Jerry P站视频 Receives ENR Legacy Award
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Jerry P站视频 joining his family鈥檚 construction business as a full-time employee. In that time, P站视频 has helped the fourth-generation, design-build general contractor grow into a major player in Northern California, with hundreds of iconic projects built and an annual increase in volume from $10 million in 1974 to $232 million in 2014.
Today, as CEO of Richmond, Calif.-based Overaa Construction, he leads a thriving company while creating a powerful legacy for the California construction landscape.
鈥淛erry has made tremendous contributions to the building industry in California,鈥� says Michael Walton, secretary of the Construction Employer鈥檚 Association (CEA). 鈥淗e is one of my mentors and one of the few people that gave CEA an opportunity to go into business.鈥�
P站视频 helped found the CEA in the early 1980s. At that time, 鈥渢here was a lot of construction conflict, work stoppages and strikes,鈥� P站视频 says. To find a better way to resolve the conflicts, he helped 鈥渃reate a collaborative association with a labor component.鈥�
The CEA now comprises nearly 100 unionized contractors that perform an estimated $10 billion in building construction in Northern California each year. It is the only organization whose sole purpose is to protect and promote the interests of the unionized commercial building construction industry in Northern California, according to the association.
Besides serving as a past president and current CEA board member, P站视频 also serves as chairman of the CEA Construction Management University Grant Program, which has provided $1.92 million in grants to universities for students pursuing degrees in construction.
鈥淚t鈥檚 important to help young people coming up and to give back to those who educate about construction because [construction] isn鈥檛 always viewed as the sexiest occupation. But to the people who do it, there is a camaraderie and teamwork,鈥� says P站视频, who has served on various advisory boards and given guest lectures at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Stanford University.
It was at Stanford that P站视频 received a master鈥檚 degree in civil engineering, which helped launch his construction career. He says when he began at Stanford, he briefly considered a job in aeronautical engineering, but 鈥渄rifted back to the family business鈥� after the school exposed him to major projects like building dams and the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) rail system.
鈥淎ll of a sudden, construction became very exciting,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 know it was that big of a scale, so that lit the fire for me.鈥�
Soon after joining the family firm, P站视频 discovered a passion for concrete and carved out a niche in parking structure construction in the 1970s, building one of the first design-build parking structures for a shopping mall in Concord, Calif. He went on to build 65 parking structures in Northern California for clients such as BART, Stanford University, Kaiser Hospitals and many private developers.
Today, Overaa Construction is one of the Bay Area鈥檚 largest construction employers, with crews performing approximately 450,000 man-hours of concrete work each year.
P站视频 credits much of the success and longevity of Overaa Construction to persistence and caring about people. 鈥淲e wanted successful projects, but it was more important to make sure we had continuity because we became a family,鈥� he says.
That philosophy has rubbed off on other members of the P站视频 team.
鈥淛erry is a leader in a company full of people who love to build,鈥� says Colby Powell, Overaa Construction vice president. 鈥淭hey have passion for what they are doing, and this passion starts at the top. It is Jerry鈥檚 passion for the work that spreads throughout P站视频 and to others in the industry that he touches.鈥�
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