(L-R): Woody Ferguson, utility superintendent; Chad Abernethy, president and CEO; Kurt Abernethy, vice president of construction; and Kyle Abernethy, vice president of development, all of Abernethy Contracting LLC.
(Photo courtesy of BuildWitt.)
The ancient, but well-known proverb, "Fortune favors the bold," certainly applies to Chad Abernethy, who has twice made audacious business moves in his short career.
Most recently, the 35-year-old Charlotte contractor and executive orchestrated the merger of his former company, Barton Contracting Corp., with the one founded by his grandfather and operated by his father, Hal Abernethy Inc. (later Hal Abernethy Contracting) in 1973.
The new firm, Abernethy Contracting LLC, came into existence Jan. 1, while its new office and shop are currently under construction on Brookford Street near Westinghouse Boulevard in south Charlotte. By combining the two sitework companies, Chad Abernethy employs approximately 150 people, all but 15 of whom had previously worked for Barton.
In 2012, at only 25, he started Barton Contracting with his business partner, Bart Ward, having known each other from when they worked at Union Paving in Monroe. Together, they built Barton into a Charlotte-area business specializing in paving, milling, concrete, and stabilization on projects as diverse as transportation department jobs, private development and multi-family and subdivision work, Abernethy said.
So, in his case, the old saying may be better read as, "Fortune favors the bold...and the young."
Love for Dirt Job Sites
Abernethy grew up around job sites and worked for his elders for four years during high school and after graduation, but his affection for the construction business came to him as a boy.
When asked what it was that attracted him, Abernethy was quick with his answer.
"I think it is the difference that you can make on a job site in just an eight-hour day," Abernethy said. "Number one is just being outside. As a young man, I was around the equipment and I had the thought, ‘If I go to work today, I may be able to run a roller or start out on a dozer.' In ninth grade, I was running a Terex pan and the thought of it just kept me wanting to get better and better. Then, as I got older, I realized that being able to change the landscape of a site and see what you have done at the end of the day is what I liked best."
The impetus for opening his own company came when he saw how hard it was for his grandfather and father to book jobs in the wake of the 2008-09 economic downturn.
"I remember the conversation my dad and granddad had with me at that time," he said. "They had some great real estate investments, and it was a smaller company then, so the cash on hand was good. They did not want to work for what the market was paying at the time, and I just could not grasp that. At 22 years old, I was young and dumb. I wanted to grow this business, buy new equipment, and hire more people. I loved my dad and told him how much I liked working for him, but I had to try something different."
Abernethy recalled often staying late in the office to put bids together for the company and when his grandfather looked at them the next morning, he would say, "‘Chad, that is too cheap. We are not going to work for that.'
"Looking back now, that was some of the wisest counsel I have ever received," he said. "[My granddad] used to say, ‘I would rather be rested and hungry than tired and hungry.' So, I left to go out on my own, a move that strained our relationship for a few years."
By forming his own company, Abernethy said he learned many lessons, but he also was in a growth mindset that steered him to find a good partner in Bart Ward and learn the paving business, which was a new trade for him.
Differing Goals Lead to Partnership's End
After 10 years as business associates in a successful venture, though, Abernethy could tell that Ward was ready to move on to other challenges. In March 2022, the two had a heart-to-heart talk where Abernethy realized that their time in business was ending.
"My conversation with Bart confirmed to me that I would outlast him at Barton Contracting because he would leave well before I was ready to hang it up," he said. "We always knew we had similar short-term but differing long-term goals."
The idea had already began brewing within Abernethy's mind that he could merge his late grandfather's almost 50-year-old construction company — run by Tommy and, later, his younger sons, Kyle and Kurt — with Barton Contracting to create a larger firm offering more services. So, Abernethy invited Kyle to lunch one day to discuss the possibility.
"I asked him, ‘Kyle, what does it look like if we bring the two companies together?' He laughed and answered, ‘No way,' because at that time, Barton was almost eight times larger than Hal Abernethy Contracting. He added, ‘It is a great idea, but no.'"
Abernethy's persistence paid off, though, as a merger agreement was reached, and today, Kyle continues to help manage Abernethy Contracting's pre-construction and project management department, with the youngest brother, Kurt, managing all the grading and utility crews. All three are co-owners of the new firm.
Now, the new and expanded Abernethy Contracting combines the expertise of each of the earlier two contracting firms into one. The earlier iterations of Hal Abernethy Inc./Hal Abernethy Contracting had always specialized in small- to medium-size site work, Abernethy said, including demolition, grading, erosion control, storm drain and utility installation. On occasion, it would subcontract work to Barton Contracting to handle paving services.
"My dad's dream was always to have his three boys work together, and I think that when I left, that hurt him," Abernethy said. "Two years ago, no one saw this merger taking place, but it took me to understand what Bart wanted long-term and watching both my brothers become the pros that they are. And the team that we have assembled around us is just wonderful."
When Barton Contracting was in business, the company worked on many different roadway projects as a subcontractor for larger firms like Blythe Construction, based in Charlotte, including the multi-million-dollar widening of Interstate 85 in both North and South Carolina, the expansion of I-485 around Charlotte, and countless city street resurfacings and widenings, Abernethy said.
"We were given the task of installing around 5,000 feet of storm drain, and we did well over 200,000 square yards of full-depth asphalt milling, equating to 28 miles of travel lane," he said. "On the I-485 job in Charlotte, we did approximately 10,000 feet of pipe work or storm drain, and maybe a little less milling work than at the I-85 project, roughly four to five miles long."
It was during Barton Contracting's first months in business that Abernethy said he and Ward were taking on all types of jobs just to get enough cash to call Jonathan Law at Charlotte's Carolina Cat to inquire about buying a paver.
"We started off buying a LeeBoy 8515 paver, a Cat CB24 asphalt roller, and followed up with Cat skid steers," Abernethy said. "Later, we began acquiring track hoes and dozers, plus a used Cat 12H motor grader."
But as Barton grew, its owners knew that competition would force them to expand beyond being a paving-only contractor to one that offered more services, which, in turn, would require a variety of construction equipment.
"We were building some great relationships and getting good customers, many of whom would ask questions like, ‘Can you lay this pipe for us' or "Can you grade this subdivision or turnkey this road widening.'" Abernethy said. "To do that type of work, we had to have more machinery."
Through his grandfather and father, he was brought up to understand that buying Cat products through Carolina Cat was the best route to a winning construction company, he said.
"I was bred to buy Cat equipment because they primarily ran Cat machines. At that age, you don't think about resale or all the other things that as a business owner you must consider, but now I understand that the service and product support, plus the reliability of the Cat brand, means that you are not going to go wrong with Carolina Cat. [Law's] help and the service from Dane Bambach has been fantastic over the years."
As a result of Abernethy's relationship with Carolina Cat, he owns more than 50 machines, a fact that has allowed his companies to be able to pave roadways every workday except for those when the weather is bad.
"I would tell Ben Schwanberg, my business development manager, to just get us on a project so we could show up, do a great job, and be contracted to do the next one for the client," Abernethy said. "Always doing what we promised to do started the rapid growth here."
Young Leadership Hints at Bright Future
When merging his family's company with his own in 2022, he structured Abernethy Contracting to be prosperous for many years to come. Part of that is due to its three co-owners, Chad, Kyle and Kurt each being under 35 years old and surrounding themselves with skilled people.
"We have made a conscious and financial decision to stack solid talent around us and the numbers on paper show the change of culture that has come along with that," Abernethy said. "Not that it was ever a bad culture, but there is now a different attitude up and down these halls, and on our job sites. We are rowing in the same direction, we have a clearer vision, we have our values in place, and it shows." CEG
Eric Olson
A writer and contributing editor for CEG since 2008, Eric Olson has worked in the business for more than 40 years.
Olson grew up in the small town of Lenoir, NC in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, where he began covering sports for the local newspaper at age 18. He continued to do that for several other dailies in the area while in college at Appalachian State University. Following his graduation, he moved on to gain experience at two other publications before becoming a real estate and special features writer and editor at the Winston-Salem Journal for 10 years. Since 1999 he has worked as a corporate media liaison and freelance writer, in addition to his time at CEG.
He and his wife, Tara, have been married for 33 years and are the parents of two grown and successful daughters. His hobbies include collecting history books, watching his beloved Green Bay Packers and caring for his three dogs and one cat.
Read more from Eric Olson here.
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