6-29 Years in Operation Finalist: Colvin Jones Davis LLC

Colvin Jones Davis LLC picked a difficult decade to go into the building business. Within five years of launching their own firm in 2005, principals Steve Colvin, Ryan Jones and Allen Davis watched associates in the construction industry falter following the economic recession. Yet, despite economic challenges the engineers have built their success on numerous high-profile collaborations with, among others, fellow Economic Impact Award honoree H Design Group LLC.

The firms have partnered on innovative, high-profile projects including Audi of Springfield, Drury University’s O’Reilly Family Events Center, the Springfield Botannical Center and Springfield First Community Bank.

Davis says the engineering company has prospered by remaining responsive to every opportunity and focusing on the basics of providing innovative, efficient and cost-effective solutions. That responsiveness has led to projected revenue of $2.5 million in 2013, a 56 percent increase over 2012 figures.

Many of Colvin Jones Davis’s projects have trumpeted the industry standard Leadership in Energy and Enviromental Design certification for energy-efficiency. There are currently 13,500 LEED-certified commercial buildings in the U.S., and another 30,000 under application for LEED approval, according to the U.S. Green Buildings Council. But the Springfield-based company says for them, much of the work toward those certifications exists mainly on paper.

“For us, LEED is a guideline that we usually follow anyway,” says Jones. “As engineers, we are always concerned with the efficiency and cost savings in the systems we develop, that part is nothing new to us. LEED is more about spending time on the documentation to prove that we’re doing things the way we would do them anyway.”

“The whole LEED/green building movement has helped educate clients, and to an extent the general public,” Colvin added. “That additional attention to efficiency has allowed us greater opportunities to show everybody what we do.”   

Beyond commercial properties, a key segment of the area construction market served by the company includes Springfield Public Schools, which accounts for up to 10 percent of the company’s total business, Colvin says. Work for independent owner/developers now represents around 15 percent of their total business, while contracts with architectural firms make up the remaining bulk.

“Opportunities have kept coming our way, and we responded as we needed to,” Colvin says. “We added staff to keep up with demand for services from our clientele. Not just staff increases, but adding the right people has been key to our growth while maintaining our current market share.”  

“Our operational efficiencies are a key strategy for us,” says Jones. “Each of our team members is willing to take on additional smaller duties that allow us to minimize operating overhead. Also, based on our close network of existing clients, we are able to save money on marketing and more traditional business development and administrative functions.”   

Moving forward, the partners say controlled, focused growth will continue not as a goal, but rather as a by-product of the level of quality work they provide. When all parties are focused on that, the larger projects will come, Colvin says, and growth will occur naturally.

 “We can’t be successful if our clients – particularly our architect partners – and their projects aren’t successful,” he says.[[In-content Ad]]