91ÊÓƵ

Lease Crutcher Lewis on Friday announced that Bart Ricketts, the general manager of the company’s Portland office, will become the next CEO of the regional construction firm.

The company, one of the Pacific Northwest’s largest construction firms with offices in Oregon and Washington, has begun implementing its 16-month leadership succession plan that will culminate in May 2012. At that time, current CEO and President Bill Lewis will hand over the reins to Ricketts and assume a part-time role within the company as chairman of the Board of Directors.

“We first began identifying this plan and this general timeline about six years ago,” Lewis said. “As in any leadership succession plan, the process is always evolving and the timing is right for this to happen now.”

Ricketts started with Lease Crutcher Lewis in 1995 as a project manager for the Portland office. Before 1995, the company’s only office was in Seattle, and Ricketts was on the forefront of starting the Portland office.

“What resonates to me is that when we started the Portland office 15 years ago we didn’t just replicate the Seattle office, but rather started it from scratch and let it grow organically,” Lewis said. “Bart has played a large role in its evolution since the beginning.”

Lease Crutcher Lewis is a 125-year-old construction company; it has been employee-owned for the past two years. The company was founded in Montana in 1886 by N.T. Lease, but moved to Seattle in 1939 to capitalize on war efforts. The firm is the 15th largest private company in Washington. The Seattle office focuses on construction of mixed-use buildings, office buildings and historic renovations. In Oregon, the company has built a name for its educational facilities and student housing projects.

“To a large extent, this transition will be business as usual,” Lewis said. “But if there is one goal to come out of this, it will be growing the company as a regional firm rather than as two separate offices.”

Ricketts will remain in the Portland office after the transition, which will lead to Seattle General Manager Gary Smith becoming president of Seattle operations and Ricketts becoming president of Portland operations. Jim Crutcher will become chairman emeritus.

The 91ÊÓƵ recently spoke with Ricketts to learn what he has planned for the company.

91ÊÓƵ: How long have you known about this transition plan?

Bart Ricketts: (Bill Lewis) and I first started having specific conversations about my role and what that might look like about three years ago. That’s when I first started putting thought into what kind of skills I would have to develop to be a CEO of a construction company. He has been a tremendous mentor in helping me figure that out.

A lot of it has been on-the-job training you get from running a significant part of the operation like the Oregon operation is for Lease Crutcher Lewis. The daily things that come up in terms of legal or contracts or other operational issues you have to deal with. The best training ground for me in making this transition to CEO has been: one, having a good mentor; and two, the on-the-job training you get every day.

91ÊÓƵ: What have you been doing to prepare? What are your plans to prepare over the next 16 months?

Ricketts: Besides what I just mentioned, getting leadership at every level figured out and getting the right people in the right places will be the biggest task moving forward. Probably the most important thing over the next 16 months will be rolling out the transition plan we have put in place. We have been very intentional in breaking it up into six-month chunks along the way. There is a succession plan for Portland that we are working on and a 16-month transition plan that has roles and responsibilities shifting within our organization so that I can be ready to take on Bill’s position.

91ÊÓƵ: Is there a specific strength, or a set of strengths, that you think will transfer over well to this position?

Ricketts: I would say my enthusiasm and passion for our people. When you have enthusiasm for your accomplishments and the growth of your people, that translates into great performance by our people, which translates into good projects for our clients. It’s kind of like being the top cheerleader and pulling everyone in the right direction. That enthusiasm for our people and their accomplishments and making sure we are giving them the resources to do whatever they can to make our clients’ projects successful is something that I think I am really skilled at and will continue to really push hard on.

91ÊÓƵ: Is there a weakness you are worried about or something that keeps you up at night moving forward with this transition?

Ricketts: If you read the papers or listen to the news, the economy keeps me up at night. The external forces of the economy make it tough on construction companies right now. We’ve been very successful at staying busy here in Portland. We’re very appreciative of our loyal clients that have helped us along the way there, and the diversification of our work types that have really helped that. So, the economy rebounding would surely make me sleep better at night.

Internally, the big responsibility will be managing my time appropriately and making sure that I’m making a difference in both offices. My time management skills and delegation skills are going to be at the top of their game in 16 months.

91ÊÓƵ: Businesses are always evolving. Moving forward, what’s the direction you see the company heading under your leadership?

Ricketts: I want our folks focused on commitment to clients and a laser-like focus on the goals of our clients. If we do that, we create exception value for our clients on every project that we build. The biggest focus in that whole value equation is empowering our people to make good decisions. Every detail, every decision, every day, our people are empowered. They’re smart, they’re good builders, they know how to get it done. If I can keep our company and our project teams focused on that, we will be very successful.

Lease Crutcher Lewis has always been known for the variety of construction that we do. We have a big resume of educational and higher education projects here in the Oregon market. We have a fabulous resume of biotech and commercial office buildings in Seattle, as well as everything in between. So, it’s more important about the value and the services that we deliver than the specific project type we are working on. That variety makes us a great place to work. It keeps us challenged. You have a variety of work rather than being out there building big box buildings all day. You get to share in the successes of your co-workers on just about any type of construction you can think of. Over the last 125 years, we’ve probably built one.

91ÊÓƵ: The Portland and Seattle offices are quite different. How familiar are you with the Seattle office?

Ricketts: I have a unique position within the organization because I have been able to collaborate a lot with our folks in Seattle. When I was director of preconstruction I spent a lot of time making sure our systems and processes for estimating and business development in the Oregon market were a mirror of what we do in Seattle. I’ve cultivated some very deep relationships with the senior management up there. I’m extremely familiar with the projects they are building up there and how they came to be. I know the best practices being used on those jobs, and who came up with those best practices.

For the last seven years I’ve probably spent three to four days a month in the Seattle office and that’s going to serve me well as we go through this transition. There will be more collaboration between the two offices moving forward than at any other time in the company’s history.

91ÊÓƵ: If you have one goal under your leadership tenure, what is it?

Ricketts: I’d like to see us be known as the best regional contractor at leveraging our talent and our lessons learned throughout the entire organization. It’s tough to do. Let’s realize that we are in separate cities and have different sized projects and different external market effects on what we are doing. But if we can leverage our talent from each office and share best practices, that’s going to make us a really strong regional company and it’s going to bring better service to our clients. If we can do that during my tenure, and maybe look for another branch office along the way to create leadership and growth opportunities for other folks within our company, I would consider that a success.

91ÊÓƵ: What have you learned most from Bill?

Ricketts: Bill has taught me to trust people. Give them responsibility, be a resource to them and be a mentor. Trust them and trust they will make a good decision. They need enough autonomy and authority to grow their career. It’s not always perfect, I’ve made mistakes along the way, but having a mentor like Bill provides that safety net and that’s a common theme and a common piece of our culture: to empower people and then support them no matter what happens.