At The Top - January 2007

Jaynes Corporation

New Strategies Overcome Challenges

by Tiffannie Bond

The Jaynes Corporation has a Las Vegas story similar to many residents – the company came to the city temporarily in 1988…and never left. The timing was perfect, said Steve Brooke, executive vice president of the general contracting firm. It was right before the building boom.

When Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. came to the Las Vegas Valley nearly 20 years ago, it brought Jaynes Corporation with it. The company built two Wal-Mart stores and a Sam’s Club before Jaynes executives decided to set up shop in town.

Jaynes Corporation, which was originally founded as a concrete contractor in 1946, has grown over the years until, in 2004, it was ranked No. 7 of the Top 125 Contractors by Southwest Contractor magazine, which ranks Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada contractors by revenue. Southwest Contractor also chose the company as No. 4 out of the Top 10 General Building Contractors the same year. The 2004 rankings were based on the $190 million in revenue tallied by the Jaynes Corporation. In 2005, Engineering News Record ranked Jaynes Corporation as No. 188 in the Top 400 General Contractors by revenue, which that year reached $237 million.

The numbers didn’t lie. Jaynes Corporation was growing, but the pace was slow and steady. After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the company suffered a decrease in revenue from $250 million to $200 million over the next few years.

Last year, however, revenue jumped from $200 million to $325 million. The rebound was the result of new thinking among the company’s upper management, according to Brooke. “We had to circle the wagons, get our house in order and re-grow the company,” he said. The company needed to implement procedures, control and accountability. “There just wasn’t a lot of that in place when I got here [to the Las Vegas office],” said Brooke. “When mistakes were made, it was hard to trace them back. There was no accountability, no process.”

Brooke knew what his branch needed, but he wasn’t sure how to go about attaining his goals. In preparing materials for an upcoming planning session, Wayne Davenport, Jaynes Corporation chief financial officer, sent Brooke a copy of the book Good to Great by Jim Collins. Once he read it, Brooke’s goals were set and his path clear.

“I was reading this book and I was in turn-around mode. This was touching a nerve in me,” Brooke said. “We were a good company, but if we were going to go from good to great [something needed to happen].”

He confronted each obstacle and worked on getting “good people on the bus” to create a “culture of discipline,” following suggestions in the book and modifying them to work within Jaynes Corporation. The goal was to begin with baby steps and gain momentum to leaps where the company was working to keep up, Brooke said.

“I like to give people tools to work with,” he added. “At the same time, you have to create a culture of discipline to keep up with this stuff or it will eat your lunch.”

Brooke realized one of his most valuable assets was the Golden Rule, or treating others like you want to be treated, and he worked on applying it to the business world. He encouraged his team to apply this philosophy when dealing with subcontractors, architects, engineers and owners. He added personal communication instead of form letters and e-mails. It’s a simple idea, he said, but a successful one.

“For the most part, everyone wants to be good, wants to succeed,” Brooke said. “We want to be everybody’s contractor of choice.”

Tiffannie Bond
Tiffannie Bond is a freelance writer based in Southern Nevada.