On Aire Ep. 9 w/ Michael and Jim Clifford Transcript

[Intro – Host: Team Jensen]

Host: teaching you the art of industrial real estate this is on air with Team Jensen all right listeners welcome to episode nine of on air with Team Jensen today we have another set of Brothers with us from xcc we have Mike and Jim Clifford thanks for coming on today with us guys

Mike & Jim: thanks for having absolutely

Host: excited to get you on you know I have to say with the kstate gear we it’s nice as fan we finally have the upper hand… jump right into it if you guys want to share a little bit about where you’re from your background and also xcc and and that brand and name and kind of what you guys do here in town.

[The Clifford Brothers & Their Roles]

Mike: we’re two of three brothers… grew up together at Overland Park Kansas… went to K State and we both got construction Science degrees. We didn’t start working together until 2013… I’m vice president and a lead estimator as well… Jim really heads up the team that goes and executes projects.

Jim: I’m still on the project side so I’m a senior project manager for us… kind of separated but those two I don’t know they combine a lot.

[What is Mission Critical Construction?]

Host: the mission critical industry is an industry and is an interesting one that I don’t think you know a lot of the general public has a real full understanding on…

Mike: what mission critical construction is is essentially work on a building where the construction you’re doing cannot hinder the ongoing operation of the building. You can’t just turn the lights off in a building that’s processing all the cell phone traffic in a city… it’s really careful methodical risk averse construction. You might be working on a room that houses all of the servers… your client can’t have those servers go down because it affects their business.

[National Projects & Operations]

Host: what major Metropolitan areas are you guys in right now from a project standpoint?

Jim: we’ve got Milwaukee, New Orleans, we’re in Virginia Beach, Way South in McAllen Texas, Sacramento, Oklahoma City… we really follow the work and it just moves about.

Mike: we always work directly for the provider… sometimes it’s in a general contractor role and other times it’s in a construction manager role. The construction management role will get involved earlier in the project… help the architectural engineering team and the client inject constructibility into their project help with value engineering and scheduling.

[Recruiting & Culture at XCC]

Mike: recruiting has become a big focus of mine as we’ve started to grow a little bit faster in recent years… we feel like once we get a recruit’s attention and we get them to come visit the office and meet our people and learn our culture that they just buy in. Getting their attention in the first place that is the trick… at K State students aren’t using the job board that much anymore… we’re kind of ramping up the old internship program again.

[The Challenges of Lead Times]

Mike: generators went from taking 20 to 30 weeks worst case scenario to at one point in time it was about a hundred weeks to get a generator… nowadays we’re talking about buying equipment when the design is at 30% of the way through the design process just so that we know that by the time they make it through the rest of the 70% of the design… a year later that stuff is ready to show up.

[Living Close & Working Together]

Host: Kurt and I certainly have enjoyed working together… what’s that like working with your dad?

Jim: Mike and Jim lived about a mile away… Jim moved in first then Mike moved in next door… we’re about 200 feet apart… things at work are going pretty well if you’re willing to move next door.

[Wrap-Up]

Host: well thanks again for coming on… best way to get a hold of you?

Mike: email me mmc@https://www.google.com/search?q=xccnc.com… we’re on LinkedIn and our website is https://www.google.com/search?q=xccnc.com… stop by South Lake if you want to hit some breaking putts… I want to start challenging other companies to come to our office and put against the likes of our team.

Host: yeah well thank you.