In the 1990s, a trend began among construction companies to reduce or eliminate their field staff. Gone were the general contractors that actually performed much of the work with their own forces. The prevailing wisdom seemed to be that relying totally on subcontractors was a better approach to risk management.

I am not a proponent of that mindset and consider High Construction a builder, not just a broker of other service providers. Surely, there are financial advantages in self-performing work rather than subcontracting it, but those savings are modest compared to the total value of most projects. The key benefit of self-performing work is in project control and problem solving. Having our own craftspeople on the job site who are responsible for layout and foundation construction gets us off to a great start. And when a problem develops on the job site, we are much more effective at solving that problem when we can direct our own workers to tackle it right away. If our only tool to work with when a problem arises is a telephone, we are not as effective. High Construction’s ability to self-perform work provides the flexibility to respond to setbacks promptly and keep our customers’ projects on track.

 
Jeffrey L. Sterner, PE
President
High Construction Company