‘I’m lovin’ it’

Schwabe finds gold in them thar arches

By Janine Anderson

Image courtesy of McDonald's USA

Dan Schwabe made the 90-minute drive to pick up the plans from the client’s Oak Brook, Ill., office.

The bid deadline was quickly approaching, and when he made it back to Peter Schwabe Inc.’s Milwaukee office, the company’s staff knuckled down and focused on putting the bid package together.

“Everybody concentrated on the job for a week,” he said.

The client, in business for 13 years at the time, wanted to build a restaurant on Moorland Road in Brookfield. Dan Schwabe knew of the project from a different client, who was so impressed with the contractor’s work remodeling his house that he invited Peter Schwabe Inc., now based in Big Bend, to bid on the restaurant job.

The contractor, seeing the potential for a long-term partnership, wanted the job, so it dealt with the tight time line, submitted its bid and won the project.

Bud Barrette (left) and his son, Peter, stand in front of the new McDonald’s on Moorland Road in Brookfield. Bud was the superintendent for the original Moorland Road McDonald’s, while Peter is managing the latest project. Photo by Janine Anderson

That was in 1969. The client was McDonald’s. And Peter Schwabe Inc. was on the cusp of a relationship that would span generations and dramatically impact the contractor’s future.

“[McDonald’s] was so young, and it was growing so fast,” Dan Schwabe said.

Earl “Bud” Barrette ran that first McDonald’s project for Peter Schwabe Inc., and he still remembers how important it was.

“There was good cooperation from the people at McDonald’s,” he said. “It was hopeful, for sure. It was exciting to get started and try to do our best so we could get a good relationship with McDonald’s.”

It worked. The Moorland Road job led to others throughout Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana.

“There was a lot of expanding,” Bud Barrette said. “We have a good relationship with them.”

Relationships, whether family or business, are at the heart of Peter Schwabe Inc.’s history. Peter H. and Pearl Schwabe founded the company in 1927 as a carpentry firm serving the Milwaukee area.

In 1960, their son, Dan Schwabe, joined Bud Barrette, the founders’ son-in-law, in taking over the family business. The company’s new leaders incorporated the firm, kept it growing and, nine years later, shook hands on a deal that would eventually let the contractor build nearly 1,000 McDonald’s restaurants throughout the country.

Peter Schwabe Inc. is returning to Moorland Road in Brookfield to build a new McDonald’s. Rendering courtesy of Peter Schwabe Inc.

“We were a small organization,” Dan Schwabe said. “We just grew into it.”

Growth was essential if the contractor was to keep up with the hamburger chain’s expansions. The partnership led to projects throughout the Midwest, which, in turn, led to jobs in California, Arizona and Washington.

Along the way, Peter Schwabe Inc. built a Ronald McDonald House and Hamburger University, all the while reaching for new levels to keep pace with McDonald’s.

“It forced us to focus on our growth and keep up with them,” Dan Schwabe said.

He said McDonald’s needed millwork faster than the contractor could get it, so Peter Schwabe Inc. bought a millwork company and started turning out the products needed to finish the restaurants.

“If we did something right, we kept up with their needs,” Dan Schwabe said. “We were anticipating what their need was.”

Now, 37 years after landing that first McDonald’s job, Peter Schwabe Inc. is back on Moorland Road. To make room for a new McDonald’s, the contractor tore down the first building it put up for the restaurant.

And the tradition that began with that first frenzied push to get the bid in by deadline continues. The contractor competitively bid for the new job — despite nearly four decades of history with McDonald’s — and won the contract for the Moorland Road rebuild.

While the relationship between the two companies strengthened over the years, the new project gives Peter Schwabe Inc. a chance to reinvent the place where it all started. And that dovetails neatly with a push by McDonald’s to update its restaurants throughout the country.

The construction team, led by Peter Schwabe Inc., gets ready to tear down the 1969 McDonald’s on Moorland Road. Photo courtesy of Peter Schwabe Inc.

“It’s designed to meet the needs of all our customers,” said Danya Proud, spokeswoman for McDonald’s USA. “It really represents the brand as we have evolved. It’s future-thinking, forward-thinking. We listen to and evolve with our customers.”

Among the changes the new restaurants feature are high-top tables, family zones and linger zones with movable lounge-like furniture.

“It really goes to what’s relevant to today’s customers,” Proud said. “The lifestyles very much have changed from five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago. We want it to be more of a destination.”

Back in 1969, Peter Barrette, Bud Barrette’s son, was a teen-ager who joined his father and grandfather on job sites. He helped pick up and deliver lumber and other materials, and he made evening stops to put new gas canisters on the heaters that kept the sites warm through the night so work could begin first thing in the morning.

In high school, he studied drafting and worked part-time for Peter Schwabe Inc.

“It was interesting,” he said. “One day you’d be doing one form of work, and the following day you’d be doing something completely different.”

Between the part-time job and the drafting classes, Peter Barrette laid the foundation for his career. As he watched buildings go up that were built by his father, uncle and grandfather, he found himself drawn to the industry.

He enjoyed the work and ultimately joined Peter Schwabe Inc. And this year, Peter Barrette is following in his father’s footsteps.

He was named the project manager for the Moorland Road rebuild and is managing the site that his father managed 37 years ago.

Peter Schwabe Inc. team members (from left) Peter Barrette, project manager; Jeff Neumann, vice president of construction; Bud Barrette, original site superintendent who retired in 1994; and Dan Schwabe, president of Peter Schwabe Inc., enjoy a 37-year relationship with McDonald’s. Photo by Janine Anderson

“For this, it did hit home,” Peter Barrette said. “We’d always say we built that one and talked about it in that respect. There’s always been a sense that it’s a family type of affair in what we’ve done.”

The partnership between Peter Schwabe Inc. and McDonald’s goes deeper than family connections and years of steady work; it’s a relationship that shaped the contractor’s philosophy over the last 37 years.

“I was amazed 20 years ago by the credibility our company got because we retained a relationship with a company like McDonald’s,” Dan Schwabe said. “It spread into many areas for us.

“If you’re honest and build trust with your client, there’s no end to what you can do. If you play games, you’re going to get into trouble. By your reputation and past reputation and setting an example, they can learn about you.”

By no means is McDonald’s the only client of Peter Schwabe Inc. The contractor’s commitment to fostering long-term relationships led to partnerships with clients such as Phillips Plastics, Norris Adolescent Center and the Redemptorist religious order, all of which worked with Peter Schwabe Inc. on many projects over many years.

But behind it all is McDonald’s and a relationship that started on Moorland Road.

“It’s been our future and still is our future,” Dan Schwabe said. “McDonald’s is a big mainstay for us. When you work long enough for them, you have ketchup in your blood.”