Moss's Second Act

In Its Second Full Year, Moss & Associates Had More Than $240 Million in Florida Revenue in '05

By Scott Judy

Moss & Associates started out wanting to "fly under the radar," said Russell Anderson, senior vice president with the Fort Lauderdale-based firm.

That didn't last long. In just its second full year, Moss & Associates earned more than $240 million in revenue from Florida business during 2005 - and $300 million overall. That kind of unprecedented growth quickly put the firm on nearly everyone's radar in South Florida. And the blip is only getting bigger.

When told that the company's revenue projections for 2006 had already been revealed to Southeast Construction, company founder Bob Moss quickly asked one of his senior vice presidents, Scott Tretheway, "What'd you tell him?"

Tretheway, with an ear-to-ear grin, can only say, "$750 million."

Moss grimaced, a grin subdued and partially hidden as he puts his head in his hands for a minute. It's a bit of an act, for sure. He looks up and says, "We could do that."

And there's no denying Moss is loving it. The 22-year veteran of Centex Construction - who headed that firm's Florida operations for many years and was chairman of Centex Construction Group for his last three years there - is hedging his bets slightly, however. "My guess would be a little less, because things just don't happen that fast."

Or maybe they do, if you're Bob Moss.

Unprecedented

Things have steamrolled quickly for Moss.

In 2003, Moss said he simply decided to "take a break" from the corporate world and negotiated an 18-month noncompete agreement with Centex. The agreement allowed Moss to start a company, but prevented him from soliciting Centex employees and existing Centex clients.

"We enjoyed a lot of success together," Moss said of his time at Centex. "They've got an outstanding team." (Centex officials declined to comment for this story.)

He relaxed for a few months, but soon started working on a project with his son, Scott, who was exempted from the noncompete.

"Over time, I thought maybe we'd have a decent-sized construction company," Moss said, indicating a level of about $200 million in annual revenue was an early thought.

Suddenly, though - about when his non-compete expired - his longtime personal relationships in South Florida started paying off big-time. Joe Harris, who headed up Florida operations for Bovis Lend Lease, said he wanted in, as did Mike Little and Ted Adams, a couple of heavy-hitters from Moss's days at Centex.

All three men, along with Ron Dunn, are now executive vice presidents. Bruce Moldow, who worked with Moss at Centex for about seven years, also came on board, and is now EVP and chief legal officer. Tretheway, who serves as senior vice president for risk management, also is a former Centex employee. Anderson, who is senior VP of preconstruction, came over from Turner Construction Co.

On the first day after his noncompete expired, the company won a $60 million contract at Nova Southeastern University. A contractor that had won many projects for that owner, Miller & Solomon, had started to close shop, and Moss was an early beneficiary. (Additionally, Nova Southeastern was not covered by the noncompete agreement.)

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More Centex folks drifted over as that happened, Moss added.

From there, it's been mostly uphill. Moldow said that in a four-month span at about this time, company backlog soared from about $100 million to more than $1 billion.

Chuck Nielson Sr., president of Nielson & Co., Miami Lakes, one of the state's largest bonding agents - and Moss's surety - said he's never seen anything like it.

"I've been in the business in South Florida since the mid-1960s, and I've had an opportunity to bond some of the largest contractors here," he said. "From a statistical standpoint, I have yet to see a company grow as rapidly as Moss & Associates has. There's just no way to argue the fact that this has been the single-most successful start-up that I have ever seen.

"It's not just the volume of the work. It's the reporting structure. If you look at their org chart, you'd see some of the best minds in the construction business in exactly the right positions. Also, their cost systems, their estimating systems, their general accounting and management systems that they've implemented in the period of time that they've been in existence is remarkable."

Nielson called the staff assembled so far as "the crème de la crème" - and added, "The ability that Bob Moss has to bring a whole team of superstars together, under one roof, and make them all play as a team is remarkable."

Keeping the group inspired is the company's mission of being an anticorporate crusader of sorts - succeeding as a big firm but doing so without becoming overly bureaucratic and corporate. But Nielson said it's also the charismatic Moss himself.

"Great people always want to be involved in a great cause," he said. "Bob Moss is an exceptional leader, and he has an exceptional following. So it's the combination of a personality game, and a highly qualified individual when it comes to Bob Moss. People want to be associated with him."

Culture

According to company officials, the mission that is apparently driving Moss & Associates is the goal of creating something different - a company that's as professionally minded and executed as some of their former employers, but without the corporate baggage.

"It was part of all of our desires to create something that was the best of Centex, the best of Bovis, the best of Turner," Moldow said. "A lot of good things came out of those companies. But we're trying to learn from what didn't work. We're trying to avoid some of the bureaucracy."

"A corporate philosophy can sometimes become complicated," Anderson added. "We're trying to keep it simple. We're focused on day-to-day construction, on people doing their jobs to build buildings and not on our second-tier profit-makers."

Moss sees it simply as being focused on people - whether employees or clients - and staying in touch.

"People work with and for people, and a lot of times, when companies get too big, that personal touch, relationships, fairness - all of those things sort of get watered down and become less important," he said. "People start making a bunch of rules, and you've got to go through three people to get a decision. Those kinds of things create discouragement. It's fun when you can move fast, you've got smart people, they think together, they challenge each other and get things done."

Going Big

Despite his protests to the contrary, there's no doubt Moss wants to be big. And he put his name on a risky project from the beginning to prove it.

Downtown Dadeland, a mixed-use development in the Dadeland section of Miami, was a project in limbo when Moss came along. Miller & Solomon had been the general contractor, but when that company had to dissolve for ownership issues, when it was still only on preliminary foundation work, Moss got a call.

It would be a tricky project, requiring construction of a 1,000-car parking garage that equated to roughly 600,000 sq. ft. of basement - all of which would rest entirely underneath the water table.

Moss said he wanted a significant project to make a statement, and when he was sure he had the right people to oversee the project, he made a deal he was comfortable with and moved ahead.

Fifteen months after starting work, the basement was built - and dry.

"It took 15 months to get the basement dry, but it's dry," he said. Overall, four of the development's seven towers are topped out, while construction of the remaining three vertical structures is also progressing. There's still plenty of work to be done at Downtown Dadeland, so the ultimate statement has yet to be made.

But it won't be the final word. Plenty of other projects have come along since then to indicate Moss's intentions - such as a $125 million mixed-use condo development the company is building in a joint venture with Roy Anderson Corp. of Mississippi in the Panhandle section of Florida. Moldow said this project is just the beginning of the company's efforts in this surging marketplace.

Additionally, Ted Adams is overseeing Moss's Ocala office, located between the major metros of Orlando and Tampa.

Overall, Moss said the extreme revenue growth doesn't concern him as much as the performance of his rapidly growing workforce.

"The only concern I have is that we always execute at a high level," he said. "We have some new people, and they haven't proven themselves yet. So we're not 100 percent of where I want us to be, as far as performance on each and every job."

For Moss, that will be the test of 2006. In terms of its growth, the company will be trying out somewhat unprecedented territory this year. In fact, if it achieves the revenue it is forecasting, it could become the largest contractor in Florida. For an individually owned company battling against the corporate players like Centex, Turner, Bovis and numerous others in the South Florida landscape, that would be an accomplishment in itself. Whether Moss will be able to live up to its hopes and dreams and build a reputation for quality, similar to those well-established entities, well, that's another story.