An avid sportsman, Beam, 51, loves spending time outdoors – making construction an ideal profession. But when the recession hit and jeopardized the future of his company, he aimed for survival and crossed over into new markets.Patiently waiting for his target has landed Steve Beam big bucks with both of his passions: hunting and construction.
Road to success
Beam got his first taste of the construction industry at age 12 working summers with his father’s asphalt company. He later joined Distributive Education Clubs of America (DECA), which allowed him to work with his dad part time during the school day.
Beam continued to follow in his father’s footsteps with asphalt work for a few more years before venturing into concrete projects, such as roadwork and street scraping, in the mid 1990s. “The asphalt projects were working me to death, so I got out of the market altogether,” Beam says. “Doing that allowed the business to grow a little, and it was easier to find workers for concrete jobs.”
Most of Beam’s projects were within a 50-mile radius of his office, but if he saw a slow period coming, he would look for work further away.
Out of the box
Like most in the construction industry, Beam’s business was not immune to the recession. “Construction can be a feast or famine sometimes,” he says.
In 2008, Steve Beam Construction experienced its first year in the red, losing $130,000 and going from 40 to 30 employees. “After losing the money, I realized we couldn’t bid cheap to just get jobs,” he says.
