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Construction Industry Poll

Contractor of the Year

Cover Story: Contractor of the Year

May 03, 2008 |

Alan Bracken is drawn to big challenges like iron filings to a magnet. An entrepreneur at 19, he took his paving company to almost $10 million in annual revenues before he was 35 years old. And while some contractors might enjoy working on cars or motorcycles in their spare time, Alan found a restored Bell 47 helicopter, and taught himself to fly.

But as Alan will tell you the most important challenge he ever faced was becoming a better leader – not just on the job – but at home and in all areas of his life. Alan had talents aplenty, but as he says: “If talent were all it took, Michael Vick would still be quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons.”

Construction looked cool
When Alan was a teenager he took interest in the dump trucks rolling down the roads near his home. “It just looked like the coolest thing to be doing,” he says.

So one day he flagged down a truck and asked the driver if he could ride along. The driver, an older man by the name of Dowell Marshall, was soon impressed with Alan’s enthusiasm and gave him a few odd jobs to do and helped him get more work with local contractors.

Marshall thought so highly of Alan that he loaned Alan a big part of the money that helped him get started in paving. In 1991, a year after he graduated from high school, Alan was in business for himself. Hard work and a reputation for quality quickly brought success. In less than a decade Alan was closing in on $2 million in annual sales – and this was almost all driveways and parking lot jobs.

The first plateau
As he got closer to the 10-year mark in his business, however, Alan began to sense that he had hit a plateau. Despite his energy and talents, the company seemed stuck at the $2 million mark. Like contractors everywhere, he had a hard time finding and keeping good employees – and without more crews, he knew he’d never grow.

“I had the technical skills. We were making money,” Alan says. “But we didn’t have a good team environment. I could see the bad attitudes, but I didn’t have to tools to solve the problem. The old-school way was all that I’d ever known.”

And the old-school methods weren’t bringing in new employees, or making the job easier. “I knew I was the best asphalt paver around. If somebody on our crew wasn’t doing things as well as I could, I let them know,” Alan says. “And if they didn’t like that, I’d remind them that it was my name on the side of the truck.” As a consequence, he says, “I was on every job, trying to do it all myself.”