Bradley Partner David Pugh featured in Alabama Construction News on New Role as Southeast Region Vice Chair of ABC National
Alabama Construction News
Bradley attorney David Pugh was featured in Alabama Construction News on his new role as Southeast Region Vice Chair of ABC National. Pugh discussed his background in the construction industry and the goals he has for his upcoming two-year term.
“I am the son of an engineer who was involved in construction and steel fabrication his whole life, and I was a civil engineering major myself,” Pugh said. “I’m fortunate that my vocation is something I’m really interested in.”
“I’ve been in the field, in construction; I know the kind of conditions you have to fight through sometimes,” Pugh said. “There have been a lot of people who have made a lot of money in the construction industry, but what a lot of people don’t realize is there is sometimes relatively little reward for taking an enormous amount of risk.”
“I tell people laughingly that I’m kind of a construction nerd,” he said. “I love buildings and projects that have stood the test of time. I love how buildings and other structures serve communities and society. Whether it’s a highway or a hospital, or a school, or a monument, I love it. And I love the men and women that built them.”
Pugh has worked with several different ABC chapters over the years. “I’m involved at the local level through the Alabama Chapter, and to a lesser degree with a number of other chapters in cities where our firm has offices,” he noted.
“The biggest thing is developing a close working relationship with the chapter leadership in each chapter,” Pugh said of his new role. “I’m fortunate in that … I know all of the chapter presidents in the region, and I know a lot of the people who are involved with chapter leadership.
Another priority Pugh discussed is “making sure that I pay attention to achieving our national strategic goals,” he said. “We’ve got goals with respect to the 2020 elections. We’ve got goals with respect to the development of workforce, which is a crisis that’s facing our industry – and that’s the lack of workers. As long as the economy stays healthy, there’s plenty of construction work; but there’s not plenty of people to do it, so that’s an issue.” Pugh explained. “And finally, we’d like to continue to grow our membership as well, so we’ve got a number of things we need to roll up our sleeves and work on.”
“Birmingham is unique for a city of its size to have the number of very large and very successful construction companies in town. It’s kind of unusual,” he said. “We have four contractors headquartered here in Birmingham that each do over a billion dollars a year on an annual basis: Brasfield & Gorrie, BL Harbert, Hoar, and Robins & Morton. Brasfield & Gorrie is getting close to $3.5 billion a year. That’s a lot of construction work,” Pugh said.
The original article, “David Pugh Brings His Love of the Industry to New Role,” first appeared in the April 2020 issue of Alabama Construction News.