Caddell Construction leans in on commercial projects

In 2024, Caddell Construction’s Commercial division generated $350 million in revenue, representing a 110% increase over a three-year period. This year, the Commercial division expects to hit $450 million, and to open an office in Columbus, Ohio, which would add to its offices in Bentonville, Ark., Jacksonville, Fla., Atlanta, and Phoenix.

Not bad for a division that started eight years ago with two employees. Those ranks have since grown to 135, and the division is now national in scope and expanding.

“We will go anywhere for our clients,” says Ricky Byrd, who joined Caddell Construction in 2017, after stints with Walmart, where he was director of construction; 10 years with the GC Elkins Construction; and four years in the U.S. Marine Corps, where he was a sergeant. On April 9, Caddell Construction promoted Byrd to the new position of President-Commercial.

In an interview with BD+C earlier this week, the 45-year-old Byrd discussed his company’s winning formula. The Commercial division, he explains, focuses on high-prospect market sectors such as Mission Critical and Distribution/Logistics. (In Northern Arkansas, the firm also builds K12 schools.) It also doesn’t take on jobs unless it has the people in place to complete the project.

Consequently, a lot of Caddell Commercial’s recent success has hinged on what Byrd calls its “robust” employee hiring, retention, and training efforts. “We’re not just growing to make money, but also to give our employees opportunities,” he says, noting too that the company is employee-owned.

A practical mission statement

Caddell Commercial accounts for about 30% of Caddell Construction’s annual revenue. And its growth reflects the entrepreneurialism of John Caddell, who with his wife Joyce started the company in 1983 only a few weeks after Caddell, at the age of 53, was unceremoniously asked to take early retirement from the contractor Blount Construction, where over a 14-year period Caddell rose to the position of President and CEO, and saw the company’s revenue increase nearly eightfold to $600 million.

Blount’s owner Red Blount later admitted letting Caddell go, to clear a career path for Blount’s son, was a mistake; in the ultimate irony, in 1994 Caddell Construction absorbed all of Blount Construction’s remaining construction operations.

Caddell Construction started out doing work for the federal government; it’s first project was a $5.2 million barracks contract. It has since expanded to encompass $18 billion in government, commercial, and international projects in 36 countries and every region of the U.S.

Caddell passed away in March 2023 at the age of 93, but his legacy lives on through succession (his son Kirby and grandson Mac have subsequently run the business) and through his mission statement, known as The Caddell Way, which emphasizes employee respect, teamwork, and accountability, and sets goals based on collective success and continuous improvement.

Byrd thinks The Caddell Way is different from other corporate mission statements because, he states plainly, “it’s something you can actually follow.”

Measured growth planned

In his new position as commercial division president, Byrd says he’s focusing on increasing each office’s business. He notes, for example, that in Columbus Caddell Commercial has projects in the works valued aggregately at $250 million. Caddell is also working on a Mission Critical campus in Atlanta valued at $800 million. He wants the division to seek out more projects in the Higher Education and municipal sectors.

But don’t expect Caddell Commercial to start sector shopping willy-nilly. Byrd says he will continue to measure success “by project size, not by project count.”