For Mortenson, it’s all about planning ahead.
The Minneapolis-based contractor jumped five spots this year on the country’s list of top contractors by revenue, with $6.7 billion in 2024 revenue earning the firm the 22nd position.
If you ask CEO Derek Cunz, the key to the 70-year-old company's growth depends on levelheadedness and staying the course. That means continuing to invest in new sectors.
This year, the firm started a division focused on serving data center customers with fiber optics and structured cabling solutions. The firm is also hiring 300 new college graduates as well as 300 interns this year.
Here, Cunz talks with Construction Dive about the company’s growth, remaining focused in an uncertain environment and long-term market success.
The following has been edited for brevity and clarity.
CONSTRUCTION DIVE: When last we spoke, you had just become CEO. How were the first six months in the captain’s chair?
DEREK CUNZ: I think we've been so planful, having worked at Mortenson for 29 years and then having two years in the seat as president leading up to being named as CEO. We had a very thoughtful, long-planned transition. It did make it a lot easier that I sat through all kinds of processes of running the company. But there is absolutely something that changes when the buck stops with you.
So, I'd say I've felt the responsibility of the role. I had a lot of time to prepare, which is awesome. I think about the stewardship of the culture and the care for the people at Mortenson, and now I have that weight on my shoulders. I wake up thinking about that every day, about our teams and our people and the families that that represents. The thing that has changed is how I feel.
But business is great. We're hiring more people than ever this year. And so there's a lot of positive things happening in the organization. So it's not a bad time.
How much does that planful, forward-looking approach bolster Mortenson’s business?
I think when I look at what we experienced last year and where the company's going today, it is 100% because of a long-term view of our business strategy, where we're investing in one new business a year. We're constantly looking downstream and thinking about where things are going and where we want to be investing.
It's basically a diversified market strategy and a long view. So not reacting to what's happening in the market today, but more thinking ahead. And the things that are paying off now are things that we've been investing in for many years. And frankly, some years might have been down in that market, but we stayed the course because we have a very long-term strategy.
What are some of the markets you’ve stayed the course with that have contributed to recent success?
A good example of a long-term strategy would be our wind business. We've been in the wind business for 30 years, and 30 years ago it was very fringe, not mainstream in terms of power generation. But it’s emerged as a very viable, cost-effective and competitive way to generate energy.
There’s been ups and downs over time in that business, but we've stayed with it because we believed in it. And now we're at a point in the nation where we need a lot of power and wind power is very cost competitive. So again, by staying with an industry and slowly seeing the investment in technology, the investment in efficiency and now it's a competitive form of power generation. We've been at it long enough and it made the investments to be here.
Because it is capital intensive, it's hard to learn, it's hard to get into. But we've been at it long enough to then be able to be in the right position to be successful.
You mentioned not being reactive. How do you handle that when things seem to constantly be changing, especially as a new administration comes in and begins a major pivot?
I think for us it's always about serving our customers. So trying to have as much knowledge as possible about what's happening in the market, so that we can react to it, provide the most value through the dynamic markets that exist, that have lots of options.
You know, we've invested in a supply chain function so that we could be more agile as the supply chain shifts. We've invested heavily in our talent and people development. So we're growing the workforce of the future by investing in people. And again, those are long-term investments, but they help us weather the storm as things change in front of us.
How is artificial intelligence factoring into your business planning?
I mean, we are in the data center business, so it's been good for business in terms of this growth of AI, which is driving a lot of construction in the data center business. That's also helped us grow. We’ve been in the data center business for a long time. So we were already in that business and again, not reacting when AI came along, we were there already serving our customers.
I think there's going to be faster change than ever before with AI now being utilized in all industries. And I'd say for us it's going to have to be about agility, being flexible, investing in new tools and technology and being prepared for the change that's coming. Because it's going to change.
One thing that's absolutely certain is the pace of change is going to increase and change is going to happen. And I'd say that's something we're built for as an organization.
What are you pessimistic about?
I think uncertainty breeds a slowdown in investment. I think we need to get to the other side of the trade policy so that we have more stability. Because what we're seeing is customers waiting for stability before making investment decisions. The dynamic situation with tariffs is causing uncertainty, which is then causing customers to wait before they make investments.
And I think there's money that is looking to be invested in, in our strong economy, and I think that uncertainty is causing that to be slowed.
