The construction industry lost one of its quiet leaders December 7. Dwight Kuhn passed away at home yesterday. Dwight was a fixture in the industry and one of the rare people who was willing to stay in the background. He was also one of the classic American success stories. Dwight married his high school sweetheart, Kathy. He joined Jendoco Construction right out of school, at age 18, and worked for them for 44 years, retiring as president in 2013. Dwight was a big part of the successes Pete Dozzi had building Jendoco and served Tom Murphy and Dom Dozzi well until he retired.

I was fortunate to have a weekly conversation with Dwight when I owned the Pittsburgh Construction News. We shared information about what was on the streets and I was always happy (and surprised) when I could tell Dwight something he didn’t know. I was also lucky to be around the process when Jendoco was working through getting Scott Hall at CMU. I think it was the last project Dwight worked on at Jendoco and it was kind of a classic Dwight Kuhn job. Even though he was president of the company at the time, Dwight oversaw the many estimates and his knowledge of what was on the campus and underground at CMU, and his ability to put a building together in his head, was invaluable to getting the project out of the ground. Ralph Horgan and his team at CMU still tell stories of how Dwight sketched out solutions to problems they didn’t know existed while the building was being designed.

The way the industry changed over the past 30 years drove Dwight as crazy as the rest of us but I never saw him take a bad day out on anyone. He was a nice guy and I think that mattered to him. My day always got better when Dwight called and I’m going to miss him. I got to see him last at the GBA’s annual gala, where his son Michael received an award for service to the industry. He knew that his illness wasn’t going to give him a lot more time on this Earth – and he wasn’t happy about that – but he accepted what was going to come and was grateful for what he had – a great family and great friends. My option that night was to work the room like a good networker or sit down and have a drink with my friend Dwight. That was an easy call to make.

You can read Dwight’s obituary from the Post-Gazette here.

On Tuesday, Pete Dozzi passed away. His death is the latest of the giants of the Renaissance II era in the construction industry. Over the past two years Ish McLaughlin, Don Mosites and Joe Massaro, among others, have also passed on. That’s a lot of pure story-telling gone and some business wisdom too.

Pete’s story is one that wouldn’t happen today. He founded Jendoco at age 27, after the owner of Branna Construction wavered on promises of selling the company to Pete (his description of the events was more colorful). Prior to that confrontation, Branna’s owner had relied on Pete, going so far as to ship him drawings at the military base in Texas where Pete was stationed so that he could bid projects for Branna. It’s inconceivable that an owner would trust a kid just out of civil engineering school with managing a bid today, even if the estimator was in the office next door.

I had the chance to get to know Pete only in the last ten years. The man had a lot of stories but a few things really stood out to me. He was unbelievably generous and passed that down to his kids and his company. The people who worked for Jendoco stayed. Laborers and executives (including presidents of the company) commonly worked their whole careers at Jendoco. Pete laughed a lot. I’m sure he had a lot of money but he seemed to really appreciate small gestures.

I did business with Jendoco when I owned the Pittsburgh Construction News but we started just as Pete was transitioning into retirement. Jendoco called out of the blue one day to ask how much it would cost to subscribe for one month. We didn’t have one month pricing but came up with something. I remember grousing about it at the time, thinking how cheap Jendoco must be that they couldn’t come up with $200 to try it for 90 days like others had. It was years later that I found out the opposite was true. One of Pete’s long-time friends, Dwight Kuhn, told me that Pete expected Jendoco’s vendors to make money so rather than ask for a month free – like almost everyone else did – Jendoco expected to pay us while they decided whether to use us. Jendoco subscribed after that month and never left us. That was a humbling story to hear some ten years later.

Another delightfully humbling moment with Pete came at a lunch we shared a few years ago. He had invited me to meet with him and his son Dom to discuss an idea for an article Pete thought I should write. I am capable of rattling on and enjoying the sound of my own voice a bit. Rather than interrupt or offend me, Pete waited until I took a breath and said, “I apologize. I haven’t been letting you eat your lunch.” Those are some people skills.

Joe Massaro’s funeral was Monday morning. The mass at St. Paul’s Cathedral gave anyone attending a good idea of what was important to Joe during his life. His highest priority was family.

A beautiful funeral mass isn’t exactly the setting for story telling, however, and that’s a bit of a shame when it comes to Joe Massaro. His life and career are a treasure trove of stories. I had the privilege of spending a lot of time with Joe just before the onset of his Alzheimer’s disease. His sons had asked me to help document his life story for Joe’s many grandchildren. Over the course of a year, I heard hundreds of stories, many of which have been told repeatedly through the years by Joe or his sons. The one story that hasn’t been told nearly enough was how Joe’s business nearly failed and recovered. Those four or five years scarred Joe and he was understandably happy to have put the period in the past, but the experience also galvanized his already close family.

Joe was remarkably candid in talking about the bad decisions and bad luck that led to his company’s troubles. The battle to save the business brought two of his sons into the business. Joe talked with great respect about how hard those two, Joe III and Steve, fought to help right the ship. His other son, David, later joined the business as well.

When Joe told me the story of that period, it was also pretty clear that he leaned even more heavily on his wife Carol to endure the battle. He spoke of not wanting to get out of bed in the morning – comparing it to going to war every day – and said it was Carol and their daughter Linda who pushed him each day. He said Carol reminded him that no one was going to fix the problems for him.

Joe gets credit for his determination in turning his company around. He didn’t take such credit in retelling the story of that time in his life. He sincerely believed that it was his family that made the difference and it’s probably true that without that combined effort Massaro Corp. would not have survived.

It made Joe unhappy that his mistakes changed the plans his children had made but the crisis galvanized the family in a way that none of his successes had. Creating a business that would be a family legacy was a driving motivation for Joe Massaro. He may have been uncomfortable with how that legacy was created but there is little doubt that it’s a legacy that has endured.