New year, new CEO at Mortenson

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Derek Cunz has worked for Mortenson since 1996. He has had what he calls “multiple careers” at the 70-year-old company, on his tortuous path to the CEO’s office.

Born in the San Francisco Bay Area, Cunz joined the company’s advanced technology group based in Minneapolis right out of college, which led to a lot of travel. He met his wife in the family business, before they moved to Northern Ireland, Los Angeles and Colorado before settling in the Twin Cities area in 2010.

He is also an avid cyclist and enjoys leading Team Mortenson members on mountain bike tours. The company headquarters has mountain bikes that employees can rent and ride on a trail behind the office, an activity Cunz said he encourages.

In September, the 27th US builder by revenue announced in long-planned leadership change. On Jan. 1, Cunz assumed the role of CEO and president, succeeding previous CEO and company veteran of 38 years, Dan Johnson, who has retired.

Here, Cunz talks to Construction Dive about his career, his leadership style and the continuation of what has made Mortenson successful.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

CONSTRUCTION DIVE: How will your appointment as CEO change Mortenson?

DEREK CUNZ: I think fundamentally this has been a long-term planned leadership transition, and we are a company built for the future with a long-term strategy. So you won’t see much change. I know it’s not that dramatic to say this, but we’re really built on a decades-long strategy in terms of the company’s growth and trajectory.

My leadership transition has been planned internally for a long time. And our purpose of building for the greater good has not changed. Our clients will continue to see us introduce ourselves and try to help them achieve their goals.

So it’s not a big change. We’re a team of teams, our leadership team, we have a really amazing group of leaders that run all of our different businesses and the leadership team that works with me is very stable.

Why have you chosen to stay with the same company for almost 30 years?

I mean, fundamentally it’s about the family culture and the culture of care at Mortenson. It’s a place where even though we’ve grown to be quite a large company, I think the feeling is still that we take care of each other, that it’s a family environment, that we put people first. I think it’s something I’ve really enjoyed and appreciated. I know this is what our team members value.

You know, you can, like me, have five careers in one company, which is obviously very compelling. But if that’s not an amazing environment to work in, that’s nothing. It’s about creating all these opportunities, but at the same time, a culture where you really want to dedicate yourself to the career and don’t think about leaving.

In the role that I’m going to play, that’s probably the most important thing for me, is to maintain that culture and invest in that culture. We are hiring a lot of people.

You know, if you look at our numbers, we’re going to hire 250 college students this year and over 500 people with non-craft experience. We will grow our craft workforce to over 4,000. Investing in these people, both in training and in culture, is fundamentally our most important thing.

What is your leadership philosophy?

My leadership philosophy is very much aligned with what we call LeadBLU at Mortenson, because I grew up at Mortenson and had the opportunity to learn from that as well. [program] and also shape it throughout my career.

When I think about our culture and leadership philosophy, it is this culture of care. That’s one of our philosophies at LeadBLU: We want people to take care of each other. We are also very customer focused, always thinking about how we can create value for our customers and continuing to invest in new ways of doing things.

So that feeds into, for me, a philosophy about innovation. We must constantly be thinking of a better way of doing things and constantly improving. This is also very much embedded in this company culture.

What is Mortenson’s plan for DEI going forward?

When we think about DEI, our “why” doesn’t change. We are very focused on belonging and inclusion in our projects. I mentioned our LeadBLU philosophy; it’s about doing the right thing and taking care of our team members.

We were part of the founding groups that came together Construction inclusion week. We think about the real opportunity there is to create an incredible work experience in the construction industry.

Our factory is the construction site. That’s where the work is done. So we want every workplace to be a place where people want to work, and once they go there, they want to come back.

So that’s the real focus of Construction Inclusion Week, because it’s also an opportunity for the industry. It’s not just about us. We want the construction brand to be better and a place where people want to work.

Has DEI improved in your time on the build?

Absolutely. I think we continue to learn and improve as an industry.

You’re not the only person taking on a new role in January. What do you expect from the next Trump administration?

I think our philosophy historically has been just to take a measured, wait-and-see approach. We have a very balanced portfolio that positions us well in many markets. And I think we’re confident in our delay and in our strategy that is somewhat independent of the political spectrum.

Also, we still don’t know what will happen with the current administration in terms of actual policy. So let’s not speculate. We only have our strategy and our business and we are focused on that. And we will adapt and be nimble as things change in the markets.

If you had to pick one project from your career at Mortenson that stands out, what would it be and why?

I think the Disney Concert Hall [completed in April 2023] it was transformative. It was the first project we built entirely with a 3D model. We were really breaking new ground in the late 90s, early 2000s, using technology that had practically never been used in a project before.

We were working with Stanford University and Disney Imagineering, creating software tools. We used 4D modeling for the first time in the industry.

So when we look back, it was like a lot of things happened from a strategic point of view from this project. We learned what was possible. Let’s talk about redefining “possible” at Mortensen. I think this project was a turning point for us where we said, “We’re going to double our investment in technology and the future is going to be digital.”