Consigli Builds On The Past | Family Business Honoree | Category: 250+ employees
Photo/Edd Cote
Consigli Construction, 72 Sumner St., Milford, 01757
Pictured are Matthew Consigli, vice president, left, and Anthony Consigli, president, right.
A large construction company marking 100 years as a family business might decide to build a new headquarters. If that company’s founder was a stonemason, a historic granite building would properly honor those beginnings. But when the company is Milford-based Consigli Construction, the standards are high and complexities abound.
In 2006, the company’s idea of the perfect showcase for itself was a former parochial grammar school. The aging structure had been vacant for 25 years. It was unfit for any purpose but could not be destroyed, according to preservationists. Not a problem, if you’re Consigli. You just dismantle the building, in 300-pound pieces, move it to the outskirts of town, and rebuild it as the cornerstone of a 31,200-square-foot complex. Because that is the sort of work Consigli does.
Within the massive granite exterior of Consigli’s headquarters, the guts of the former school are exposed in a pleasing juxtaposition: aged roof girders loom over the two-story lobby while the high ceiling is crisscrossed with gleaming ductwork. Anthony Consigli, 41, the company’s president, and his brother Matthew, the 36-year-old vice president, view the building as a point of pride and a testament to the workmanship of the employees. It’s also a worthy homage to the family company, which is now led by the fourth generation of Consiglis.
Aim High
Consigli projects are primarily institutional, academic, or health care facilities, and the company specializes in jobs that require historical restoration. Recent undertakings have included an addition at Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine; preconstruction on a CitySquare project in Worcester; and an uncommon task at Harvard University.
“Harvard retained us for the restoration of the Lowell House bell tower, along with the relocation of 17 Russian bells,” Anthony recalled. The bells had come from a shuttered Russian monastery in the 1920s.
With the Communists no longer in power, the monastery reopened, and Russia wanted the bells back. The largest weighed close to 30,000 pounds. Consigli arranged for exact replicas to be forged in Russia, then brought them back to Cambridge, within a three-month deadline.
“Every job has its own complexities,” Anthony said, adding that they are “proudest of the jobs here in Central Massachusetts, because of our roots.”
Those roots date to 1905, when Peter Consigli, a stonemason from Italy, started plying his trade in Milford. His six sons each developed different masonry skills and worked with their father.
The reins passed from Peter to his son Henry, then to Henry Jr., then to Anthony and Michael.
During the early 1990s, Anthony was a young Harvard graduate working for his father. The recession had ground on for two years, and Anthony felt that for the company to survive, the Consiglis must court a wider diversity of projects and locations. The strategy worked. “In 1991 we had 12 employees and $1 million in revenue. Now we have more than 400 employees and over $300 million in revenue,” he said.
Today, Consigli also has branches in Maine and Connecticut, which opened in 2003 and 2008, respectively.
“We had to recruit and hire people who were smarter than us, to become ‘the most desired contractor to work with and for,’” Matthew added, paraphrasing the company’s motto. The brothers continue to educate themselves and their employees at what they call Consigli University. Like many large construction companies, Consigli offers in-house schooling to supplement on-the-job training and to keep abreast of new technologies.
Giving Back
Another aspect of the business is the Consigli Foundation, which has donated more than $1 million to Central Massachusetts charities.
“We wanted a way to give back to the community and the institutions we work with,” Anthony said.
The brothers acknowledge that a family business presents a unique set of challenges.
“The key, from our point of view, is putting the success of the business ahead of personal agendas,” Anthony said. “We’re here for the business; the business isn’t here for us."
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