Some of the most rewarding professional journeys aren't linear. For many leaders in the industry, their career trajectory is punctuated by pivots and unexpected opportunities.
Case in point: Scott Kramer, President & CEO of Spartan Contracting. Scott's path to leading a fast-growing construction firm wasn't a straight line. He started his career pursuing engineering in college—until a single construction management elective changed everything.
That turning point launched him into a profession where he not only thrived but also paved the way for Spartan Contracting, a firm serving financial institutions, healthcare, utilities, retail and more across the Southeast.
We caught up with Scott recently to discuss the lessons from his non-linear journey and how technology shapes Spartan's operations.
Spartan Contracting was originally formed in 2012, but I didn’t go full-time with it until 2014. We grew organically, focusing on my area of expertise at that time, which was financial institutions. I can’t really talk about who we work for due to NDA’s, so I like to tell everybody that if it's a bank you've heard of, we probably do work for them.
We win a lot of new work based on word of mouth and referrals. This has led us to other projects with utility companies, as well as opportunities in retail, and we're starting to explore our first healthcare opportunity, which is extremely exciting for me. My early career constituted nearly nothing but healthcare work and I’m excited at getting back into that space.
We're primarily based in the Southeast. We just bought a building that'll be our new corporate headquarters in Tampa, which is super cool. We've moved into a new office in Miami / Ft. Lauderdale that’s more centrally located, so that'll be good for the team down there. Additionally, we will be opening a new office in Atlanta soon, followed by expansion into Texas in June.
I've always been in and around construction, and I thought I wanted to be an engineer. That was my major for the first couple of years at Michigan State. (Side note: this is where our company name, Spartan, comes from.)
Anyway, I was failing miserably at being an engineer. But then I took an elective in construction management, and it changed the trajectory of my entire life. I fell in love with it, and it came naturally to me. I went from nearly being on academic probation as an engineer to being on the dean's list and getting straight 4.0s.
I finished up school in 2004 and went back home to Chicago and earned my early stripes with a couple of large, nationwide GCs there. Which is what led me ultimately to Tampa Bay.
Fast forward a few years and I worked at a company for four years that did nothing but bank work. I eventually moved back to the area to start their Tampa office, which was how I got back to Florida. A couple of years after my return to Florida, they found out that I had started Spartan and was doing work on the side for extra income. I wasn't competing with them or anything like that, but they released me because of it. I didn't have a non-compete, and now I compete with them every day.
Changing lives. That is 100% my favorite part of doing this. We still have our very first employees with the company, and seeing them and others grow in their lives because of the opportunity that Spartan has provided has been rewarding.
I always like to say it in a certain way because people like to thank me for everything. But I always respond with, "All I ever did was give you an opportunity and you did the rest." One of my favorite one liners from my dad is “the lord helps those that help themselves.”
Seeing all these people buy beautiful new homes and take care of their families is incredible.
I don't have a specific timeline, because it has to be right timing for everyone, but it has always been a goal of ours at Spartan to implement an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan). We've always run the company in that manner. Our goal every year is to allocate at least 33% of all profits to employees in the form of a bonus. So when that happens, it makes me so happy.
And after the bonus payouts, I love hearing from folks what they blow their bonus money on. I have one Spartan who has a special needs son, and his son responds really well to horses. This employee used his bonus to purchase the property next to him that had a horse barn on it. Now, he has horses essentially in his backyard for his son. That just gives me chills. I love that.
Our biggest challenge with technology today is twofold. The first problem is that our field team is not always the best with technology. They are good at lots of things but sometimes working in that new fancy app can be a challenge to get them up to speed.
We're rolling out Autodesk Build to our team this year, and they are going to have training along with that. We do our best to provide as many resources as possible to our team. Implementation and adoption are always a challenge, and I don't know if that's ever going to go away.
The second challenge at Spartan is that our software stack isn't a stack. It's a series of silos that don't talk to each other. It's been an issue for us for a number of years now, but we're finally starting to get some traction thanks to Autodesk Build.
Now, when making software decisions, the number one question we have is, "Does it integrate with Autodesk Build?"
That's our goal over the next year. We want to continue exploring and implementing those integrations. For example, we're looking into ERP systems that work with Autodesk Build. The goal is to find a new ERP that will communicate with Build so my project managers and team don't ever have to get into our ERP system. They can do everything from Build, and that's the low-hanging fruit that we want to go after first.
It's hard to say at this point. We've mostly been in a testing phase this year. Historically, we almost never invited anyone outside of Spartan into our PlanGrid environment. But with the move to Autodesk Build—and having more resources to properly set up permissions—we're finally starting to bring third parties into our ecosystem.
That's something we've always wanted to do, and so far, it's been a good experience.
I was actually just talking to my team in the back—one of them helps with a lot of our technology initiatives—and I'm excited to get the dashboard set up in Build. That's something I want to have in place before the end of the year so leadership can easily pop in, see what needs to be seen, act on it, or just move on with the day.
As for differences from PlanGrid, there are quirks like with any system. For example, my team used to send daily reports out as PDFs—that's just how we've always done it. The only reason was habit. With Build, it's a bit of an adjustment. Now, if you want to see the daily report, you have to log into the system. It's just about breaking those old habits.
I love the bid leveling tool in BuildingConnected, and I encourage my team to use it as much as possible. It's not just the bid leveling itself—I can't remember the exact name of the report it generates, but I think it's called the detailed bid review or something similar.
I'm dating myself a bit here, but we used to call them scope sheets or circle sheets back in the day. When you were bidding on a job, you'd literally print them out with all the bids side by side—by trade, by bid package—and make sure all the bids are apples to apples and properly leveled. That's essentially what this tool does, and it's my personal favorite.
I'll also add that I love the prequalification tool for subs. A lot of our clients are big on risk and compliance so the prequalification tool for subs does a great job of mimicking what our clients request from us. This gives us a great insight into which subcontractor is the best selection for each individual project. Fantastic tool, but once again - implementation and adoption are the tough part.
I don't want to tip my hand too much, but part of the plan with moving into our new headquarters is to use some of the space we don't have an immediate need for as a construction incubator. Or, more specifically, a construction company incubator. I've got some ideas I want to experiment with, for lack of a better term, and I’m not the only one inside Spartan with some innovative ideas we would like to try out. It will be a center for innovation, and I’m super excited about it.
I definitely see Autodesk Build playing a role in that. Some of the concepts I'm exploring have a design component, possibly even a BIM component. And if things go the way I hope, we could drop those directly into Autodesk Build when we go to construct them—both on the preconstruction side and in the field as well.
I'm excited about the potential to create new companies and opportunities out of this, to help grow new entrepreneurs and CEOs, and to continue contributing to the construction community. Autodesk products will absolutely have a place in that vision.
You can make money in this industry. Don't let people—or the stereotypes—fool you. I strongly encourage people to get into construction. That's a big reason why I want to start this construction business incubator / center for innovation.
I'll never forget when I switched from engineering to construction management. Someone said to me, "You're never going to make any money doing that." That rubbed me the wrong way then, and it still does today.
But admittedly, I don’t do this for the money, this is an exciting career. I’m pumped to get up and come into the office or field each day. I've seen and done things most people never get to experience. I've been inside regional cash vaults where there's literally cash stacked on pallets—and people stand on it to change lightbulbs. I've worked on job sites next to massive freighters being loaded for shipment. I've been inside hospitals and seen the inner workings of mission critical infrastructure. You don't get that kind of access sitting at a desk all day.
And then there are the people. They're the best and sometimes the most challenging part of the job, but never boring. No two days are the same. There's always a new issue to solve, and you've got to figure it out under pressure, often with a deadline looming. It keeps you on your toes.
It's not for everyone, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. I really do encourage people to get into this field. It’s stressful, but very rewarding. With tangible results every day.
