James (Jim) Dolente, Sr., CEO of Madison Concrete Construction
by James J. Dolente, Sr., CEO, Madison Concrete Construction
It’s a new year, and we’ve just celebrated our 45th year in business. We thank our partners and customers for helping us to remain successful and continuing to grow our business. We are also grateful for our employees and field staff.
When I started Madison Concrete Construction with my brother in 1969, I had great hopes for the future. I knew that to get the business off the ground and to make it successful, we’d have to put our hearts and souls – as well and hard work and knowledge – into the business.
Now, it’s 45 years later and we have steadily grown the company to its present position as one of the largest commercial concrete contractors in the Philadelphia region. But we’ve grown in a way of which we can be proud. Our company prides itself on having a reputation and approach for being honest, hardworking, reliable and safe.
How did we get here? There are so many aspects that have made us who we are. One secret to our success is “sticking to our knitting.” As an entrepreneur, there is often temptation to go in other directions and take other risks when you find success in one thing. However, this doesn’t mean you should try to be successful in everything. By specializing in one area of construction, we have become a master of one area, not a jack of all trades. In an age of specialization, it’s important to maintain an expertise and be very good at one area and not try to do everything.
We also believe in being conservative with our balance sheet and not being completely risk averse but understanding when to take risks and when to take a pass. For a very long time, we didn’t try to invest any company money in areas that we didn’t know anything about. Our business is our golden goose. As we made money, we were conservative but reinvested in our business with equipment and people. We are not afraid to invest in the best talent and acquire the best equipment to go with them.
Our own people are a driving factor for our success: hiring excellent people with the expertise to make quality decisions. We are not shy about investing in well-qualified people and adequately compensating them for their value. We like to empower these people to make decisions – and have them know that we’ll support their decisions.
We also strive to be customer driven. It’s our mission statement to be responsive not only to our employees but to our customers and vendors. We try to live this every day. It’s not about us. It’s about them. We thank everyone who has been part of our success and allowing us to operate in a manner in which we truly believe.
We would love to hear about the secrets to your success and how we take our experience and partner with you. Here’s to the next 45 years.