For one construction firm, century-old history is repeating itself.

In the late 19th Century, Matthew Myles Walsh left his native Ireland for the opportunities in the budding city on the shores of Lake Michigan. He found employment as a carpenter at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. The wages were likely modest, but the prospects exceptional.

Work was plentiful on the fairgrounds in the Jackson Park neighborhood on the city's South Side because plans had called for about 20 structures to be built. And the learning opportunities were fabulous partly due to the selection of Daniel Burnham, an architect with a reputation, as the chief designer.

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The event signaled that Chicago had become a world-class city only 60 years after its incorporation, and visitors came from around the country and the world to see what became known as the White City - the name given the exposition city because of Burnham's choice of the Beaux Arts style.

Like many others, Walsh stayed in Chicago after the fair closed and went on to find steady work with the Chicago Board of Education. In 1898 he founded his own company, Walsh Construction, on the South Side.

The carpenter from humble origins could not have foreseen that the work he started would continue to flourish for more than a century. But the similarities between the project that drew Walsh here and a sweeping project under way just east of Michigan Avenue in the Loop are striking.

Like the Columbian project, Millennium Park is a development on a grand scale with a music pavilion, theater, sculpture, promenade, skating rink and several other elements. Famous architects with international reputations have commissions on the project, including Frank Gehry, founder of the Los Angeles firm bearing his name, and Thomas Beeby, president of Hammond Beeby Rupert Ainge Inc. in Chicago.

Also mirroring the Columbian exposition, city planners were overly ambitious in establishing a timetable for completion of Millennium Park. But, in the end, the project's spectacular qualities will likely lure visitors for decades.

More important, the carpenter's chest likely would have swelled in pride at the essential role Walsh is playing on the project. The firm is the general contractor for the complicated Gehry-designed, $63 million music pavilion, as well as the $99 million below-grade parking garage and skating rink, both completed.

Walsh's involvement on Millennium Park project demonstrates the firm's vital role in the Chicago construction industry.

"Back in the 1960s and 1970s, we certainly would have been considered a small Midwestern building contractor exclusively," said Daniel Walsh, president of the firm and grandson of the founder. "In recent years, we have expanded into different building products. We have also expanded nationally."

Daniel and his brother, Matthew III, chairman, took over the leadership of the firm in the 1960s, and the fourth generation of Walshes has started work in the company.

Each year this magazine will honor a contractor whose work - through innovation, volume or both together - has had the most impact of the development of the Midwest.

This year the honor, the first ever, went to Walsh because of the complexity of the projects the firm has recently completed like those in Millennium Park and the large number of projects it has finished overall. Also taken into account were the firm's vision and execution and its decision to keep it headquarters in Chicago.

Michael LaMont, director of the Office of Capital Planning and Policy for Cook County, who oversaw the $551 million John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County, which Walsh constructed, first worked with the firm as an employee of the Chicago Transit Authority about a dozen years ago.

"They built a couple bus garages and couple train stations for us," he said. "They have been able to diversity and still maintain an expertise in a lot of areas. Not a lot of companies can do that."

Walsh Country

The Walsh Group, the Chicago-based parent of subsidiary Walsh Construction Co. and Atlanta-based Archer Western Contractors, has become a dominant firm in the Midwest.

In 2003, Walsh finished No. 1 in the contractor-dense Midwest with revenues of $895 million, a decline from 2002's No. 2 finish at $975 million. In 2001, the firm had $810 million in revenues, No. 1 in the region.

"The falloff [in 2003] was because of the completion of some large projects in 2002," said Patrick Donley, Walsh vice president of business development.

Nationally, the firm has experienced tremendous growth in recent decades. In its May 2003 ranking, the most recent, Engineering News-Record, sister of Midwest Construction, listed Walsh as the No. 22 firm in the nation with revenues of $1.754 billion. In 1983, Walsh ranked as the No. 353 contractor in the nation.

Besides Chicago, Walsh Construction Co. has offices in six other cities, including Detroit, Boston and the Bay Area. In addition to Atlanta, Archer Western Contractors - a name that derives from the Chicago street corner where the Walsh headquarters had once been located - also has offices in six other cities, including San Diego, Phoenix and Arlington, Texas.

Walsh keeps active. In 2003, the firm completed about 40 projects in Illinois, six in Indiana and approximately 85 in total nationwide in numerous construction categories, Donley said.

"We don't mind small projects," Daniel Walsh said. "What we enjoy are some of the unusual projects, whether big or small. It certainly challenges your creative juices to want to get involved."

The firm, whose holiday parties in the 1950s attracted about 10 people, now has approximately 800 employees on the managerial level and 1,000 professional trades employees in Illinois, Donley said. Nationwide, the total employee count is about 3,500 people.

The firm possesses a $200 million fleet of heavy equipment, which includes cranes, trucks and "very specific" drilling machinery.

Moving Forward

The execution of Walsh's strategy for construction helps explain the firm's triumphs. It has developed reputation-defining expertise in certain areas.

The firm focuses on general building - especially in high-rise residential, hospital and design-build - and the transportation, underground and water management areas of infrastructure, Daniel Walsh said. Project experience in other areas is substantial.

"The volume of work we do in our Midwestern operation on an annual basis is probably half public works in the civil/heavy/highway area and half building construction in either the public or private sector," he added.

Indeed, the company has increasingly solidified its standing as an expert road builder with the recent completion of the $200 million Wacker Drive renovation in Chicago and the $162 million South Lake Shore Drive redo, also in Chicago. Two other recent key projects were the $69 million Interstate 465/Interstate 70 design-build project in Indianapolis and the $34 million Interstate 65/I-70 rehabilitation, or "Hyperfix," also in Indianapolis.

Partly due to companies like Walsh, the Midwest is ahead of the rest of the nation in the condition of its infrastructure.

Only 25 percent of Illinois' roads and 20 percent of Indiana's roads are in poor or mediocre condition, according to the Reston, Va.-based American Society of Civil Engineers. Both figures are lower than the nationwide average, 33 percent.
In Illinois, keeping roads in good shape is critical because 42 percent of urban freeways are congested, according to ASCE. That is higher than the national average, 37 percent.

Moreover, 18 percent of Illinois' bridges and 23 percent of Indiana's bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, again according to ASCE. Those, too, are lower than the national average, 27.5 percent.

"Companies like Walsh are problem solvers," added Patrick Natale, executive director of ASCE.

Given the road congestion, an important performance characteristic for transportation projects is on-time completion.

On the Wacker Drive project, penalties were established in case certain elements or the project overall were not finished on time, said Denise Casalino, project manager on the rebuild for the Chicago Department of Transportation. The fines for the late completion of intersections were as high as $50,000 a day, and the penalties for the late change-out of the Wells Street Bridge incorporated in the project was $1,000 a minute.

Casalino, who has moved to the Chicago Department of Construction and Permits as first deputy director, said Walsh provided a depth of personnel to ensure the on-time project delivery in 21 months.

"They flooded the project with engineers who made things work," she added.

Perceptive Project Management

The astuteness of Walsh's approach to nettlesome project challenges is becoming legendary.

On the Wells Street Bridge element of the Wacker redo, for instance, the entire CTA structure had to be replaced because it was old and narrow, and it had to be done with the least disruption to the transit system's normal functioning.

Walsh engineers researched the issue and suggested assistance from Mammoet, a Dutch specialist in heavy lifting and transport made famous in 2001 for raising the sunken Russian submarine Kursk.

The new bridge was fully constructed on casters on Wacker Drive, Walsh said. Over one weekend, the old bridge was cut, a button was pressed to actuate hydraulics beneath the new bridge and it was rolled and lifted into place.

"They are always going out and finding new ways to get stuff done," Casalino said.
On the Millennium Park music pavilion, the $30,000 Catia software, which is used in the aerospace and automotive industries, was purchased to help calculate the precise placement of the stainless steel and aluminum sheets on the 12 custom-designed steel trusses.

The placements are to be within a 1/16th on an in., a meticulous tolerance given the wind, freeze-thaw cycle and gravity.

"It (the software) allows us to take two-dimensional engineering and convert it to three dimensions and then be able to rotate it in a 365-degree plane so we can make connecting points for what is a very unusual, eccentric design," Daniel Walsh added.

Given these complex projects, training is constant.

Jeff Lemna, a 15-year veteran of the firm, directs management training daily and continuing education for project managers at jobsites around the city. Recent topics have touched on masonry, crane safety and computer-based project management.

Recently, 100 Walsh project managers underwent four days of training with the International Masonry Institute at the District Council Training Center in west-suburban Addison.

About 25 to 35 percent of project managers have advanced degrees or Professional Engineer licenses, Daniel Walsh said. Twice-yearly recruiting trips are made to major universities.

The emphasis on education is paying off because Walsh project managers - including Vincent Michalesko, Daryl Conklin, J.R. Kibbon and Rory Tihinen - are solidifying the company's reputation.

And, Walsh is winning projects with high-end architects.

The company was the contractor for the Cesar Pelli-designed Gerald Ratner Athletics Center at the University of Chicago and Ralph Johnson's Skybridge at One North Halsted condominium, also in Chicago. It is building the Helmut Jahn-designed extension of the canopies of terminals 1,2 and 3 under way at O'Hare International Airport. Previously, Walsh collaborated with Jahn on the James R. Thompson Center government facility in Chicago, the new name for the building formerly known as the State of Illinois Center.

The company's experience in these intricate projects has underscored the importance of planning before construction, Daniel Walsh said. On the $38 million Ratner project, for instance, which involved the erection of masts and tensioning of cables for the support of the roof, planning was initiated two years before ground break. Construction took only 14 months.

"It's not cookie cutter work here," said James Mayer, Walsh senior estimator. "I get paid to probably do something that I would do as a hobby."

In the City

Walsh's success compels the firm to keep in mind its urban roots. As a result, attempts are made to maintain strong diversification.

"In this day and age, for any industry to resist diversification seems to us to be short-sighted," Daniel Walsh said.

The firm declined to join a suit filed in 1998 against the city of Chicago for its set-aside program, which mandates 25 percent of contracts above $10,000 to minority-business-enterprise firms and 5 percent to women-business-enterprise firms. In December, U.S. Federal Court Judge James Moran ruled the program was illegal, but gave the city six months to reconfigure it.

Walsh has established close relationships and partnered with minority firms such as Riteway Construction Services and II in One Contractors.

Looking ahead, Walsh has recently established new divisions, one for government projects and another for health-care projects, Donley said.

Those will be based in the firm's headquarters on West Adams Street, where the firm moved in 1992.

"At that time a lot of companies were heading for the suburbs," Donley said. "We wanted to stay within the city limits."

The carpenter would have been pleased.