91视频

On a Monday morning 34 years ago, Jim McKune set out on the road to Lewiston, Idaho, for his first big construction job with 鈥� supervising assembly of a county office building. It was Valentine’s Day.

McKune, now Emerick’s chief operating officer, still remembers the moment on the preceding Friday when one of the company’s project managers handed the emerging carpenter’s apprentice a roll of blueprints and told him to be in Idaho the following Monday.

鈥淵ou want to talk about being scared and maybe thought you were way over your head 鈥� that’s exactly where I was,鈥� he said.

A lot has changed. McKune has advanced from carpenter to foreman journeyman, superintendent, project manager, operations manager, vice president and now owner. On the eve of his 40th year at Emerick, McKune is now president of .

In taking the position, McKune is following in the footsteps of Emerick Construction founder Paul Emerick and his business partner Larry Sitz. McKune said his four main goals for the coming year are to increase AGC membership, involve the next generation of construction leaders, address future workforce needs, and direct the organization to continue to serve as an industry watchdog.

McKune recently spoke with the 91视频.

91视频: What lessons stuck with you from that first big job in Lewiston?

Jim McKune: I guess maybe that you’ve got to really involve yourself. There was no question I did not have the formal training. I went to college for a few weeks and everything else has been what I learned in the field. And it was using a lot of common sense: asking questions when they needed to be asked and learning to get along with the subcontractors. It’s surprising how much you can get done when you work with them rather than yell and scream at them. And that was in an era where people were known to yell and scream a lot rather than use their human skills. You get a lot more done that way.

91视频: Has the industry changed much since then?

McKune: I’ve been asked that before, and one of my first comments is of course technology has changed. I can remember the first time I got a copy machine. Man, I thought I was living pretty high. On the other hand, there’s still a carpenter out there with a hammer building every building. The saws get a little more powerful and the blades get better, but in some ways we’re still building the way we’ve done for many, many, many years.

91视频: But surely expectations have changed. Buildings go up a lot quicker today than they used to.

McKune: We did that to ourselves. The quicker an owner wanted it, the quicker we put it together. The quicker we put one together, the quicker the next one wants it. I’d like to think that quality has not suffered in that, but we all know when you throw a house together extremely fast something’s got to give. We pride ourselves on giving a very high quality product 鈥� but it’s getting to a point where you can only go so fast.

91视频: The Construction Manager/General Contractor process was a topic of discussion recently in Salem. Do you think CM/GC is leading to unfair practices?

McKune: On the contractor side, I would say no. That has not been my experience. On the other side, have owners misused the CM/GC projects occasionally? I believe so. Let me give you an example of a project that should not be CM/GC: a greenfield project. You start excavation, you build the building, and you don’t have to worry about the owner’s ongoing operations or anything like that. We’ve seen owners that have elected to use the CM/GC process for those types of projects. The law requires certain guidelines to be able to go with the CM/GC process, and I don’t believe a greenfield, already-designed project fits those requirements.

91视频: One of your goals this year is to campaign for a future workforce. Do you see a labor deficit looming?

McKune: With the current economy, we’ve lost workers out there. They’ve lost their jobs and then they’ve gone elsewhere. During that downtime, the new individuals into the industry 鈥� the apprentices 鈥� that number goes down because they’re just not needed. We need to realize we need to continue with our training. The other part of that is 鈥� over the next 10 years, we’re going to lose 50 percent of our current workforce just because of the baby boomers retiring. That leaves a big, wide open gap of a workforce that is going to be tough to build back.

91视频: The AGC recently voted to take action on a construction lawsuit involving an insurance company denying payment of damages on a policy. Why is that an important case to watch?

McKune: When we buy insurance, we believe we are getting something that covers us in case of a situation that may occur. One of the main issues there is that we may not have insurance for what we think we have insurance for, and if the insurance company prevails we could end up taking money out of our pockets, and that’s a big hit. It involves general contractors (and) subcontractors, right on down the line, and it could easily wipe somebody out really quick. Again, when they think they’ve got insurance coverage.

91视频: What do you expect business to look like in 2012?

McKune: This year, if you listen to what’s out there, it’s probably going to be pretty close to what we just went through in 2011. Our volume is way down 鈥� it’s probably about a third of what it was a few years ago. But we’re still in the black and that’s the important thing, and we have kept a strong core of people. Part of that is being ready to bounce back strong when the light at the end of the tunnel finally shows itself. The problem is the tunnel just seems to be getting a little bit longer and longer, but the light is still there.