After three successful decades as a custom builder, Pat McNeil is the last person one would expect to say he got into the business by accident, but that’s the way he explains it. McNeil pulled his first permit in 1977, to rehab a small house that had been condemned. “I did that job while I was in the apprenticeship program of the Pipefitters and Steamfitters Local,” he notes. By the time the program ended, “I was already a general contractor. I fell in love with the challenge of high-end homes.”
Starting out in Omaha, Neb., was another happy accident. McNeil’s hometown boasts a per capita concentration of major corporate headquarters that puts most large U.S. cities in the shade. Berkshire Hathaway, Union Pacific, ConAgra Foods: “These guys could be anywhere,” he says, “and they’re in Omaha. It creates a stability that doesn’t exist in a lot of communities.”It also creates a solid market for McNeil’s services. “Most of our clients are CEOs or business owners,” he explains. It’s a group that, judging from the evidence, likes room to spread out. “I’ve got customers moving into a 13,000-square-foot house right now.” That project tipped the scales at $5.5 million, and his current work includes four others exceeding $1 million. “The average is $2 million to $2.5 million,” he reports, and the recession hasn’t taken a significant bite out of that number.
True to Midwestern type, however, McNeil remains cautious. “I’m concerned, like everybody else, because I don’t know what’s out there,” he says. Builder 20 Club colleagues from the East and West Coasts have delivered sobering reports of markets much harder hit. “They were doing more business in one year than I do in five,” he observes, but now the tables are turned. “It makes me appreciate being in Omaha. We’re not setting any records,” but compared with flashier metropolitan areas, “the highs are never as high, and the lows are never as low.”
McNeil Co. Builders
Omaha, Neb.
www.mcneilcompany.com
Type of business: Custom and light commercial builder
Years in business: 30
Employees: 21
2009 volume: $12 million
2009 starts: 4
