Builders open their own factories as data centers become the market's growth engine

How the business works

Trade firms do most of the building on jobs that owners hire a builder to run

The US spent $2.24 trillion on construction in 2025, and 58% of it went into nonresidential buildings and infrastructure, by the Census Bureau's count. Census Bureau The 400 largest contractors, as ranked by the trade weekly Engineering News-Record (ENR), reported $671 billion of revenue between them, up 11.8%, which ENR credits to a surge of data center projects. ENR Turner Construction, the largest, took in $28.3 billion. Construction Dive

Most outsiders picture a builder's own crews pouring concrete. On a large commercial building, the firm that signs with the owner mostly plans, prices, and coordinates the job, and dozens of specialty firms do the trade work. The table shows who does what, because the leaders on our list sit in two different rows.

Bond pricing from NFP. Six of the leaders on our list run general contractors or construction managers, and five run electrical or mechanical contractors.

Most big projects no longer go to the lowest bidder

In the traditional method, design-bid-build, the owner finishes the design and then takes the lowest price. It's fading. A 2025 study by the construction consultancy FMI for the Design-Build Institute of America found design-bid-build covered 19% of spending in the segments it studied from 2019 to 2023 and expects 11% from 2024 to 2028. Design-build, where one contract covers design and construction, could rise from 44% to 47%, and construction management at risk and similar methods from 37% to 42%. FMI Those methods bring the builder in early, so relationships and preconstruction work matter more than a sharp bid.

Families and employees own many of the largest firms

Bechtel, HITT, and Mortenson, three of the ten largest US contractors, are on Forbes' list of the largest family-owned companies. Construction Dive Construction companies also make up about 18% of all private-company employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), trusts that buy an owner's shares for the employees, putting construction among the top three industries. BDO In a 2024 FMI study, 38% of contractor owners planned to leave within three to five years, and half of them had no plan. Selling to employees fell to 25% of owners' plans, from 38% in 2020. Construction Business Owner

Private equity firms are buying electrical contractors fastest. FMI counted 30 acquisitions of electrical contractors in 2024 and 10 investor-backed platforms buying them up. EC&M The biggest deal came from a company in the industry, not private equity: Quanta Services, a public utility contractor, paid about $1.54 billion up front for Cupertino Electric, a data center specialist, in 2024. Electrical Wholesaling

The economics in 2026

Data centers keep spending up while most other building shrinks

The Census Bureau has tracked data centers separately since 2014. The chart shows how far they've come against the other big kinds of private building.

Three pressures sit under the headline numbers:

• Margins are thin. Much of a builder's revenue passes straight through to its trade firms, and on a construction manager contract it keeps only its fee. Electrical contractors with data center skills earn more, which is why large contractors and private equity platforms are hunting for them. EC&M
• Tariffs raised the price of materials. About 70% of firms were affected in 2025; 40% raised their bid prices and 20% added price-sharing terms to contracts, according to the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC). AGC Deloitte puts the effective tariff rate on construction goods at 25% to 30% in 2025, the highest in 40 years. Deloitte
• Immigration enforcement reached a third of firms. In AGC's survey, 33% of firms were affected in the second half of 2025, mostly because their trade firms lost workers (24%). AGC ABC estimates the industry needs 349,000 more workers in 2026 and 456,000 in 2027. ABC

Underneath all three is an old problem. Economists Austan Goolsbee and Chad Syverson found "a large and decades-long decline" in US construction productivity, and they don't think measurement error explains it all. NBER That's the problem the factory builders on our list say they're solving.

What is changing

Builders are changing in five ways, starting with where the work happens

The biggest shift is where the work happens. Firms that can't hire enough electricians are building electrical rooms, server racks, and ceiling systems in their own plants and trucking them to the site. Rosendin, the largest employee-owned electrical contractor, runs its own offsite manufacturing company, Modular Power Solutions. Construction Dive

From 2023 to 2026, the firms changing most are doing one or more of five things. The first three match the three groups of leaders on our list.

The innovators

Eleven construction leaders on our list are rebuilding how their firms work

Eleven construction leaders are among The Originals. Each founded, inherited, or was chosen to run a privately owned firm, and each has made a dated, costly change to how the work is done. The highest scorers are John Fish of Suffolk (7.6), Bill Dean of M.C. Dean (6.8), Dave Kievet of Boldt (6.4), and James B. Rutland of MMR Group (6.4).

Moving work into factories

Bill DeanOn the list · 6.8 of 10

CEO, M.C. Dean · Tysons, Virginia; family-owned electrical, power, and systems contractor with more than 9,000 people; CEO since 1997

Bill has moved much of M.C. Dean's electrical and systems work into an owned modular manufacturing campus, where investment reached $83 million by 2023 and factory space passed 500,000 square feet. In 2026 he bought a majority of a UK power firm and started a lean program across the whole company.

“Modular delivery is faster, higher quality, and safer, at equal or lower cost,” source

Ask aboutWhich systems M.C. Dean now builds in the plant that it used to build on site, and what the lean program is meant to fix.

Dave KievetOn the list · 6.4 of 10

President and CEO, The Boldt Group · Appleton, Wisconsin; 100% employee-owned since January 2026; a 135-year-old builder; CEO since early 2024

Dave launched Bildt, Boldt's own modular and prefabrication manufacturer, in 2025, and in January 2026 completed the move to 100% employee ownership. He has also reorganized the group around the wider built environment rather than construction alone.

“We exist for one reason, and that is to create extraordinary opportunities for people so that they can create their best lives.” source

Ask aboutWhat Bildt makes that Boldt's field crews used to build, and how employee ownership changes what the firm will invest in.

James B. RutlandOn the list · 6.4 of 10

Founder, President, and CEO, MMR Group · Baton Rouge, Louisiana; privately held electrical and instrumentation contractor, with more than 10,000 people by the state's count

James, known as Pepper, committed $55.2 million in 2025 to a plant in Lafayette that builds server racks and electrical assemblies for data centers, and opened the 200,000-square-foot facility in 2026. MMR has trained its own craft workers in a dedicated center since 2014.

“At MMR, innovation starts with listening,” source

Ask aboutWhat the clients asked for that led to the plant, and how much of MMR's field work could move into it.

Dean AllenOn the list · 5.2 of 10

CEO and Chairman, McKinstry · Seattle; privately held mechanical, electrical, and energy services firm

Dean set up Overcast Innovations in 2019 to move mechanical and electrical ceiling work off the jobsite into factory-built modules, and brought in the ceiling maker Armstrong as an equity partner in 2024. In 2025 McKinstry opened a Spokane factory for modular data center cooling plants.

Ask aboutWhy McKinstry brought in Armstrong as a partner in Overcast instead of keeping it in-house, and what that partnership has changed.

Mike JansenOn the list · 5.0 of 10

CEO and Chairman, Faith Technologies · Menasha, Wisconsin; owned by its team members since 2002; more than 2,500 employees; CEO since 2013

Mike has moved electrical work for data centers into factories run by the firm's Excellerate unit, which builds self-contained electrical buildings. A 385,000-square-foot plant opened in Little Chute, Wisconsin, in 2023, and in 2026 the firm started two more 500,000-square-foot plants in Indiana and Louisiana.

“The safe, controlled manufacturing environment supports a diverse workforce, and with our focus on new technologies and increased automation, we've built a more productive, smarter and safer workplace than ever before.” source

Ask aboutHow a factory job changes who Faith Technologies can hire, compared with a jobsite electrician.

Building their own technology and methods

John FishOn the list · 7.6 of 10

Chairman and CEO, Suffolk Construction · Boston; privately held; $7.6 billion revenue in 2025; its own trades group employs 1,500 carpenters and laborers

John put full-time AI engineers in 2,000-square-foot trailers on Suffolk's jobsites in June 2026, working from the firm's own project data. Suffolk already runs its own venture fund for construction technology, which closed at $110 million in 2023, and an in-house design group.

“As costs continue to rise, labor shortages persist and productivity declines, the construction industry has reached an inflection point,” source

Ask aboutWhat an AI engineer on the jobsite has changed in a superintendent's week, and what they've tried and dropped.

Brett HittOn the list · 6.0 of 10

Co-Chairman and co-owner, HITT Contracting · Falls Church, Virginia; family-owned; $13.0 billion revenue in 2025, eighth on ENR's list

Brett handed day-to-day operations to a new CEO in 2017 to run research and development himself. HITT has since patented a prefabricated building skin and built a new headquarters with a Virginia Tech lab inside it, unveiled in 2023.

“One of the last big innovations in construction was post-tension concrete more than 50 years ago.” source

Ask aboutWhich research projects have made it onto real HITT jobs, and what an owner pays for the prefab skin compared with a standard facade.

Ryan MaibachOn the list · 6.1 of 10

President and CEO, Barton Malow · Southfield, Michigan; family-controlled since 1924; fourth-generation CEO since 2011

Ryan reorganized his leadership team in 2018 and set up LIFTbuild, a subsidiary that assembles buildings from the top down by lifting finished floors into place; its first building opened in Detroit in 2022. In 2026 he split the executive team so one leader runs strategy, investment, and new businesses outside the core builder.

“As a 102-year-old construction firm, we know that what got us to this point isn't necessarily the answer to continued success.” source

Ask aboutWhat LIFTbuild taught Barton Malow about building, and what the new businesses outside construction are meant to become.

Changing who owns and runs the firm

Bob WhalenOn the list · 5.2 of 10

CEO, HB Global · Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; 100% employee-owned group of mechanical and building services contractors with about 1,700 employees

Bob bought a small stake in a century-old mechanical contractor in 2008 and in 2010 talked its board into selling the whole company to an employee stock ownership plan. Since then HB Global has made more than 30 acquisitions, a few through its own buyout arm, HB Capital, so the firms it buys become employee-owned too.

“I believe in capitalism. I believe that you should get a rate of return for the risk you take, but I also believe, probably because of my upbringing, my parents were blue-collar workers, that you should share in that upside for the labor that has to do the work.” source

Ask aboutHow HB Capital prices a deal against private equity buyers, and what owners give up by selling to an employee-owned group.

David CallisOn the list · 5.4 of 10

CEO, Swinerton · 100% employee-owned, about $5 billion revenue, and more than 4,300 people; CEO since January 2024

David put Swinerton's other businesses, including its mass timber maker Timberlab, its energy arm, and its development company, under one operating chief in 2024. The goal, which the firm calls the March to 2030, is to control more of the supply chain; Timberlab moved into making cross-laminated timber and glulam the same year.

“in our efforts to diversify our product line and exercise greater control over every aspect of project delivery” source

Ask aboutWhich parts of the supply chain Swinerton most wants to own by 2030, and how employee owners vote with their money on those bets.

Bob ClarkOn the list · 4.9 of 10

Founder and Executive Chairman, Clayco · Chicago; privately owned; $8.1 billion revenue in 2025 and more than 4,000 employees

Bob built Clayco as one firm that develops, designs, and builds, to replace the split between architects and builders. He bought the architecture firm Lamar Johnson Collaborative in 2018, merged it with BatesForum in 2019, and in January 2026 folded Clayco's engineering arm into it.

“I believed the traditional construction process was too adversarial, too fragmented, too inefficient, and way too complicated. There had to be a better way.” source

Ask aboutWhat owning the architect lets Clayco do on a data center job that a builder working with an outside designer can't.

Three leaders outside the list are making similar moves

These leaders aren't on the list. Each has made a change worth asking about.

Jim O'Leary

Chairman and CEO, Haskell · Jacksonville, Florida; design-build firm with an employee stock ownership plan for full-time staff

Jim bought the process mechanical contractor Cortez in 2022 to add trades Haskell does itself. In January 2026 he reorganized the executive team around three areas: trades and supply, technology, and Dysruptek, the firm's venture and research arm. Haskell is preparing a new 10-year plan. Jax Daily Record

“We move forward with confidence, purpose and optimism, united by a bold vision for the next decade and an unwavering commitment to putting people first.” source

Ask aboutWhat the 10-year plan changes about which trades Haskell does itself.

Ray Sedey

Chairman and CEO, McCarthy Holdings · St. Louis; 100% employee-owned since the founding family handed it to workers in 2002; more than 8,300 employees

Ray signed a multiyear deal with Palantir in June 2026 to build an AI operating system for McCarthy's field teams, and in August moved his operating chief into a new chief transformation officer role. Construction Dive

“A strong ownership culture based on trust and accountability sits at the heart of our organization,” source

Ask aboutWhat McCarthy's own software team will build that it used to buy, and how employee owners judge the spending.

Keith Douglas

CEO, Rosendin · San Jose, California; the largest US employee-owned electrical contractor, with 12,000 people and $5.6 billion revenue in 2025

Keith moved Rosendin to two co-presidents in 2026, putting data centers, AI work, and the firm's own factory business, Modular Power Solutions, under one of them. DataCenter News

“This intentional market alignment ensures customers are supported by leaders with deep expertise in their specific markets, while enabling Rosendin to scale safely and efficiently,” source

Ask aboutHow Rosendin decides how much of its growth to bet on a few data center customers.

The wider field

Public giants and software makers set the pace private builders react to

A few of the largest firms and fast-growing vendors shape what the leaders above can do. They set the going rate for data center work, for skilled electricians, and for software.

Large firms and buyers

• Turner Construction The largest US builder, owned by Germany's Hochtief; revenue rose 40% to $29.2 billion in 2025, and data centers were about 37% of its backlog.
• Quanta Services A public utility contractor that paid about $1.54 billion up front for Cupertino Electric, a data center electrical specialist, in 2024.
• DPR Construction A large private builder that offers data center clients its own self-perform crews and prefabrication.
• Webcor Owned by Japan's Obayashi, it agreed to buy the data center builder GCON in October 2025 to enter what its CEO called previously untapped markets.

Companies selling the tools

• Procore The project management software most large builders use; $1.32 billion revenue in 2025 and a new CEO, Ajei Gopal, who calls AI the industry's next catalyst.
• Palantir The data software company behind McCarthy's AI system for field teams, signed in June 2026.
• Dodge Construction Network and ConstructConnect The two main sellers of early project leads; Dodge is owned by private equity, ConstructConnect by Roper Technologies.

How builders win work

Builders pay to qualify for shortlists that owners' advisers draw up

There are no referral fees in commercial construction. Owners usually hire an adviser, an owner's representative or program manager, to write the request for proposals, build the shortlist, and score the bids, and they pay that adviser about 1% to 5% of construction cost. Mastt The builder's costs come elsewhere: in the bond that guarantees its work, the lead services and software it uses to find and price jobs, the safety and financial screening its trade firms must pass, and agency labor when its own crews run short.

The bond sets how big a builder can grow

Public owners must require performance and payment bonds, and many private owners do too. A surety, such as Liberty Mutual or Travelers, studies the builder's balance sheet and sets a limit on how much bonded work it can take on. That limit, more than any lead service, decides how big a firm can grow, so the surety and the broker who shops for it are among a contractor's most important relationships. NFP

Builders pay for leads and make trade firms pay for screening

Dodge Construction Network and ConstructConnect sell early news of planned projects; ConstructConnect's plans for general contractors start around $3,600 a year, by one estimate. Meltplan Builders then send invitations to bid through software such as Autodesk's BuildingConnected or Procore. Before a trade firm can bid, many builders and owners require it to pass a screening service that scores its safety record, finances, and insurance. The trade firm pays for that. Veriforce bought one of these services, Highwire, in October 2025 and says it serves more than 3,200 hiring companies and 130,000 contractors. ISHN

Negotiated work is cheaper to win

ConstructConnect puts win rates at about 15% to 25% for competitive private bids and 10% to 20% for low-bid public work, and expects negotiated and repeat-client work to run higher. ConstructConnect Every lost bid is estimating time a builder can't recover, which is why firms prize repeat clients.

States are pushing money down the chain faster

Owners often hold back part of each payment, called retainage, until the job is done, and builders do the same to their trade firms. That means contractors finance much of the work themselves. Several states have capped retainage or sped up payment since 2023:

Five leaders run the main channels

Vincent Clancy's firm often decides who gets invited to bid. The four below him run the bonding industry's association and the main services builders use to find, price, and manage work.

Vincent Clancy

Chairman and CEO, Turner & Townsend · London; majority-owned by CBRE, which folded its own project management business into the firm in January 2025; more than 22,000 staff

Vincent runs the largest firm that manages building programs for owners, often writing the request for proposals and scoring the builders. Turner & Townsend reported GBP 5.76 billion of gross revenue for 2025.

“Our partnership with CBRE further strengthens our ability to deploy solutions to our clients.” source

Ask aboutHow his teams decide which builders make a data center owner's shortlist, and how a builder outside the usual three or four gets on it.

Ryan C. Work

President and CEO, The Surety & Fidelity Association of America · Washington; the trade association of the companies that write construction bonds; president since March 2024

Ryan speaks for the sureties that set every builder's bonding limit, and so how big a job it can take. The insurance rating agency AM Best says surety premiums rose about 10% in the first nine months of 2025 on federal infrastructure work, and warns that funding winds down after September 2026. Reinsurance News

“I look forward to collaborating with the SFAA Board, Executive Committee, membership and staff to enlist support for issues and programs critical to the industry's success,” source

Ask aboutWhether sureties plan to tighten bonding for midsize builders as federal infrastructure money runs out.

Andrew Somosi

CEO, Dodge Construction Network · Owned by the private equity firms Clearlake Capital and STG; CEO since November 2024

Andrew took over the oldest project lead service in US construction alongside a $100 million capital raise in November 2024. Dodge sells early news of planned projects to the builders and trade firms chasing them.

“In my extensive research preparing for my role, I was impressed by the breadth and scale of Dodge's lead-generation, marketing, analytics and consulting solutions,” source

Ask aboutHow much of Dodge's business still comes from firms chasing low-bid public work, as more private work is negotiated.

Buck Brody

President and CEO, ConstructConnect · Cincinnati; owned by Roper Technologies; CEO since August 2024

Buck runs Dodge's main rival in project leads and estimating software. He was the company's finance chief from 2018.

“ConstructConnect has a history of delivering market leading project information and takeoff software to the commercial construction industry,” source

Ask aboutWhat keeps a trade firm paying for leads as Autodesk and Procore build bidding into the software builders already use.

Ajei Gopal

President and CEO, Procore Technologies · Carpinteria, California; listed on the New York Stock Exchange; $1.32 billion revenue in 2025; CEO since November 2025

Ajei succeeded Procore's founder, Tooey Courtemanche, after running the engineering software company Ansys. Procore is the project management software most large builders run their jobs on.

“We believe AI stands to be the next meaningful catalyst for our industry and that Procore is strongly positioned to be an AI winner as we drive immense efficiency gains across our customers and the entire construction lifecycle.” source

Ask aboutWhether Procore will stay neutral software or start matching owners with builders and trade firms.

Trade-offs

Seven trade-offs divide the construction leaders you'll meet

Most leaders on our list have picked a side on several of these trade-offs. In our reading, asking which side they picked, and why, gets to their strategy faster than asking about trends.

Before a first conversation

Builders want to talk about workers, data centers, and who owns the firm next

In AGC's survey of 951 firms at the end of 2025, the concerns named most often for 2026 were, in order: a slowdown or recession (62%), too few workers or trade firms (57%), rising labor costs (56%), worker quality and materials costs (53% each), and more competition for projects (44%). AGC Owners had postponed, scaled back, or canceled a project at 63% of firms in the previous six months.

Ownership is the quiet topic. Many of these firms are 50 to 135 years old, and their leaders are choosing between family, employees, and outside buyers who are paying well for electrical and data center skills. Construction Business Owner

Seven mistakes mark an outsider

• Assuming the builder's own crews do the building. On most commercial jobs a general contractor manages dozens of trade firms. Ask about its self-perform strategy instead.
• Treating revenue as profit. Much of a builder's revenue passes through to its trade firms, and on a construction manager contract it keeps only its fee.
• Treating backlog as money in the bank. Backlog is signed work not yet built. It says nothing about the margin or the risk in it.
• Saying construction is booming. Data centers and power are; AGC's survey shows offices, stores, hotels, and schools with negative outlooks. Let the leader say where the firm sits. AGC
• Calling construction a technology laggard. 61% of firms already use AI or plan to spend more on it, and several on our list run their own factories. AGC
• Raising immigration as politics. Ask how enforcement affected their jobsites and trade firms, not where they stand on policy.
• Opening with private equity or safety statistics. Ask how they think about ownership over the next decade, and if safety comes up, ask how they lead it. Construction recorded 1,034 deaths in 2024, and founders take it personally. Construction Dive

Ten questions get a builder talking about the work

1. ABC's surveys show data center work going almost entirely to firms with more than $100 million in revenue. How much of your backlog is data centers and power, and what level would worry you?
2. Which trades have you brought in-house in the last five years, and which have you decided to keep subcontracting?
3. How much of your work is now built in a shop rather than on site, and what would have to be true to double that?
4. AGC found 82% of hiring firms can't easily fill craft jobs. What are you doing about workers that you couldn't have imagined doing ten years ago?
5. When immigration enforcement hit your trade firms' crews, what did it change about how you choose and support them?
6. Where is AI changing the work for you, in estimating, scheduling, or the field, and where have you tried it and walked away?
7. Tariffs pushed many firms to add price-sharing terms. How have your contracts changed, and are owners accepting the changes?
8. How are you thinking about ownership for the next generation, and how do you weigh the outside offers firms like yours are getting?
9. Which kinds of projects have you decided not to chase, even when the work is there?
10. What does a great superintendent do now that they didn't do ten years ago?

Where they gather

Seven events bring these leaders together before June 2027

The AGC convention draws the most general contractor owners. The Mechanical Contractors Association of America (MCAA) convention draws mechanical contractors, and ENR FutureTech draws the people running builders' technology.

Glossary

Twenty-seven terms come up in the first ten minutes

Backlog

Signed work not yet built. Associated Builders and Contractors reports it as months of work on hand.

Bonding capacity

How much bonded work a surety will back for a firm, based on its balance sheet. It caps how big a firm can grow.

Change order

A signed change to scope, price, or schedule after the contract is set; the most common source of disputes.

CM at risk

Construction manager at risk: the builder joins during design, then commits to deliver the project for a guaranteed maximum price.

Cost-plus

The owner pays the builder's actual costs plus a fee, which leaves more of the price risk with the owner.

Design-bid-build

The owner finishes the design, then picks a builder by price. The traditional method, now shrinking.

Design-build

One contract covers both design and construction, so the owner has one firm responsible.

ENR Top 400

Engineering News-Record's yearly ranking of the largest US contractors by revenue; the industry's scoreboard.

ESOP

Employee stock ownership plan: a trust that buys the owner's shares on behalf of the employees.

Fee

What a construction manager keeps for overhead and profit, usually a small percentage of cost.

GMP

Guaranteed maximum price: a cap on what the owner pays; the builder absorbs overruns above it.

Hard bid

A fixed price submitted in competition, usually won by the lowest bidder.

Hyperscaler

One of the largest cloud and AI companies, which build and own data centers.

IPD

Integrated project delivery: owner, designer, and builder sign one contract and share risk and reward.

Lean construction

Methods from manufacturing to cut waste; in the Last Planner System, foremen commit each week to the work they can finish.

MEP

Mechanical, electrical, and plumbing: the building systems trades, the biggest share of a data center's cost.

Modular

Whole sections of a building, such as electrical rooms or cooling plants, built in a factory and shipped to the site.

Open shop

A contractor that hires craft workers directly rather than through union hiring halls.

Owner's representative

An adviser the owner hires to run contractor selection and manage the builder.

Preconstruction

The estimating, scheduling, and design review done before building starts, where many jobs are won or lost.

Prefabrication

Assemblies such as pipe racks, wall panels, or wiring built in a shop instead of on site.

Punch list

The final list of small defects to fix before the owner accepts the building.

Retainage

Part of each payment the owner holds back until the job is done, often 5% to 10%.

Self-perform

Work a builder does with its own craft employees instead of subcontracting it.

Surety bond

A guarantee from a surety that the builder will finish the job and pay its trade firms; required on public work.

Trade partner

What many builders call their subcontractors; the specialty firms that do one scope, such as electrical or steel.

VDC and BIM

Virtual design and construction using 3D building information models to plan and coordinate trades before anyone builds.

Read more

Three pieces explain the pressures on US builders

• 2026 Construction Hiring and Business Outlook (AGC and Sage) A 17-page survey of 951 contractors on what they expect and fear in 2026, by market, with figures on labor, tariffs, and AI.
• 2026 Engineering and Construction Industry Outlook (Deloitte) A short review of data center power demand, tariffs, and the workforce gap, and how large firms are responding.
• The Strange and Awful Path of Productivity in the U.S. Construction Sector (NBER) Economists Austan Goolsbee and Chad Syverson on why construction gets less done per worker than it did decades ago.