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CONSTRUCTION
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The Industry’s Newspaper Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo
www.constructionnews.net H (210) 308-5800 H Volume 16 H Number 2 H FEBRUARY 2018
Unified goals
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Millwork on the move
UST’s Marshall D. Ryan (second from right) presents a check to the North Texas Warrior Golf Association.
ven on vacation, there’s always time to work, as Marshall D. Ryan, President and CEO of Unified Services of Texas Inc. (UST), learned. “Years ago, I got out of the Air Force and I took a two-week vacation to go see my mother in Albuquerque and consider what I was going to do for the rest of my life,” Ryan remembers. “She was dating a guy that was installing fuel tanks for [convenience store chain] Circle K. He needed help and he asked me if I would go to Colorado and put in some tanks. Of course, I had no clue what he was talking about, but I was doing nothing but lounging around the pool and so I said sure.” “I was always interested in construction even though it was not
Signature Millwork’s Melanie Kuhr and Jeff Makohon
what I was doing in the Air Force,” he continues. “Some of my family members had owned construction companies and I worked as a 10-year-old washing parking lots or sweeping a broom on summer breaks on some construction job. My grandfather was a union ironworker, so he had taught me to properly tie rebar when I was a kid. He had all of the tools in the garage and I was curious. I grew up around it so it did come naturally and I liked it.” The gig turned into a years-long job, and other than the seven years he spent as a residential construction business owner, he has been a strong presence in the underground tank world. In 1990, continued on Page 18
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efore Melanie Kuhr and Jeff Makohon acquired Signature Millwork in 2005, they were movers and shakers in corporate America – Kuhr worked with Proctor & Gamble and EDS and Makohon was a principal with CSC, a consulting company. Still, they wanted something different. “Jeff and I had a desire to be more entrepreneurial and to be able to see the results of our work as opposed to it being a spreadsheet or a PowerPoint that ended up in somebody’s shredder,” Kuhr says. “It was definitely a more tangible type of business to be in.” In the 13 years since, they have grown the company to 38 team members that do the whole life cycle process of architectural millwork – design, build,
finish and installation, including solid surface fabrication. They also outgrew their 20,000sf of cobbled-together space on Newkirk St. and moved operations last December to a 50,000sf facility on Merrell Rd. “The old workspaces were inefficient because we had to handle materials too much, so it was a great opportunity to find this building,” Kuhr says. “All of our operations are in one area now. It has given us an opportunity to improve our environment for our team and upgrade our workflow processes.” Even with this major goal recently reached, she says she and Makohon continue to set goals. continued on Page 18
‘Cool’ auto mall
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ears ago, Construction News had the opportunity to interview Mark and Linda Piepenbrok, the owners of WestWind Building Corporation. Westwind is a general contractor that specializes in automobile facilities, corporate offices, medical buildings and country clubs. Since our interview, Westwind continues building and remodeling many of the metroplex dealerships. Mark Piepenbrok founded the company in the fall of 1991. After completing Crest Auto Mall in Frisco, Westwind was called by none other than Clay Cooley to complete it’s second auto mall in Irving consisting of six buildings on 25 acres. Westwind built four new buildings and remodeled two of them. The total square footage was approximately 222,000. The dealers included Chevrolet, Chrysler/Jeep/Dodge and Kia. The owner of this development
is also Clay Cooley. Known for his memorable commercial line, “Come See Clay,” Cooley already had the Chrysler/Jeep Dodge and Kia dealerships in the area. The Chevrolet dealership was located across the highway on 183 on 25 acres. Cooley had the vision of relocating Kia and the Chrysler/ Jeep/Dodge to the Chevrolet site to create his auto mall. Westwind organized the team, consisting of architect Jim Harden, Jacobs and Associates and civil engineer Matt Moore, Clay Moore Engineering. Challenges of the project began with meeting The City of Irving’s 183 overlay district codes and maintaining each manufacturers requirements. Once construction started, the challenges were to meet the seven-month deadline to move the Chryster/Jeep/Dodge dealership into the Clay Cooley Auto Mall, Irving
continued on Page 18