Granite Construction Chief Operating Officer Jim Radich will retire on July 4 after 45 years at the Watsonville, California-based contractor, the firm announced May 16.
Granite said it won’t fill Radich’s role once he leaves. Instead, it has created an Operations Executive Team where senior vice presidents of its construction and materials divisions will report directly to President and CEO Kyle Larkin.
Senior Vice Presidents Brian Dowd, Michael Tatusko and Bradley Williams will run the construction side, while Bradly Estes will oversee the materials business.
The new structure will provide more leadership opportunities for the executive team members while enabling them to elevate issues directly to Larkin instead of the COO position, Erin Kuhlman, Grainte’s chief marketing and communications officer, told Construction Dive.
The move is the latest change at the company which has transformed itself since the pandemic from a geographically oriented builder and supplier of road materials to a vertically integrated construction manager/general contractor focused on smaller, more profitable work packages on larger infrastructure projects.
It has also redoubled its focus on its materials business, retooling several of its aggregate and asphalt plants with automation, while using targeted, bolt-on acquisitions to increase market share nationally.
The news of Radich stepping down comes one year after the firm’s former CFO, Lisa Curtis, announced her own retirement in 2024. She left in September, when current CFO Staci Woolsey stepped into the position.
In a news release, Larkin praised Radich’s long service to the company.
“Having joined Granite in 1980, Jim’s numerous and meaningful contributions to Granite span decades,” Larkin said.
Radich served in a number of roles, including project manager on key heavy-civil projects, chief estimator in the vertically integrated business, vice president and regional manager within northern California and senior vice president and California manager.
As executive vice president and chief operating officer, Radich oversaw the day-to-day operations of the company and ensured appropriate reporting procedures, people and systems were in place to meet the operating requirements and financial goals of the company, especially during its more recent restructuring.
“Jim’s leadership has been instrumental as we transformed the company over the last four years, and we are all grateful for his service to Granite,” Larkin said.
