Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 18, 1993 TAG: 9304160435
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GEORGE KEGLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
A QUIET DEPARTURE
BILLY Branch is quietly retiring as chairman of a $100 million group of construction companies. The smiling, laid-back Roanoke Valley businessman says he wants to devote more time to a Christian youth organization.His retirement as chairman of the Branch Group at the end of this month follows in style the informality long associated with Branch. He's 65, but appears 10 years younger.
He has been the driving force behind the growth of three major construction-related companies, and he did that just as quietly.
Branch Highways, one of the largest in its specialized field in the Southeast, has won a $28 million contract for a four-mile Fairfax County Parkway and has completed Interstate 81 truck scales under construction in Botetourt County.
The construction division, Branch Associates, is responsible for building the Roanoke Airport Marriott hotel, an addition for the Elizabeth Arden cosmetics plant, Snowshoe and Silver Creek ski resorts in West Virginia and several new buildings at Radford University and Virginia Tech, and a recently won contract for a new prison in Buckingham County.
Branch has been delegating executive decisions and gradually withdrawing from the business for several years.
"I've delegated myself out of a job," he said. "But some days I'd like to have a say." He spends much of his time raising money for the Young Life organization's efforts to build a national network of Christian youth camps. And in Roanoke, he's building chairman for the Habitat for Humanity home-construction program.
Branch came to Roanoke in 1955 and started working as a partner with his father-in-law, Claude McAlister, digging basements with a front-end loader. They built roads for subdivisions, and in 1963 he opened Branch & Associates.
For a few years, he built houses; and he started an environmental village atop Windy Gap Mountain on the Franklin County line. But his main business interest was in the three construction subsidiaries, working on roads, commercial structures and mechanical and electrical contracting.
"Each is dominant in its field" in this region, Branch said. For the fourth straight year, Engineering News Record - a national trade journal for the construction industry - has ranked Branch Highways among the nation's top 400 contractors for its work on roads, bridges and airports and its site work for factories, stores, dams and landfills.
Employees now own more than 80 percent of the companies through a stock-ownership plan, a factor Branch said gives personnel significant reason for working hard. Profits are invested in the stock plan, and employees receive their share when they retire or leave. Turnover is low, however.
"It makes me feel good that all of these employees can get a little bit of a bundle that will help them. It takes a lot in this day and time. . . . We can make them capitalists in that way."
Jim Harrison, president of Branch Associates, the commercial arm of the group, commended Branch's easy relationships with others "against a backdrop of human dignity, regardless of their status in life." The group founder has been helpful "as a sounding board for ideas." Harrison believes the stock ownership plan is "one of the real strengths" of the group.
Employee ownership also is "one reason we are able to succeed and to pass on responsibility. People feel they have a piece of the pie," said Ralph Shivers, president of the Branch highway unit and of the group, and who is in line to succeed Branch as chairman.
The stock plan gives young managers motivation to stay with the firm, said Mike Branch, a vice president for the highway company and the only one of Branch's eight children working in the company.
Mike Branch, oldest of the eight, has the job of estimating, bringing business to the company. He describes estimating the price of a contract as "an involved process. It has a lot of risk and makes Las Vegas look like pitching pennies against a wall.
"A lot more is expected" of an employee who bears the company name, he said. He's worked for the highway company about 13 years, with five years out to work for a Philadelphia contractor and to run his own business.
Shivers said Billy Branch had vision, and was willing to pass the family company on to employees. The founder had the initiative and he held the pieces together as the group expanded, he added.
Maury Strauss, a veteran Roanoke Valley home builder, called Branch "a very sharp businessman. . . . He has a knack for finding everybody's opinion and putting it to good use." Branch, a business partner with Strauss in office and industrial park ownership, is "a gentleman, a partner and a friend," he said.
The group "aggressively tried to increase our volume to make up for lost profit," Branch said with a chuckle. He has something to smile about. The three companies' overall volume of work jumped from $1.3 million in 1972 to $38 million in 1984 and is expected to pass $100 million this year.
Shivers reported a backlog valued at more than $60 million in road projects. The highway division is the largest of the three related companies, accounting for slightly more than half of the work force and 55 percent of the business.
Shivers is Branch's cousin and has been with the company for 25 years.
Harrison said he expects Branch Associates' 1993 volume will approach $25 million. Commercial building "was slammed by the recession. Building always is late to come back in the recovery," he said.
But on the drawing boards are a library addition, dormitory renovation and expansion of a hospital; and work for New River Castings in Radford totaling about $10 million. Also planned is a Virginia Tech dormitory that will cost about $7 million.
G.J. Hopkins Inc., an electrical-mechanical contractor acquired by the group in 1984, probably will do about $20 million in contracts this year, said Jerry Moorman, president. This includes electrical work for expansion of the Greensboro (N.C.) Coliseum, the new South Tower at Roanoke Memorial Hospital, mechanical work at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Salem and an addition for the Virginia Tech veterinary school.
All three companies are eyeing new state bond-issue construction as sources for new work. Some of that has started.
The group is setting up a company contribution investment plan for employees this month. The group will put up 25 cents for each employee dollar invested, up to $2,000. "You can't get 25 percent anywhere else," Moorman said.
Business associates and friends recognize that Branch is deeply religious, "but he doesn't wear it on his sleeve," Strauss said.
Branch said he doesn't advertise his Christian influence in his business, "but I hope it's evident."
He's spending a lot of time on visits and telephone contacts with prospective supporters of Young Life's ambitious $50 million program to build four camps and upgrade 10 others.
At the head of the list is a plan for an $8 million camp on a 278-acre tract at Rockbridge Alum Springs in Rockbridge County. When completed in about three years, that camp will accommodate about 325 high school youths and a staff of 125 each summer. At least seven buildings of the old 19th century spa have survived there.
Branch's easy laugh serves well in Young Life associations. Youth have a good time in this organization, and their advisers "kid about anything. . . . We may stop a prayer to laugh," he said.
Branch is close to his family and he hopes and prays they will share his spiritual enthusiasm, but that hasn't happened.
He and his wife, Betty, a Roanoke sculptor, have five daughters and three sons. They're into a variety of careers. Four live in the Roanoke Valley.
"We have a lot of fun," Branch said, whether he has a hand in raising Young Life money, building Habitat houses or roads and commercial structures.
\ THE COMPANY\ The Branch Group Inc., is a holding company with three major components:\ Branch & Associates Inc., a general contractor\ Branch Highways Inc., a builder of highways and heavy construction\ G.J. Hopkins Inc., a mechanical and electrical contractor\ \ HEADQUARTERS: Roanoke\ \ EMPLOYEES: 600\ \ HISTORY: The Branch Group grew out of McAlister Construction Co., started in Roanoke in 1955 by Billy H. Branch and his late father-in-law, Claude McAlister.\ \ OWNERSHIP: About 80 percent of the Branch Group is owned by an employee stock ownership plan. The reminder is held by Branch and a few top executives.
Branch, the company's chairman, is a native of Bells, Tenn., and an electrical engineering graduate of Georgia Tech. He is a past president of Roanoke Valley Economic Development Partnership; a board member of Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce; a national board member of Young Life Foundation, a Christian youth organization, and a director and building committee chairman for Habitat for Humanity of Roanoke.
\ MAJOR PROJECTS:\ Roanoke Airport Marriott Hotel, part of Virginia 419 in Roanoke County, ski resorts at Snowshoe and Silver Creek in West Virginia, a $28-million highway bypass at Fairfax, an $11-million prison in Buckingham County and the electrical work for the Dominion Tower, Norfolk Southern and Roanoke Memorial Hospital's new South Tower.
\ FINANCIAL DATA:\ As a privately held company, Branch does not release public financial statements. The value of its projects this year is expected to be about $100 million, the company said.
\ Source: The company
Keywords:
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