'Diversify your business to make it recession-proof'

Ben G. Watts, P.E., is president and CEO of Carter & Burgess Inc., headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas. Watts joined C&B in 1997 and assumed leadership of the National Transportation Programs Division a year later. Previously, he served 23 years with the Florida Department of Transportation, the last eight as Secretary of Transportation. During his tenure as head of the agency, FDOT received more than 600 awards for safety, public service, and professionalism. A graduate of West Point, Watts served five years in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, with tours in Germany and South Korea, rising to the rank of captain.

BD+C: You seem to be focusing on expanding in the Sunbelt. Is that the case?

Ben G. Watts: Our philosophy has not been so much “Sunbelt” as it has been “growth.” If you want to be in growing markets, it puts you in the Sunbelt. Emphasizing growth also put us in a mindset of why water is so important. In the Sunbelt, water is increasingly becoming the issue: without water, there is no growth.

BD+C: You want to expand your water-related services, don't you?

BGW: We've done a good bit of water, not the big water plants, but water conveyance systems, stormwater, and services related to water resources. We want water to be the same size in our portfolio as land development, buildings, and transportation. It has the potential to be bigger than land development over time. Those are our four big areas of emphasis, but we're not there yet with water. The more you diversify, the more you recession-proof your business.

BD+C: You've got a huge menu of services, more than 80. Can you really do them all?

BGW: We really do all that stuff, because more and more clients come to us and say, “We want you to do all of this for us.” On the public side, the jobs get bigger and bigger because the agency staffs get smaller and smaller. They handle fewer projects, but it's more money per project. Even on the commercial side, clients say, “We don't want to get five firms to do this project, we want one.” That's why we chose the operating philosophy “One source, one firm”—to provide every service our clients might need, short of construction.

BD+C: What lessons do you apply from your military training?

BGW: I was taught three precepts at West Point that are most important to me: 1) discipline yourself about what you have to do; 2) take care of your people, and they'll take care of you—they come first; and 3) accomplish the mission. Stay focused, get it done, no excuses.

Those are business precepts, too. They're applied differently in business, but they always apply to what we're doing as a company: Stay focused on the bottom line, and discipline yourself, or you can't accomplish the mission.

BD+C: What scares you right now?

BGW: When things are good, we tend to think they're just going to stay that way. We've got it on cruise control instead of looking down the road and seeing what factors are going to affect us. If we don't anticipate the next big thing, whether good or bad, by the time it takes hold of us, we'll have to react instead of being prepared. We have to guard against the complacency of doing well.

BD+C: So, what is that “next big thing”?

BGW: The infrastructure question, like this bridge collapse in Minneapolis. My first reaction was: That doesn't happen here, not here in the United States of America. That should never happen here. But we've got aging infrastructure in the U.S., not just highways and bridges. We saw the same thing with the electricity grid a few years ago. You can't just keep deferring necessary repairs and replacement. Long-term, this country is going to have to invest in its infrastructure or it's going to go into economic decline.

BD+C: I understand you've read something like 180 books about Abraham Lincoln. What's your favorite Lincoln story?

BGW: Early in the war, when the Union army was losing badly, Lincoln and a senator called on Gen. McClellan one night at the general's residence. McClellan strode in, ignored Lincoln, and went upstairs to bed. The senator was outraged, but Lincoln ignored the snub. “I would hold his horse,” said Lincoln, “if he would but deliver us success.”

Engineers and architects are very smart people, but sometimes we let our egos get in our way. It's amazing what we can accomplish if we don't care who gets the credit. That's the point of the Lincoln story: The Union needed a victory, and if McClellan could deliver one, even the President of the United States would put aside his ego.

BD+C: What's your vision for C&B?

BGW: We're going to continue to push hard in our presence in water and the federal government market—Homeland Security, TSA, DoD, etc. Those two things are going to keep us occupied, as well as doing good work in the rest of our business areas.