Paragon 360 group of companies designs modified framework

 Paragon 360 is a company that focuses on innovation in architectural solutions, but these days its modified business structure itself is also an entity worth eyeballing. 

In 2025, Donnie and Karen Brawner, founders of Paragon 360, sold their interest in the company to Colligo Holdings. Donnie Brawner remains a majority owner in the holding company with Todd Carroll, along with minority partners Ryan Cowen and Chris Koenig, according to the corporate history on the holding company’s website. 

The holding company has a four-building campus in Springfield, with some 75 active projects across more than 30 states, and more than 1,500 total projects completed. 

There are three main companies in the Paragon group – now Colligo Holdings – and the holding company’s website explains the distinctions. 

Paragon 360 is characterized as a design-build integration firm that offers sight, sound and architectural solutions for places of worship, auditoriums, sports complexes, amusement parks and other venues, the description states. Its work integrates design, acquisition, fabrication and installation of audio, video, lighting and rigging systems with acoustic treatments, interior design, custom architectural elements and seating. In 2024, the company appeared in Inc. 5000, which is Inc. magazine’s list of the fastest-growing private companies in the United States. 

Paragon Fabrication is described on the website as a complete turnkey specialty fabrication company that offers a single contractor instead of multiple ones to take a project from concept and design to fabrication and installation. The description stresses creativity in approach for office, retail, entertainment and themed attraction environments. 

The website casts Xperience Construction as a general contracting firm accomplishing much of its work through a combination of strategic partnerships, subcontractors and construction management. While the company offers commercial construction services to the outside market, the majority of its work is performed inside the Paragon family of companies by providing general contracting services to clients nationwide. 

Colligo Holdings also lists other companies in its portfolio: commercial and residential rental company Verso Property Group LLC; video systems designer ReveLux LLC; advertising agency Supper Co.; real estate holding company Brawner Holdings LLC; and finance company Opus V, as well as investments in other complementary enterprises. 

A Missouri secretary of state filing lists P360 Holdings LLC as the owner of Colligo Holdings. Company officials declined to disclose revenue figures for the holding company or any of its subsidiaries. 

Company synergies 
On a recent tour of the Paragon buildings, Donnie Brawner said a lot of people wonder what kind of work goes on inside. 

“Since most of our work was national for so many years, some of our local audience is not familiar with us and not aware of all we do,” Brawner said.  

He said one of the most exciting things happening is the enterprise model that now exists in Colligo Holdings. 

“Having multiple companies working under a parent company that’s handling the business operations – that in itself is a new business proposition for us,” he said. 

But Brawner noted the companies’ offerings dovetail. 

“It’s not like we have a hair salon and an automotive place,” he said. “All three of these companies are working together to create engaging environments for our clients, whether that’s roller coasters, banks or churches.” 

The companies have more than 100 employees in their four buildings that occupy 75,000 square feet on the campus. 

The Colligo client 
Nathan Wozniak, hired last year as director of marketing for Colligo Holdings, said there are myths about who the Paragon client is, possibly stemming from the company’s start in 2000 as a live-event production company serving many clients that were places of worship. 

“We work with pretty much everybody, whether it’s an end user, a designer, a general contractor, you name it – we have ways of plugging into all of that,” Wozniak said. 

Paragon 360 came first among the companies, formed by Donnie Brawner and his wife, Karen Brawner, in 2000. The pair wanted to start a design-build company with a holistic, accountable approach. Then known as Brawner & Associates, the company offered theatrical and live-event productions for Fortune 500 companies like Walmart. In 2001, it completed its first major church project, Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, and by 2006, the company had completed more than 40 church projects, according to the Colligo website. 

The rebranding to Paragon 360 happened in 2010, after the recession of 2008-09, with the company offering custom fabrication of scenic and staging products and its own line of drum enclosures and modular staging projects, according to the company website. 

The website also notes Paragon 360 moved to its current building at 1859 W. Arbor St. in 2015 and launched interior design services. In 2019, Paragon Fabrications LLC was established, and so was Colligo Holdings. Xperience Construction was launched in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, to provide general contractor work to clients. 

Brawner said the companies operating under the Colligo Holdings umbrella have the flexibility to work jointly or alone. 

“All of these three companies work together to produce what we produce, but they all are their own entities in their own right,” he said. “They can all go out and get their own jobs and have their own client base, but they also all work together to do this, and that’s all underneath the way the parent company is set up.” 

Paragon 360 recently completed a project for the publicly traded Monett-based fintech company Jack Henry & Associates Inc., which boasts more than $2 billion in revenue and more than 7,000 employees. According to a Paragon 360 press release, the company provided fully integrated conference, training and workspace environments to aid Jack Henry in collaboration across multiple national locations for the firm, combining audio, video, control and custom fabrication into a unified solution. 

Employee retention 
Brawner said the business structure under Colligo Holdings offers numerous efficiencies. 

“Otherwise, each of these companies would have their own accountants and their own HR department and their own marketing department, and the cost of that would be phenomenal,” he said. “The way that we’ve consolidated it makes it a lot more efficient. We’re going to do this work for everybody in our enterprise.” 

The efficiencies extend to an area many leaders of business and industry cite as their trickiest: workforce recruitment and retention. 

In the Colligo Holdings group of companies, many of the workers are highly specialized. 

“We’ve got a huge variety of backgrounds of people that we’ve hired here,” said Ryan Cowen, co-owner and president of Paragon Fabrication. 

Chris Koenig, co-owner and GM of Paragon Fabrication, agreed. 

“We’ve got a guy that makes race car parts. We’ve got a couple of guys that develop video games. We’ve got entertainers,” he said. 

“The guys that do our renderings and animations are actually ex-video game designers, so the way that we create a fly-thru animation is different than the architectural world does it,” Cowen said. “We do some things that are pretty cool on that front that not everyone can do, just because of their background.” 

Brawner said the collaborative model allows the companies to retain talent. 

“Yes, we’re hiring this person today to work at Paragon 360 in this role, but if that doesn’t work out, we may have a role at Paragon Fabrication, or we may have a role in Xperience Construction,” he said. 

In the event of the need for one company to lay off an employee, another company in the group could potentially snatch that person up. 

“There are ways that we can solve a lot of those needs internally because of the way we’ve set the structure up,” Brawner said. 

Lobby shine-up 
One of the recent points of pride for Paragon 360 is the newly renovated lobby in its headquarters. The lobby aims to provide an immersive brand experience for the company, Wozniak said, showcasing the company’s expertise in designing and building engaging environments. 

The company hosts more than 100 tours each year for prospects, clients and partners, Wozniak said, and that means the first look inside the premises is an opportunity to communicate the company’s capabilities across design, fabrication, construction and technology integration. 

The lobby was delivered by teams from the three main Colligo Holdings companies, Wozniak said. Its features include a high-resolution ReveLux LED wall measuring 16 by 9 feet as a focal point for project videos and photography. The room also features custom-fabricated wood and aluminum scenic elements. After measurements and design work by fabricators, clients can have elements built offsite and then installed quickly with very little interruption to their operations, Brawner noted during the tour. 

There are also custom-designed and fabricated ceiling clouds, backlit scenic wall treatments and trophy display shelving on columns with integrated lighting. 

“The redesigned lobby balances advanced, high-performance audiovisual systems with striking architectural impact, custom scenic fabrication, carefully engineered acoustics and layered lighting,” Wozniak said in a press release. “This enterprise-wide project exemplifies how design and technology can be seamlessly integrated to create environments that tell a story, engage, inspire and connect.”