Seeing stars

Construction is a team sport.

At the executive level, the industry is a melting pot of partnerships, joint ventures and design/build combinations. When big jobs come along, companies that couldn’t do the work alone team up to handle the project together. It just makes good business sense.

The same holds true at construction sites. Except in extraordinary circumstances, actual construction work isn’t about individuals. It’s about construction crews, with each person in the crew a cog in the wheel rolling toward successful project completion.

There’s a reason for that, and it doesn’t have anything to do with reserving individual accolades to preserve some superficial sense of team spirit. It’s about relying on each other to provide quality products while maintaining safety in a dangerous environment.

It’s also grounded in certain truths about construction work. One hand can’t accomplish anything working alone. You can’t frame a building until the foundation is done.

You can’t lay a foundation without proper site work. You can’t even think about working a site until somebody assesses the quality of the soil. The process goes on and on, with one team member handing off the project to the next person in line.

It’s teamwork in its purest sense. It’s also so woven into the fabric of construction that the concept isn’t worth mentioning if not in contrast to Wisconsin Builder’s annual Newsmakers of the Year issue.

In Newsmakers, we buck the teamwork trend. It’s kind of like an industry version of Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game. We recognize that in the construction industry, nobody accomplishes anything if they don’t work together. But we also see stars. We see people and companies doing more than holding down spots on their teams. They provide leadership, direction, inspiration. They set examples and, through their actions, raise expectations.

They might train the next generation of construction workers. They could find themselves in positions of influence and use that power to improve the world around them. Maybe they never stop to think of themselves when someone needs them. Or, perhaps, they’re just so good at what they do that they couldn’t avoid the spotlight no matter how hard they tried.

Essentially, these people, these companies, are team captains. But for now, we’ll just call them our Newsmakers.