Carson-Mitchell builds on family strength

“The world is ever-changing,” said Vice President Jim Carson, “and you have to be able to change with it or it’ll pass you by.”

Carson’s father, Chester Carson, used the building experience he received in the military, including the construction of the Pentagon, to open his own business in 1946 with partner Larry Mitchell. They started out building war resettlement housing, then made the transition into commercial construction.

Mitchell left the company within the first few years, but Carson kept the company name to distinguish himself from another builder named John Carson.

Three of Carson’s sons – Chester “Kit” Jr., Jim and Doug – eventually joined the company and now serve as president, vice president and secretary, respectively. When Chester Carson, also a founder of Springfield Contractors Association, died in 1994, the sons became joint owners.

“One of the things that has changed dramatically, in our career, is a lot of the construction materials used,” Jim Carson said. “When we started, a lot of the bigger buildings would be a cast-in-place concrete structure, with a masonry/brick face/veneer on it. We still have some of those, but they’re fairly labor intensive.”

Newer building systems, such as pre-cast concrete buildings, have somewhat eased builder’s loads. “(Pre-cast buidlings) are cast in a plant, they are trucked to the job site and they are put together like kids’ building blocks, with big cranes.”

Jim Carson earned a business degree and joined the business in 1971 after serving in Vietnam. His son, Jason, also earned a business degree and joined the company in 2001.

A lot has changed in 30 years in construction. “When we came here, a 20-ton crane was a big crane, and a 30-ton crane was a monster,” Jim Carson said. “Now, a 30-ton crane is just a little bitty thing.”

The company, which employs 30 full-time workers and hires extra employees as needed for each project, serves the four-state region, but has gone as far as Monterrey, Mexico, for a job.

In the past 60 years, Carson-Mitchell Inc. has completed more than 800 building projects including factories, hospitals, schools, churches and public parks.

The Carsons peg the company’s annual revenues at between $12 million and $15 million. “We have got, probably, an investment of about $3 million tied up in equipment,” Kit Carson said.

Kit Carson, like his father, earned a master’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Missouri before serving in the military and joining the family business in 1969. His son, Chris, has worked for the company since 2003.

Kit Carson said the most dramatic change in the construction business has been the transition from traditional “design-bid-build” contracts to what are called “project delivery systems.” Most publicly-owned buildings, such as schools, are still built by the lowest bidder. But by contrast, most commercial buildings now are built by contractors who work closely with the property owners, from conception to completion.

“One of the problems with the older system is that, as time went on, it became increasingly adversarial,” Kit Carson said. “And people found out that cost a lot of money... When you do straight competitive-bid work, you’re on one side of the fence and the owner’s on the other side of the fence; people have differing interests. These new project delivery systems are an attempt to make … everybody be on the same side.”

He noted that with project delivery systems, “there’s a lot more openness about what your costs are and what your mark-ups are in those kinds of jobs, when you sit down with people and really talk that over with them.”

The new system more emphasis on customer service and networking. Repeat Carson-Mitchell customers include CoxHealth, Missouri State University and Southwestern Bell Communications Corp.

Pat Walker was coordinating the effort to build Springfield’s Founders Park, located at the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Water Street, when Carson-Mitchell was named general contractor. She said the company lowered the cost of the project significantly by not charging the usual fees for equipment rental and design work. “It was a very difficult park to build,” Walker said. “It was incredible what they were able to do. They’re problem solvers. They can take any challenge, it seems like, and come up with an answer.”

Even though a third generation of Carsons has joined the family business, the three brothers do not plan to retire any time soon.

“I enjoy what I’m doing,” Kit Carson said. “It’ll certainly keep you sharp. Keep you up at night, once in a while.

“Will the organization change? Sure. As time goes on, our sons are going to take more and more authority. But my dad hung in here until he was almost 80, when he died, and he would have still been here now if he hadn’t died.”[[In-content Ad]]