Choosable may be an unusual word to build a company around, yet for CEO Evan Shriver, these three syllables sum up exactly what he wants Atlantic Constructors, Inc (ACI) to be.
“We want our company to be choosable by our employees to come here and to stay here,” Shriver tells The CEO Magazine. “We want to be choosable by our customers so that they want to choose us to do their work, and choosable by our community because we’re making a positive impact on it.”
The adoption of the term came about organically.
“We have several people within our company whose sole responsibility is engagement,” he explains. “Through the conversations that we’ve had in some of our leadership team meetings, and specifically with this engagement group, the word choosable has bubbled up and we’ve really gravitated towards it.”
Shriver knows that finding and retaining talent has been challenging for decades in the construction industry.
But ACI, which has worked on a breadth of projects, from the multi-phase construction of the new Children’s Hospital for VCU Health to the 47,900-square-meter Microsoft Multi-Phase Data Center. Microsoft Multi-Phase Data Center, has been able to avoid the recruitment challenges that have plagued the industry thanks to its decision to place people at the center of its business model. As testament to this, it was recently named a 2024 Construction Industry Top Workplace Award winner.
“Everything Atlantic does starts with our mission, vision and values,” Shriver says. “We see it as a true differentiator for us and a competitive advantage that sets us apart in our industry.
“It’s not something that is at all common in construction, but we really mean it when we say ACI builds not by counting people, but by making people count. That’s helping us to bring in great folks, but also retain them, which is the name of the game in construction right now.
“Whoever has the best team, and is able to build the best team, will be the most successful.”
Revisiting the company’s visions, mission and values was one of the first priorities Shriver tackled when he became CEO of the Richmond, Virginia-headquartered business in January 2020, seven years after he first joined as Director of Project Management.
“We didn’t necessarily change them, but we updated them for who we want to be and where we want to go,” he explains.
That was the first step. The next was to ramp up the company’s modular construction capabilities, which, until that point, were being harnessed solely for its own projects.
“We were taking sections of projects that we were building as the prime mechanical and electrical contractor, putting them on a steel frame and building that in our fabrication shops in central Virginia,” he explains.
His step up to the C-suite marked a shift, however, toward harnessing ACI’s capabilities in modular construction to open up the market geographically.
“It’s very difficult to travel to do construction the traditional way. What usually happens is that we set up an office and then undertake repeat work within a two-hour radius of that office,” he explains.
Such a setup has its limits, however, as different geographies ebb and flow. Modular construction, on the other hand, is a way to avoid market cycles.
“We can now pursue projects anywhere in the United States – even internationally,” he explains.
The shift is also a key part of ACI’s strategy to bridge the skilled trades gap. “We’re trying to get significantly more done with the same number of people by increasing safety, quality and productivity,” he says.
Identifying the opportunity was one thing, but turning it into reality required serious investment. “Since we would be doing so much more work under our roof versus out on the job sites, we knew we needed more space,” Shriver explains.
He needs only to look out the window from his office to see the result of this realization: ACI’s ‘HQ2’, inaugurated in December 2024, is an immense, 15,800-square-meter space costing roughly US$25 million, dedicated to modular construction built on a seven-hectare block adjacent to its existing 15,800-square-meter headquarters and fabrication facility, which is on 10 hectares.
“The two buildings are just a few hundred yards away from each other, and parts and pieces are flowing back and forth between the two facilities on a daily basis,” he says, adding that the new space is dedicated to assembling large structural steel components on which piping, electrical, plumbing and fire protection systems can be assembled.
One added bonus for international companies working with ACI? An understanding of the metric system.
“In engineering school, I came to love the metric system,” Shriver says. “And it’s something we can help with. We get brought on board when these companies are building a new United States facility to help out with a whole array of cultural questions as well, even down to how do people take a break, what does a lunch break even mean – and what sort of facilities are expected that don’t have to do with what the company’s business is, such as break and nature areas.”
Along with the new modular space, the company is bolstering its facilities in Suffolk, Roanoke and Sterling in Northern Virginia and Wilmington, North Carolina. It’s a tightly planned network, each within two-to-four hours’ drive from each other, with Richmond at the center.
“They don’t have a lot of fabrication capabilities, but they have an office and storage capabilities in those markets,” he says. “We can fabricate here, ship to Northern Virginia or North Carolina, where they can receive them and install when ready,”
Shriver acknowledges that challenges to success lie in breaking the traditional chain of contracting.
“The construction industry has contracted the same way for decades,” he explains. “An owner hires an architect, engineer and general contractor, and then the general contractor hires the sub-contractors and the scopes are well defined.”
Modular construction, however, requires a change to that tried-and-tested construction method.
“We’re not necessarily doing the entire electrical system or the entire mechanical system of a project, and it’s not broken out separately,” Shriver continues. “We can do multiple pieces of the building where traditionally that is broken up into very defined scopes. It requires an owner to view the way their building gets constructed differently.”
Nevertheless, the change is worth it. “This is an opportunity to get building done better for everybody,” he says.
“By going modular, multiple facets can be completed at the same time. We can be building the mechanical and electrical systems here in Richmond at the same time as the site is being prepared, so the systems that we build don’t have to wait for the building; they can be built ahead of time.”
Another advantage is safety. “We’re building in a very controlled environment that has a significantly better safety record than out on the sites,” he says.
“That’s a big focal point for us. That’s one way we focus on people. Everything else we do doesn’t matter if people don’t go home safely to their families every day.”
But the benefits don’t end there. “We can achieve better productivity rates, as we have more mechanized and automated systems and a lot of machinery that can be used here that you just can’t use on a job site,” he says.
“And because it’s a controlled environment, we have repeatable steps and additional quality checks in place. The products are done right the first time, so there is less rework and the owner ends up with a building of significantly higher quality.”
Non-disclosure agreements prevent Shriver from discussing specific project details, but he does share that the markets where ACI is seeing demand for modular construction both within the United States and internationally are healthcare, higher education, chemicals manufacturers, data centers and advanced manufacturing.
“Those types of projects are popping up everywhere in the world right now, and you build them very similarly, whether it’s going to be in the United States or in another country,” he explains.
Another important revenue stream are those international companies coming into the United States, to whom ACI can offer a consistency in construction across the world.
“We are currently working with several companies overseas who are also taking the first steps in building up their operations in the United States,” he explains. “We can take these same products, these same facility solutions and ship them to any of their facilities globally.”
Yet ACI is much more than modular, he emphasizes, and diversity is a key element to ACI’s strategy. “When we talk about diversity here at Atlantic, it means a lot more than it probably does at other companies, and it’s certainly a big competitive advantage for us,” he says.
“We do many things under one roof, so not just mechanical work, which is piping and plumbing and sheet metal and HVAC [heating, ventilating and air-conditioning], but we also do electrical work, structural steel, blasted paint, coatings on steel as well as some of the low voltage wiring and fire alarms.”
Its competitors in the space, however, are only doing bits of pieces of that, he points out.
Diverse also applies to its people. “We think that bringing in multiple people with different backgrounds can really bring us the best solution. One point of view never does,” he says.
As a team, Shriver is working to build and maintain a culture of continuous improvement. “We like to say that the only thing that is constant is consistent, positive change,” he explains.
“If you’re not getting just a little bit better every day, you’re basically standing still – and falling behind. And if you’re not the one constantly pushing to get better every day, someone is going to catch you and pass you by.”
Everything is susceptible to fall under the lens to ensure this culture is upheld. “We’re also building out our software systems differently to automate some of the processes that have really stood in the way of efficiency,” Shriver adds.
“Certainly it’s also a focus to look at the way we’re installing in the field and the way we’re building in the shops, to empower those who use those processes to make changes that end up improving their daily life.”
AI is not something that is new to ACI. “AI has been helping us for a long time,” Shriver says. “Our computers know what we’re looking for before we even finish typing.”
In the past 12 months, ACI has been harnessing some of the off-the-shelf products that are now available for administrative-type tasks, such as reviewing documents, contracts and data.
“That leaves people with more time on their hands to look after some of the other more detailed aspects of the construction work we need to do,” he says.
As a leader, he embodies this culture himself by always being open to feedback.
“I tell everybody every day that if they don’t like something I’m doing or if they think I should do something better, to share it. Just because I’m CEO doesn’t mean that I can’t receive feedback from everyone else in the company,” he says.
From there, it’s essential to embrace that feedback. “You have to learn how to incorporate it,” he says.
While he is focused on all the core values at ACI, Shriver admits he has a favorite.
“It’s ‘positively tenacious,’” he says. “We want our employees to be tenacious because we absolutely need to solve the problems of our customers. Positively means we’re having fun while we’re doing it.
“There’s a real concentration on helping our employees have fun, not only while they’re at work, but while they’re doing their work. That’s why it has become intertwined in our core values.”
Beyond making ACI a desirable place for people to work, Shriver hopes that this translates across the construction industry as a whole.
“We have peer groups where we share with other companies across the country, and a lot of our senior management lead committees for industry groups,” he says.
“Our industry has been very slow to evolve compared to others, so we’re hoping that we can be a part of helping to bring the whole industry up. But you can’t be afraid.”
That’s where the culture of continuous improvement comes in.
“We can show everybody what we’re doing but by the time they get there we feel like we’ll already be five years ahead,” he says.
Shriver may have plenty on his plate, but he is still unwavering in his ultimate goal.
“We want to make ACI the best company on the planet,” he says. “That’s our north star.”