Employee Spotlight: Supt. Marcus DePalma, 13 years

1 month, 4 weeks ago

At the end of his first year of community college, where he was studying architecture and drafting, Marcus DePalma needed a job. So, the Ohio native reached out to the father of a friend who was in banking to see if he knew anyone who was hiring.

That connection led to getting on board with a local home-builder.

“I loved it so much, I swung a hammer for two years,” said DePalma, who joined Carl A. Nelson & Company as a project engineer in 2011, and today is a project superintendent with the firm and one of 27 current employee-owners, each of whom works in office- or field-based leadership roles.

As much as he enjoyed that work, though, he eventually decided it was time to go back to school. But instead of returning to complete his training in architecture and drafting, he wanted to learn the business side of construction, so enrolled at Purdue University in Indiana, and after thinking about being an architect graduated instead with a bachelor’s degree in construction management.

DePalma traces his interest in buildings and construction to being around his father during the construction of a couple of family homes. His ultimate path in education, and the career that has followed, has enabled him to engage both the desire to be active in the planning side of a project and also have a hand in execution of a project in the field.

Right out of Purdue, DePalma went to work for a firm with offices in multiple states, where project managers and superintendents worked side-by-side in the field. Project engineers like DePalma worked along with them.

“I always liked being on-site,” he said. After being part of a mass layoff that occurred in the construction downturn that followed the 2008 recession, DePalma returned to the Midwest, where he was headhunted by a recruiter who shared his credentials with Carl A. Nelson & Company (CANCO).

At the time he interviewed with CANCO, DePalma had never lived in a state without at least one professional sports team in it. So he was nervous about what kind of professionalism he might find in a smaller firm in a rural location. He needn’t have worried.

“They might be small,” DePalma recalled thinking of CANCO, “but they are functioning in the same manner as the bigger company I was used to working for.”

Since making the decision to join the firm, he has come to appreciate the closer relationship that is possible with company leaders, and the opportunity for employee-ownership, which he was offered in 2017.

At CANCO, DePalma said he found the opportunity to do work that was similar to what he had experienced before — being a field-based project engineer. After coming to the firm in 2011, he was able to work on major projects such as Great River Health’s Klein Center Replacement; the University of Iowa’s Pappajohn Biomedical Discovery Building Central Vivarium and Lab Fit-Out; the Sioux Center Community School District’s new high school; and a new grades 5-6 intermediate school for the College Community School District.

Leadership in the office saw he enjoyed being on-site, and steered him in that direction, DePalma said.

“I like the big jobs,” he said, “but I’ll run whatever size. Our management team knows where my skills lie.”

Now a superintendent in his own right, he said that his collegiate training and experience in the project engineer role influences how he goes about the job. DePalma said he still approaches that process by reviewing RFIs and submittals, and frequently still assists project managers with paperwork.

That classroom approach was seasoned by experiences working for a year or more alongside some of CANCO’s most-veteran superintendents: Randy Harris, Mark Hall and Mike Hall, who recently retired; and Bill Curler, who is still leading work for CANCO.

“They all have a different style,” DePalma said. “But they’re all very talented superintendents.”

After initially living in Burlington, Iowa, near CANCO’s main office, DePalma moved to just outside Muscatine, Iowa, when his girlfriend, Erin, landed a job as a veterinarian with a clinic there. Today, they are parents to their daughter, Bria, who is 1 in October; and dog-parents to 6-year-old Arya, a blue heeler who DePalma regularly takes to agility training at a pet center near home.

— Craig T. Neises, director of marketing