Executive Summary: Terry Hart’s KA Career

Kraus-Anderson Construction Company Vice President and Director of Operations Terry Hart retires this month, wrapping a multifaceted and eventful career of management, mentorship and leadership.

Little known fact: Before you got your Architectural Drafting and Estimating degree from Dunwoody, you worked as a KA laborer for two landmark projects in downtown Minneapolis in 1979 -1980.  

TERRY HART: Yes, 100 Washington Square and Pillsbury Center (US Bank Plaza). Present day, from our offices we can see the KA tower crane at the Moment site, very close to Pillsbury Center; and another will soon be up at North Loop Green. Hines Corporation was our client for Pillsbury Center and they are our client today for North Loop Green.

Who were some of your early mentors? What did they teach you?

TERRY HART: I have had quite a variety mentors and people that influenced my early professional development. Most of my first dozen or so years were spent traveling and on jobsites in the Water/Wastewater Treatment and the Heavy/Civil markets in the South and West Coast. I had great opportunities to learn from some fantastic people and some interesting characters during that period in my career. I did learn from some of them what it meant to be someone who is simply a witness to project outcomes versus someone who works hard toward driving positive project outcomes. Being reactive versus proactive. I had to unlearn some things as well coming out of that period of my career which was pretty bare knuckled and hard edged. That is that this business really is all about the relationships we build as organizations and individuals. I learned most of that here at KA  from a variety of individuals and groups and it truly made a difference in my career.

After garnering experience in Texas and San Diego, you joined KA as a project manager in 1994, working out of our Circle Pines. Talk about those early years.

TERRY HART: I believe that the very first project that I managed for KA was a design/build addition and renovation to Rochester Central Lutheran School. That got me connected with the early phases of work that Gary Benson and Rich Jacobson and team had already started in getting KA positioned in the K-12 Education market sector. I continued to manage projects in that sector along with a variety of other projects in senior housing, retail and industrial sectors. ISD 916, Forest Lake Schools, Elk River Schools, White Bear Lake Schools were early clients in my KA career and we still have project teams working with some of these districts. Looking back now at this point in my career it is amazing how many people have contributed to these and other long standing, enduring relationships as has the power of the KA brand.

You have been very active in efforts to build awareness and opportunities for workforce development. Talk about some of the barriers or misperceptions that challenge workforce development in our industry. What progress has been made?

TERRY HART: Mike Smoczyk connected me with an opportunity to serve on the Anoka County Workforce Development Board some years ago and I spent 11 years learning and serving with a great group of people there. Leslie Greves took my place on that board when I stepped away I would highly encourage others to seek opportunities with these boards as a way to give back and stay connected in their communities. I took away from that board service a much better understanding of the challenges that all industries face these days as it relates to workforce shortage. One of the issues that the construction industry faces is catching up to some of the competing industries that have been more proactive and innovative in approaching solutions. There are numerous barriers that exist today for attracting people to the building trades: Fewer technical education programs in public schools than in past generations; the perception that a 4-year degree is the best and only path to a successful career; the misconception that building trades jobs do not pay well; and that a job in the building trades is a low- tech job. There is a lot of progress being made with students getting ready to enter the workforce through programs like Minnesota Trades Academy (part of the Construction Careers Pathways), and other similar programs. KA has had a lot of success in getting the good word out to our local students through ACE mentorship program and many interactions and presentations made by our own project teams that are engaged in projects at various schools districts. All of those efforts are really important to help address a very critical need across our industry. Equally if not even more important is the effort being made to recruit under-represented segments of our communities, and under-employed workers from other market sectors, to these really great and high-paying career opportunities. It is definitely going to take significant progress on all of these fronts and probably more to meet the needs of the industry.

One of the milestone events during your tenure has been the consolidation of our Twin Cities offices under one roof in downtown Minneapolis. Talk a little about the considerations that were made to make this a successful transition.

TERRY HART: The planning and implementation for the consolidation of the two offices in the Twin Cities was an incredibly successful effort by an a large and diverse cross section of groups from across all KA companies. It was a lot of fun to be a part of that effort. Craig Francois and I shared the role of organizing and settling the Operations groups from the two offices. It started approximately 2 years prior to the move when we began to organize the two offices into business units and establish leadership roles for each of the business units. By the time that we made the move to the new headquarters the business units, leadership and project teams were, for the most part, fully functional and had already been meeting on a regular basis. We also had to plan for how to mesh the two separate cultures that existed between the two offices as did the other departments that were being joined together. That was our primary focus to prepare for the move. Beyond that it was really just logistics such as space needs for each group, what floor to position them on and seating arrangements. The consolidation as a whole was so well led and organized by others that it made the coordination of the two Operations groups pretty seamless for Craig and I.

You’ve also been instrumental in helping KA and our people adapt to new technologies, particularly our Viewpoint project management software. What are your takeaways?

TERRY HART: The implementation of Viewpoint as our new ERP was probably a bit of an outlier in the grand scheme of all of the new technologies that are flowing through our industry. The Viewpoint implementation required us to integrate most of our project processes that for many years had functioned fairly autonomously and independently from each other from project to project and department to department. It was a very big change to how we operated from a process perspective. It was really important for the company to take that step to be able to be positioned operationally for the next steps in its overall growth. It is a pretty good representation of the perspective of growth being limited only by an organization’s ability to adapt to change. There is just so much change going on in our industry especially as it relates to the flood of new technologies. KA has really done a great job of getting ahead of filtering the vast number of technology opportunities in the industry to make good decisions on which ones to adopt. Once a technology has made it through our Construction Technology team and the BTIC (Building Technology Investment Committee) process it is most certainly one that everybody should have confidence in embracing. That is really the most important takeaway I can offer – embrace the technology advancements that get selected because they have been chosen to help the company (and individual) change SO THAT it and they can grow. Not embracing it will inhibit the ability to grow and move forward – both organizationally and individually.

Your dedication to professional development of our people is another highlight of your tenure at KA. Why did this become an area of focus for you? What has been accomplished? 

TERRY HART: I’m not sure that it was ever an intentional focus of mine as much as it was a response to the recognized fact that the greatest asset of the company is the people who work for it and helping them out along the way is just the right thing to do. KA put in place best in class opportunities through KA University, Leadership Development Program and other mechanisms for each person to take ownership of their own professional development. Many of my generation in the industry had pretty limited company-sponsored professional development opportunities. Mostly we simply had to facilitate it on our own and that was fine. But the infrastructure that KA has developed for helping people with their professional development just takes those opportunities to a much higher level, and is a primary support for our core principle of valuing people.

From your perspective at this end of your career, what would you tell your younger self just getting into this industry?

TERRY HART: I would definitely congratulate myself for following my gut. I had no real background in the business other than working as a laborer while I was going to college so it was kind of a leap of faith. I would probably then reassure myself that while the challenges will be significant, the rewards and satisfaction achieved will be much greater. There are going to be plenty of peaks and valleys and crazy experiences throughout the years and that each one of them is going to build something positive into you that you would not have without working through those experiences.

What advice would you leave for others just entering the construction industry today?

TERRY HART: The one common experience that all of us have had while developing as project managers and superintendents in the construction industry is how overwhelming it can be to learn all that is required to feel comfortable and be successful in our role. It just takes time along with a lot of persistence and determination. Being resourceful and willing to take initiative is really important. Great experienced resources are all around our young professionals at KA and I can pretty much guarantee that they all want to share their knowledge and help others be successful. Just be patient, take ownership of your professional development and learn how to continuously learn.

Any closing thoughts?

I definitely want to express my gratitude. To the Engelsma family and KA Senior Leadership for all of the opportunities that they presented me with from awesome projects to manage, to the leadership roles that I have had. Also to the many peers and great folks that I have had the opportunity to work with over the years for all of their dedicated work and putting up with me. Also, I could never express enough gratitude to my wife Wendy and my two kids Connor and Kenzie for putting up with me and all of their support over the years! They are certainly the central subject of my focus in this next chapter. Like most everyone else I know who has turned to this chapter in our careers it is going to be tough to not look back and miss all of the people and relationships. It really has been a lot of fun!