Balfour Beatty Construction’s current projects include United Hospital Center in Bridgeport, W.Va. The project involves a new replacement hospital and central energy plant.

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At Balfour Beatty Construction, employees focus on creating “a signature experience with clients,” Rocky Wooten says. “We’re passionate about providing clients with the best construction experience they’ve [ever] had, every time.”

Wooten is senior vice president of the Nashville office of Balfour Beatty Construction, a commercial construction firm headquartered in Dallas. The company is a division of Balfour Beatty plc, an engineering, construction, services and investment group based in London.

“We work in partnership with sophisticated customers who value the highest levels of quality, safety and technical expertise – applying our skills to meet their individual needs,” reads the Balfour Beatty plc vision. “We aim to deliver reliable, responsible growth over the long term.”

Wooten’s office became part of Balfour Beatty when the company acquired the commercial division of Centex Construction in 2007. The transition was quite smooth, he reports. “[Balfour Beatty is] great to work with,” he declares.
“The hardest thing we had to do was change our signs.” The Nashville office has found itself in a like-minded environment, Wooten says. Balfour Beatty’s concentration on commercial construction makes it a great fit. “We’re on the same page as Balfour Beatty,” he states.

Balfour Beatty Construction’s Nashville office has focused largely on healthcare work in the Southeast, Wooten says. In addition, 75 percent of the company’s projects are for repeat clients, he says.

Customers appreciate predictability in the construction process, he says. “[We can] budget and schedule accurately and deliver a quality project time and time again,” he says. “[There are] no surprises.”

The office has also enjoyed a strong response in its customer surveys, Wooten says. Recently, “We just had 211 client surveys completed and on a scale of five being [the] best, they rated us [at an average of] 4.6,” he says.

“[Additionally,] 92 percent of the clients ranked us among the best or leading the industry.”
Working Together
Wooten’s office has sister companies in Nashville with which it will often collaborate. For instance, its Balfour Resource Group helps hospitals with facility transition planning. “Balfour Resource Group helps clients evaluate the latest technology and select equipment that meets their needs,” he says.

“Then, it aids in equipment procurement and installation.”

In addition, the Nashville office includes Balfour Concord, a program management company that was once part of Centex Construction. Wooten explains that the company aids clients who do not have a staff large enough to manage a construction project.

Facing The Challenge
A 38-year veteran of the construction industry, Wooten started as a laborer with Centex Construction. Today, he says he remains in the industry thanks to the satisfaction it has given him.

“At the end of the day, we’re able to look back and see what [we] have accomplished,” Wooten says. “It’s still good to go back 38 years and see [what] projects I was part of a team on.”

He says Balfour Beatty Construction is facing the challenge of recruiting and retaining talented workers. “That’s one of the [biggest] hurdles we face, as does any industry right now,” he says.

To recruit new employees, Balfour Beatty Construction’s offices focus on specific colleges that they have pre-existing partnerships with, Wooten says. In addition, Balfour Beatty’s Dallas-Fort Worth division, which Nashville is a part of, recruits interns annually. “Some of our very best employees are [former interns] that come back, and we hire them out of college full-time,” Wooten adds.

To retain its employees, Balfour Beatty Construction strives to keep the work/life balance equal. The company culture that exists at Balfour Beatty Construction mirrors that of a small company closeness, though it is one of the largest general contractors in America.

Balfour Beatty has moved with the trends in green building, Wooten says. “You’d better be LEED accredited – that’s the future,” he declares, adding that the company now employs a number of LEED-accredited professionals, many of whom consult on projects based out of the Nashville office.

Balfour Beatty Construction has launched an initiative to grow its team of LEED-accredited professionals, Wooten asserts. While the company has not had the opportunity to manage many LEED-certified healthcare projects, “I suspect in the next two years, you’ll probably see more and more of them,” he predicts.

Wooten says the company also has the goal of growing 20 percent each year through such means as acquisition. Its U.S. revenues were approximately $12.5 billion last year, and “We would like to double that in five years,” he declares. In late April of this year, Balfour Beatty plc acquired GMH Military Housing, the military housing division of GMH Communities Trust, and transitioned it into Balfour Beatty Communities.