stadium.   Ben didn't take a paycheck for the first three years — there are still employees at Burgess Civil with employee numbers lower than his. He ran the business and the projects during the week and estimated on weekends. Then a divorce settlement put him millions of dollars in personal debt in January 2020, and COVID shut down his residential work ten weeks later.   Ben walks through all of it: the broken hammer hanging in his lobby, cutting from 95 people to 60 and getting back to 100 within 90 days, the heavy equipment simulator that catches operators who've never actually run one, and the daily green/red scoreboard that tells every foreman whether he made or lost money that day instead of sixty days later.   If you're building a crew, deciding what to self-perform, or trying to figure out how to keep good people in the trades, this one is for you.   ▶ Watch every episode on The Contractor's Playbook | Built2Win: The Contractor's Playbook | Built2Win   🔔 Subscribe so you don't miss the next builder's story. New episodes every two weeks.   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHAT THIS EPISODE ANSWERS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ How do you survive losing money on the very first job you ever bid?   What do you do when a personal crisis and a market shutdown land in the same ninety days?   How do you know a new hire can actually run the machine he says he can run?   How do you show a crew whether they made money today instead of sixty days from now?   Can an 18-year-old who starts on a shovel really retire a millionaire?   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ POWERED BY OUR SPONSORS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Ring Power | Florida's Cat® Equipment Dealer ▶ https://linktw.in/pTVmkD Big League Construction Supply ▶ https://linktw.in/NIMVjE Johnson & Company | Commercial Insurance & Bonding ▶ https://linktw.in/HsgrSt #ad   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT THE GUEST ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Ben Burgess, P.E., is the founder and owner of Burgess Civil, LLC, a Tampa-based self-perform site and civil contractor he started in June 2014. A civil engineer out of NC State with an MBA from the University of Florida, he built the company from five Craigslist hires to roughly 200 people running clearing, earthwork, underground utilities, roadwork and paving across commercial, residential and DOT work in Tampa Bay. Burgess Civil is an Inc. 5000 and repeat Gator100 honoree, and describes itself as "a training company that happens to do construction" — with core values of Integrity, Learning, Availability and Mentorship printed on every hard hat.   Website ▶ https://burgesscivil.com   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT BUILT2WIN ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Built2Win is where the ones who build the world come to think bigger, lead better, and win at a higher level — long-form conversations on leadership, construction, and building something that lasts. Hosted by Chris Coghlan.   Connect with us: Instagram ▶   / thecontractorsplaybook_b2w   LinkedIn ▶   / the-contractors-playbook-built2win   TikTok ▶   / contractorsplaybook_b2w   Facebook ▶ https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?... All links ▶ https://linktr.ee/TheContractorsPlayb... Website ▶ https://chriscogs.com

    He Couldn't Afford a Hammer. Then He Built a $100M Construction Company.

  2. Aug 31

    Purple heart recipient: MASTERCLASS on Running a Construction Crew That Never Quits

    Michael Waldrop starts this episode with a question most contractors can't answer: who cleans the port-o-lets on your jobsite? It sounds like a small thing. He'll tell you it's the whole thing - because the answer tells him how a company treats the people doing the work when nobody's watching. And the man asking isn't a safety consultant. He has a Purple Heart and two Bronze Stars for Valor. Six years after he resigned his commission, a Western Union mailgram told Michael Waldrop to report for Afghanistan in 30 days. He was wounded three weeks in, talked his way back onto a helicopter, and finished the tour. Today he builds the facilities that serve the veteran community he came from. Chris Coghlan sits down with Michael Waldrop, founder and chairman of Blue Cord Design & Construction, to talk about leading men in combat, coming home, and building a construction company around the people he served with. From receiving a property-tax bill while deployed in Afghanistan - and turning that frustration into a Florida constitutional amendment - to convincing two men to take a million-dollar chance on his vision, Michael lays out the unlikely path that led to Blue Cord. CHAPTERS ------------------------------ 0:00 - Who Cleans the Port-O-Lets? 11:29 - Why He Walked Away From the Army 18:29 - The Mailgram: 30 Days to Afghanistan 36:00 - His First Gunfight 41:32 - Wounded - and Why He Went Back 49:52 - Who Would You Call at 3AM? 1:21:58 - Starting a Construction Company in 2009 1:41:32 - Inside Blue Cord: "Don't Commoditize Us" POWERED BY OUR SPONSORS ------------------------------ Ring Power | Florida's Cat Equipment Dealer ⁠https://linktw.in/pTVmkD⁠ Big League Construction Supply ⁠https://linktw.in/NIMVjE⁠ Johnson & Company | Commercial Insurance & Bonding ⁠https://linktw.in/HsgrSt⁠ ABOUT THE GUEST ------------------------------ Michael Waldrop is the founder and chairman of Blue Cord, a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned construction firm that began by building and renovating medical facilities for the Department of Veterans Affairs and has since expanded into other federal, healthcare, commercial, industrial, and education work. As a former U.S. Army infantry captain, Michael was recalled to active duty in 2006 and deployed to Southern Afghanistan, where he commanded an Afghan National Army rifle company during combat operations. He was wounded in action and was awarded the Purple Heart and two Bronze Stars for Valor. After returning home, Michael launched Blue Cord during the recession and built the company around a mission of serving veterans and creating opportunities for those transitioning into civilian careers. He later founded the Florida Association of Veteran-Owned Businesses and co-founded the Camaraderie Foundation, which provides mental-health counseling and support to service members, veterans, and their families. Website: ⁠https://blue-cord.com⁠ Camaraderie Foundation: ⁠https://www.camaraderiefoundation.org...⁠ ABOUT BUILT2WIN ------------------------------ Built2Win is where the ones who build the world come to think bigger, lead better, and win at a higher level - long-form conversations on leadership, construction, and building something that lasts. Hosted by Chris Coghlan.

    Purple heart recipient: MASTERCLASS on Running a Construction Crew That Never Quits

  3. Aug 31

    80-Year Construction Company: MASTERCLASS on Selling a Product the Market Said NO To

    The best job FINFROCK ever lost ended up being the one that gave the company time to rethink how parking garages should be built. What followed was a decades-long transition from precast concrete subcontractor to a fully integrated design-build firm. Chris Coghlan sits down with Bill Finfrock, president of FINFROCK, to discuss moving up the construction value chain — from manufacturing pieces of the building to taking responsibility for its design, engineering and construction. From his early days estimating projects, to FINFROCK developing and building its own hotel to prove a structural system the market hadn’t yet embraced, Bill breaks down how a company founded in 1945 transformed the way it delivers buildings. Bill also discusses the risk of leaving one business model before the next is guaranteed to work, why controlling more of the construction process can create better outcomes, and what it takes to bet your own resources on an idea the market hasn’t proven yet. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏰ CHAPTERS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 0:00 Intro 0:27 1945 → today: sand piles, golf carts, and an 83-year-old chairman 3:53 Lessons from Dad: hard work, candor, "nobody owes you anything" 6:23 A 24-year-old estimator and plans with more questions than answers 10:45 The best job we ever lost 13:13 The voicemail: 14 parking garages on one piece of paper 15:58 Curiosity as the operating system — "knowledge is economic power" 21:18 Foot out of one boat: the 15-year transition 26:11 "You're not a contractor" — refusing the lane 29:09 One of one: why nobody else does this 33:28 Bringing 40 architects in-house 38:15 Design-build removes excuses: "Guess whose fault it is?" 38:55 The internship plant test 40:42 Inventing the DualDeck: 10 years, 10,000 blind alleys 44:44 "How the hell am I going to sell the first one?" 46:12 The entire balance sheet: a $50M hotel in Naples 50:59 One year to the day: financing to open 53:23 Two Cat 4 hurricanes, zero damage 54:54 Lasers on the ceiling: why FINFROCK builds tech in-house 57:19 The AI panic: "complete nonsense" 1:02:34 The old prison that became a 100-acre plant 1:06:12 How he sizes a bet-the-company risk 1:09:18 "I'm competing against a spreadsheet" 1:13:24 #1 career advice: bring what they didn't ask for 1:17:17 It's five pm and everybody's walking out the door 1:18:20 What he'd change for the next generation 1:21:20 What he's most grateful for ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ POWERED BY OUR SPONSORS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Ring Power | Florida's Cat® Equipment Dealer ▶ https://linktw.in/pTVmkD Big League Construction Supply ▶ https://linktw.in/NIMVjE Johnson & Company | Commercial Insurance & Bonding ▶ https://linktw.in/HsgrSt ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT THE GUEST ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Bill Finfrock is president of FINFROCK, the Apopka, Florida design-build contractor founded in 1945. FINFROCK engineers, manufactures, and builds its own structures under one contract. Bill joined full time in 1993, when the company had 88 employees and worked only as a precast subcontractor; it now has more than 700. Over the following fifteen years he helped move it up the value chain to become a design-build general contractor.  FINFROCK now builds parking structures, hotels, multifamily, office and student housing across Florida from plants in Apopka and Belle Glade. Website: https://finfrock.com

    80-Year Construction Company: MASTERCLASS on Selling a Product the Market Said NO To

  4. Aug 31

    NFL Hall of Famer/5X All Pro, Now A Construction CEO: "I Never Got Comfortable. Not One Season"

    Five straight All-Pro seasons ended on one Monday night hit in December 1987. The nerve never regenerated. Four years later Dwight Stephenson started a construction company with his wife, and stocked the drywall himself. Chris Coghlan sits down with Pro Football Hall of Fame center Dwight Stephenson, co-founder of D. Stephenson Construction, to discuss what transfers from a locker room run by Bear Bryant and Don Shula to a job site — and what doesn't. From his father working two jobs for 47 years to a first contract that took the company from zero to 200 people in a month, Dwight lays out the second career he built after the one he trained for was taken away. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CHAPTERS ⏰ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 00:00 Intro — NFL Hall of Famer Dwight Stephenson 00:38 One of seven kids: "You enjoy it, and you don't quit on it" 01:30 His father's two jobs — one hour off, for 47 years 02:36 Mom, seven kids, and a job by the fourth grade 04:16 Setting the standard — how Alabama found a two-year player 06:40 Mama's rule: "You're not going to follow anybody anywhere" 07:26 Alone in Alabama with two years of football 09:12 From defense to center 11:05 The rule: go to the next level, humble yourself 14:34 Playing for Bear Bryant 15:58 Bryant's principles: "I help those who help themselves" 18:09 Draft day — the phone call from Don Shula 21:21 Bottom of the depth chart again: just learn the plays 24:10 Shula's mental-error board: "Don't beat yourself" 26:22 What both legends shared: the CEO, not your buddy 28:34 The Dan Marino broken-finger story 33:59 December '87 — the Monday night injury 36:23 The nerve never came back 39:42 "Bring your playbook" — released from his dream job 41:38 Tears in the car — and choosing gratitude 43:35 Finding out he made the Hall of Fame at a gas station 45:35 His sister — the real leader of the family 47:49 The Dwight Stephenson Award 48:33 Starting over: "I'm gonna learn it from the ground up" 51:19 Christmas Eve drywall at the airport — why he loves hard jobs 53:31 Founding D. Stephenson Construction (January 1992) 54:48 Coaching for the man who released him 56:12 Building a company with his wife 59:32 Hurricane Andrew and Waste Management: 0 to 200 employees 1:00:38 What transfers from center to CEO 1:01:58 The skill he had to level up: people 1:06:07 "None of us are undefeated" — repairing a correction gone wrong 1:10:17 Elite vs. average: humble yourself 1:12:04 Advice to the young tradesperson 1:14:17 Why construction — money, pride, and work you can drive past 1:16:57 The Dwight Stephenson Foundation: computers for kids 1:20:44 What he's most grateful for ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ POWERED BY OUR SPONSORS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Ring Power | Florida's Cat® Equipment Dealer ▶ https://linktw.in/pTVmkD Big League Construction Supply ▶ https://linktw.in/NIMVjE Johnson & Company | Commercial Insurance & Bonding ▶ https://linktw.in/HsgrSt ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT THE GUEST ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Dwight Stephenson is a Pro Football Hall of Famer and co-founder of D. Stephenson Construction, the South Florida construction firm he launched with his wife, Dinah, in 1992. Before entering construction, Stephenson spent eight seasons at center for the Miami Dolphins under Don Shula, earning five consecutive Pro Bowl selections and All-Pro honors from 1983 through 1987. At Alabama, he played under Bear Bryant and was part of back-to-back national championship teams in 1978 and 1979. Bryant called him the best center he ever coached and “a man among children.” Pro Football Hall of Fame A severe left knee injury suffered during the 1987 season ultimately ended his NFL career. After football, Stephenson transitioned into construction from the ground up before he and Dinah founded D. Stephenson Construction, which now provides construction management, general contracting, program management and design-build services throughout South Florida. Website: https://www.dstephenson.com

    NFL Hall of Famer/5X All Pro, Now A Construction CEO: "I Never Got Comfortable. Not One Season"

  5. Aug 31

    A $1 Million Dollar Bust, No Change Order, And the Builder Who Paid It Anyways

    An estimator took the roads off on the wrong scale — a $1 million bust in asphalt and rock. Wal-Rose Site Development ate it, finished the job, and told the builder at the final walkthrough. Chris Coghlan sits down with Jeremy Griffin, VP and third-generation owner of Walrose Site Development, to discuss how a Central Florida dirt contractor became a 300-person full-site-package company — and what it costs to be the one who tells the truth about a bad bid. From cutting two fiber optic lines in his first week on a machine to developing 980 lots in 16 months, Jeremy lays out how Wal-Rose went from his dad and a handful of guys to 20+ pipe crews and over 300 pieces of iron. If you run a site work, utility or dirt shop and you're deciding what to self-perform, when to RPO a machine, and how to build a superintendent bench instead of hiring one — this one is for you. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏰ CHAPTERS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 00:00 Intro: third-generation site developer 00:45 Growing up in the business: OJT & baseball 04:07 From ballplayer to the family business 04:52 The genesis of Wal-Rose (1994–95) 07:37 Why they went to a full site package 09:20 Starting in the ditch: "I ripped out two fiber optics" 11:20 300+ people, and never missing a schedule 14:15 Mom, dad, and how the family decides 17:57 Dad's lesson: your word. Mom's lesson: faith 19:04 Jeremy's North Star 20:04 How he keeps getting better 22:06 Recovery and a day in the life: up at five thirty 25:05 Promote from within: pipe layer to superintendent 27:46 Jackets, vacations, and Rolexes 29:25 Advice to foremen: show up, own it 30:32 "I was right, but I said too much" 34:58 The first job he owned 35:44 The job he's proudest of: nearly 1,000 lots in 16 months 36:40 What people overlook about site development 38:09 Who they build for: the national builders 39:31 The $1M estimating bust — and what the builder did 44:08 2008–09: nobody got fired 45:15 Equipment strategy: RPO, backlog, and turns 49:27 Hiring and what he looks for 51:16 Culture and values at Wal-Rose 53:13 Great vs. average superintendents 58:06 Safety that owns itself 1:00:16 Reading the 2026 market 1:04:29 Keeping the team from cracking under pressure 1:05:38 The Christmas party and the ice sculptures 1:07:02 Advice to the next gen: "AI can't lay pipe" 1:10:05 One thing he'd change in the industry 1:11:52 Gratitude and close ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ POWERED BY OUR SPONSORS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Ring Power | Florida's Cat® Equipment Dealer ▶ https://linktw.in/pTVmkD Big League Construction Supply ▶ https://linktw.in/NIMVjE Johnson & Company | Commercial Insurance & Bonding ▶ https://linktw.in/HsgrSt ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT THE GUEST ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Jeremy Griffin is vice president and part of the family leadership behind Wal-Rose Site Development, a Central Florida site contractor founded by his family in the mid-1990s. Today, Jeremy and his brother Josh help lead an operation with hundreds of employees and an extensive fleet of heavy equipment, performing site development work for major residential and commercial projects throughout Florida. Jeremy’s path through the company started in the field. He began as a laborer working in the ditch, eventually became a pipe foreman, and later earned his underground utility contractor license — helping Wal-Rose bring utility work in-house rather than subcontracting it. Today, the company fields pipe crews, dirt crews, surveyors, mechanics and other self-perform capabilities across its site-development operation. Website: https://www.walrose.com

    A $1 Million Dollar Bust, No Change Order, And the Builder Who Paid It Anyways

  6. Jun 18

    28 Years, One company, 5,000 Owners: Nothing At Hensel Phelps Is Handed To You

    He watched the Pentagon burn from a rooftop three miles away and saw a fighter jet come out of nowhere to turn back a news helicopter. Hensel Phelps would go on to renovate Wedges 2 through 5 of the Pentagon — a 4.5-million-square-foot project that took more than a decade to complete.  Chris Coghlan sits down with Matt Krystolic, operations manager at Hensel Phelps, to discuss nearly 30 years with one employee-owned construction company — and what it actually takes to work your way from field engineer to company stockholder. From counting Pentagon windows by hand to helping lead major projects at Orlando International Airport and Universal’s Epic Universe, Matt breaks down the career behind the projects — and how a company founded in Greeley, Colorado, in 1937 eventually transitioned to employee ownership. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏰ CHAPTERS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 0:00 — Trailer: 9/11, the Pentagon, and 28 years at one company 1:00 — Mowing lawns at 14: where the work ethic started 3:16 — Family, football, and an Ohio State dad 4:33 — Choosing Colorado State over Ohio State 5:48 — Rugby and the regimen that carried him 7:40 — First taste of construction in the Rockies 9:12 — Getting hired at Hensel Phelps (five offers, good cop/bad cop) 14:27 — The Hensel Phelps origin story (1937, Greeley, CO) 15:05 — Employee ownership: how the ESOP actually works 17:16 — The Joseph Phelps wine connection 24:46 — 5,000 employees and a coast-to-coast career 26:49 — First job: NC State's arena, seven days a week 32:30 — "Do the right thing, get it open, then negotiate" 35:42 — Doubt, the ditch, and the move into estimating 37:26 — Why relationships are the real skill 41:00 — Virginia, and counting every window of the Pentagon 48:00 — 9/11: three miles from the Pentagon 52:43 — Five years rebuilding the Pentagon 58:28 — Florida, the Space Coast & Orlando's Terminal C 1:05:53 — The promotion that didn't come 1:14:03 — Christine: "the executive of everything that matters to me" 1:22:50 — Inside bidding the toughest clients — and the "snakes in the grass" 1:25:40 — Why the last mile is the hardest 1:27:38 — What construction really means: "you're building gold" 1:29:16 — Advice to the next generation of builders 1:33:19 — Elite vs. average: the mindset you can't teach 1:34:21 — The one thing he'd change: safety 1:35:46 — ABC Central Florida & the Robe Walk 1:39:44 — What he's most grateful for 1:41:05 — Closing: the next generation of builders   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ POWERED BY OUR SPONSORS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Ring Power | Florida's Cat® Equipment Dealer ▶ https://linktw.in/pTVmkD Big League Construction Supply ▶ https://linktw.in/NIMVjE Johnson & Company | Commercial Insurance & Bonding ▶ https://linktw.in/HsgrSt ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT THE GUEST ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Matt Krstolic is an operations manager at Hensel Phelps, the employee-owned construction firm founded in Greeley, Colorado, in 1937 which employs nearly 5,000 people. He joined the company after studying construction management at Colorado State University and has spent nearly three decades building across markets including Raleigh, Washington, D.C., and Florida. His career has included five years working on the Pentagon renovation and leadership roles on major Central Florida projects, including Orlando International Airport’s Terminal C and work at Universal’s Epic Universe. He also serves on the board of directors for Associated Builders and Contractors’ Central Florida chapter. Website: https://www.henselphelps.com

    28 Years, One company, 5,000 Owners: Nothing At Hensel Phelps Is Handed To You

  7. Jun 5

    Kiewit Exec: Professional Baseball Bred Him for Success At This $18B Construction Powerhouse

    Sixth-round pick. Oakland A’s. 1996. Nick Sosa made it as far as Double-A before baseball ended and he had to start over. Today, he’s a vice president with Kiewit Infrastructure, part of one of North America’s largest construction and engineering organizations — a company where employee ownership isn’t automatic. You earn the opportunity to buy in. Chris Coghlan sits down with Nick to talk about the transition from professional baseball to heavy civil construction and what it takes to build a career inside a company whose roots go back to 1884. From starting over as a rod man on a South Florida bascule bridge to helping deliver major infrastructure work at Orlando International Airport’s Terminal C, Nick explains why building the full tool belt matters more than rushing toward the next title. He also gets into how Kiewit decides which jobs to pursue, how leaders know when someone is ready for more responsibility, what employee ownership actually means, and how to lead crews filled with people who may know far more about the work than you do. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏰ CHAPTERS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 0:00 Cold Open 1:04 Welcome Nick Sosa 1:17 Growing Up Around Heavy Civil Construction 4:23 Baseball, Sports & Getting Drafted by the A's 9:47 Pro Ball: From Best in Town to Mediocre 14:32 The Sound of a Different Level 15:20 Getting Released from Pro Baseball 19:30 The Pivot Into Construction 21:50 Starting at the Bottom: Rod Man to Builder 25:15 A Title Doesn't Make You the Boss 30:03 Finding Kiewit Through ENR Magazine 34:16 What Kiewit Actually Is 39:13 Employee Ownership & Skin in the Game 45:06 Kiewit's Origin, Omaha & Warren Buffett 47:04 Mission: Best, Not Biggest 49:23 Stewardship & Developing People 51:40 No End Goal: How the Opportunities Came 53:05 Coaching the Full Tool Belt 58:23 Big Company, Small-Contractor Feel 1:00:33 MCO & Building Terminal C 1:05:13 The People Who Built Nick 1:06:40 First Time You're "the Guy" & Managing Chaos 1:10:10 The Bad Job: The Army Corps Lesson 1:13:14 Health, Work-Life Balance & Performance 1:19:56 Doing Hard Things: Elk Hunting & Failure 1:24:47 Why Join Construction Now 1:27:23 What Construction Means to Him 1:28:20 Advice to the Next Generation 1:32:27 Training & Kiewit University 1:36:06 Gratitude & Close ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ POWERED BY OUR SPONSORS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Ring Power | Florida's Cat® Equipment Dealer ▶ https://linktw.in/pTVmkD Big League Construction Supply ▶ https://linktw.in/NIMVjE Johnson & Company | Commercial Insurance & Bonding ▶ https://linktw.in/HsgrSt ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT THE GUEST ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Nick Sosa is a vice president at Kiewit Infrastructure, running the Southeast district — Baltimore to Mississippi and Florida, 300-plus staff. Drafted by the Oakland A's in the sixth round in 1996, he came out of pro baseball onto his father's bridge crews as a rod man. He joined Kiewit twenty years ago by answering an online job posting, has been a shareholder for over a decade, and helped build the company's Central Florida presence through Terminal C. Website: https://www.kiewit.com

    Kiewit Exec: Professional Baseball Bred Him for Success At This $18B Construction Powerhouse

  8. May 20

    Billionaire Founder: MASTERCLASS on Starting a Construction Company From Scratch!

    His wife was six months pregnant with their first child when he quit a good job to start on his own. "I was scared of failing — but the fear of not trying was bigger." Chris Coghlan sits down with Junior Davis, founder of Junior Davis Construction, to discuss going from a worn-out 1973 loader and a used dump truck to 1,700 people and a billion dollars in backlog — without ever leaving ten Florida counties. From parking equipment and building fences during a downturn to trading nights of wrenching on cars for repairs to his machines, Junior breaks down four decades of self-performing heavy civil work — and the culture he credits for making it work ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏰ CHAPTERS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 00:00 Cold Open: Fear of Failing vs. Fear of Not Trying 01:17 From Zero to $1B Backlog in 10 Counties 02:13 First Construction Job: Mixing Mud and Tying Steel in High School 04:58 Why He Picked Civil Engineering as His College Major 06:41 The Coaches and Parents Who Shaped His Work Ethic 08:38 Ring Power Cat Sponsor Break 09:51 Betting on Himself: Quitting a Great Job with a Pregnant Wife 13:20 "You Don't Need a Partner — His Name is Jesus" 16:25 Buying His First Cat 930 Loader and Beat-Up Dump Truck 18:32 Clearing Lots and Knocking Doors: The First JDC Jobs 19:48 The 110% Commitment That Built Junior Davis Construction 21:43 Survival Mode: The Only Goal in the First Five Years 22:20 White-Knuckle Years: Building Fence to Keep the Lights On 26:01 Hiring His First Employee and Getting His Contractor's License 28:47 Getting Burned: Learning Florida Lien Law the Hard Way 31:09 How He Thinks About Risk on Big Contracts 33:47 Johnson & Co. Sponsor Break 35:21 Building a Family Culture: Why He Started When His Crews Started 38:55 The Standard: Quality Over Margin, Every Job, Every Time 41:47 9/11 and the National Day of Prayer That Changed JDC 44:39 Thanksgiving and Easter Services: Faith Inside the Company 47:00 Baptisms in the Shop: A Horse Trough and a Stage 50:31 Handing the Company to His Son Steve: "The University of JDC" 53:10 Earning Respect: Why Steve Started on a Shovel 56:33 What Steve Taught Junior About Patience and People 57:44 What Makes Him Most Proud of His People 58:19 1,700 People, $1B Backlog, 10 Counties — Did He Ever Envision This? 1:00:18 Focus on Effort, Not Results: The Anti-Goal Philosophy 1:01:23 Avoiding Complacency After Success 1:02:07 What Gets a Founder Out of Bed After 40 Years 1:03:54 Delegation vs. Control: Keeping a Finger on the Pulse 1:06:10 Why JDC Self-Performs and Stays Diverse Across Markets 1:08:21 Owning vs. Renting Equipment: The Utilization Rule 1:11:36 The Leadership Shift: Creating an Environment for Creative Thinking 1:14:49 Lead With Questions, Not Answers 1:16:20 What the Construction Industry Means to Him 1:17:08 What He Would Change About His 40-Year Journey 1:19:41 Why Most Construction Companies Don't Make It 1:22:12 Why Florida is the Best State to Build In 1:22:48 Advice for the Next Generation Getting Into Construction 1:23:39 Fix This One Thing: Permitting, Bureaucracy, and Modified Design-Build 1:29:28 What He's Most Grateful For ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ POWERED BY OUR SPONSORS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Ring Power | Florida's Cat® Equipment Dealer ▶ https://linktw.in/pTVmkD Big League Construction Supply ▶ https://linktw.in/NIMVjE Johnson & Company | Commercial Insurance & Bonding ▶ https://linktw.in/HsgrSt Junior's Website: https://jr-davis.com

    Billionaire Founder: MASTERCLASS on Starting a Construction Company From Scratch!
  • 8 Episodes

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
7 Ratings

About

Built 2 Win is a performance-driven media platform for contractors who are done surviving chaos and ready to lead at a higher level. We fuse elite performance principles with real conversations from top contractors, operators, and leaders to strengthen the five components that drive long-term success: Foundation, Frame, Engine, Operations, and Crew. This show exists to elevate the contractor’s voice, restore pride in the industry, and create a community where high performers can learn from the best, sharpen their leadership, and help leave the construction industry better than they found it.

Information

You Might Also Like