To J.D. Hole, the Lockerbie & Hole organization is much more than a business.

It is a century-old Hole family tradition to which the Montreal native has devoted 34 years of his life. It’s also a fabled organization that was born in Edmonton as a plumbing company seven years before Alberta became a province.

Yet, when Hole assumed the reins of Lockerbie & Hole in 1992, he was anything but content to rest on the company’s laurels and ride the coat-tails of the other Holes who preceded him in the corner office.

J.D. (James Douglas) Hole has spearheaded a dynamic growth spurt in which the employee-owned company has grown its revenue tenfold in the past 12 years to about $400 million and become a major player in the Canadian construction industry from coast to coast.

Jack Dagley photo, Business Edge
J.D. Hole is the latest in a long line of family members to make his mark on Lockerbie & Hole, the century-old construction company based in Edmonton.

That’s a far cry from the humble beginnings of a company his grandfather, Harry Hole, joined more than a century ago to begin what has become a proud family legacy.

1. What does it mean to you to be at the helm of a 107-year-old company that has been run by your family for almost its entire history?

“There’s a lot of pride in what the company has accomplished over its 107-year history. Basically, the growth of our company has parallelled the growth of Alberta and the growth of Edmonton. We’re now a national company.”

2. What do you know about Harry Hole (his grandfather, who was the first Hole to head the company in the early part of the 20th century)?

“When you start talking about the Hole names, it’s tough to follow, not only because of the numbers involved but because the family had no imagination when it came to names. There’s a number of Jim Holes and a number of Harry Holes and Henry Hole, my grandfather, who was also called Harry Hole (neither of J.D.’s two sons are named Harry or Jim). My grandfather (Harry Hole) joined the company five years after it was founded by J.A. Lockerbie as an immigrant from England. He was a journeyman plumber in his 20s who heard there was work in San Francisco because of the big fire there in 1903. He came through Edmonton on his way to San Francisco and never left Edmonton, going to work for J.A. Lockerbie.”

3. When you hear the history of your grandfather, what impresses you most about his legacy?

“One of the things that my grandfather did that I think was outstanding was putting all nine of his children through the University of Alberta. That was a great start in building a booming business. There were five engineers out of his nine children that helped grow the business.”

4. Did your father (Bill Hole) work in the company?

“He was the eldest of the nine and the first in the family to graduate in engineering in 1933 during the Depression. There was very little work for anybody at that time, including Lockerbie & Hole. So my father went to England to do post-graduate work and returned to Canada when the war broke out.”

5. What did your father do?

“He was a very successful businessman in Montreal, but wasn’t associated with Lockerbie & Hole. He was with a company called American Air Filter, a large manufacturer of air filtration equipment. He was a hard worker and I think that had a large influence on me. I also followed in his footsteps, graduating with a degree in engineering in 1967 (University of Western Ontario).”

6. Why did you move Lockerbie & Hole from a family-owned company to an employee-owned company after becoming CEO in 1992?

“First of all, I don’t have nine children (he has two sons and a daughter, none of whom are in the business). Clearly, I believe that employees should have an interest in the business. I think it makes for a much more competitive environment and certainly means your employees are dedicated to your mission and to the company, because they have an interest in it.”

7. Is it important to you that a Hole succeeds you as CEO, keeping a century-old tradition in place?

“No. And a member of my family won’t succeed me. I don’t believe that it’s important. I think today it’s important that anybody who takes over a company wants to be there, it suits them, they’re trained for it and they like what they’re doing. I don’t think you should be forcing your kids to follow in your footsteps. There are tremendous opportunities for kids today and I wouldn’t want them to be limited to the construction industry. Two of my cousins (Jack Hole and H.B. ‘Harry’ Hole) are major partners in the firm (the Hole family owns about 60 per cent of the company). We have about 250 salaried employees who have an option to have ownership in the company. Probably a little more than half of those salaried employees are shareholders.”

8. How did you initially hook up with Lockerbie & Hole?

“I worked in the West in the summers and I loved it. After I graduated, I had an opportunity to work for Lockerbie & Hole on a construction project in Frobisher Bay that the company was involved with in a joint venture. When that project wrapped up, I moved west to join Lockerbie (in 1970 as a mechanical estimator). Those were exciting times. My Uncle Harry was the CEO then.”

9. What was your vision when you took over the company in 1992?

“My vision was to expand the company. I think we had a good core of individuals and you have to grow a company because you want to give the people within your organization a place to grow. If they’re not growing within your company, they’re going to move on. So the vision was to make it a national contracting firm, but still be focused in the mechanical and contracting business. We’ve moved into the heavy industrial business and the maintenance business, and geographically we’ve moved across the country with three acquisitions. Our expansion has gone exactly the way we wanted it to and the business has probably grown even faster than we had anticipated.”

10. What are you proudest of in your 12 years as CEO?

“I’m proud of taking the firm from a Western Canada-based firm to a national firm and I’m proud of our significant growth. This year, we’re aiming for about 10-per-cent growth (from an estimated $400,000 in revenue in 2003).”

11. To what do you attribute that success?

“I think it’s the people that we have. I think I had the vision, but I also had the people who were prepared to put their shoulder to the work and accomplish what we set out to do.”

12. What aspect of your business has seen the greatest growth in the past decade?

“We’ve grown with Alberta and Edmonton. A big part of our growth has come from industrial growth of the Fort McMurray area and the tar sands. We’ve been a major player there.”

13. What’s your growth strategy for the next decade?

“Our business follows the province’s economic growth very closely. You see the reports now of the anticipated expansion in the Fort McMurray area and we plan on playing a major role in that. We’re also a player in the development of the oil and gas generation facilities in Eastern Canada and we plan to play a role in that business.”

14. How do you see the construction business evolving in the future?

“The construction business is a sophisticated business.

“I think it’s often (seen) as just a brute-force business, but it’s not. It’s very important that we understand what our clients need and help them achieve their goals along with our own. The technology that is happening in our industry is quite extraordinary.”

15. How would you describe your management style?

“I think I know the people who work for me very well and I think I know their strengths. We’ve been able to capitalize on those strengths. I would say I’m a hands-on manager. I’m probably more hands-on than I should be. When you grow a business from where we’ve come from to where it is today, there’s always a tendency to want to fall back and look at some of the areas you’ve historically handled.”

16. What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned in business?

“Listen to your people.”

17. Your family has always supported the University of Alberta. How important is that to you?

“It’s a part of what the family has always believed in. I think it’s so important to not only pay attention to the business side, but also to all other good causes. I think it’s important that you step up and be counted as a supporter to those causes. The University of Alberta (where he is a governor) is a tremendous asset for the province and we’ve got to make sure that it continues to grow and develop. It’s supplying the young brains for the future of this province.”

18. What’s your best advice for a young person entering the workplace?

“Stick to your vision and it will happen.”

19. Are you pleased to see the crackdown in recent years on unethical and dishonest corporate governance?

“I think we’re seeing the securities commissions taking action and putting people in jail. That’s where they belong.”

20. When do you plan to retire?

“You know, I don’t think my time is up yet, but I think we’ve got some great people in the organization to follow in my footsteps. I want to leave while there’s still lots of deep powder in the mountains and I can get some good skiing in before I’m too old.”

IN PROFILE: J.D. Hole
* Title: President/CEO, Lockerbie & Hole Group of Companies.
* Born/raised/age: Montreal, 60.
* Education: University of Western Ontario, B.E. Sc., civil engineering.
* Family: Wife June, three grown children (David, Joanne, Patrick).
* Career: Hole began his career as a civil estimator with Towle Construction in Montreal in 1968 and was project engineer for Frobisher Developments in Frobisher Bay, N.W.T., (a joint venture with Lockerbie & Hole) in 1969. He joined Lockerbie & Hole as a mechanical estimator in 1970, was promoted to chief engineer and managing director in 1982 and was appointed president/CEO in 1992.
* Moonlighting: Hole has been chairman of STARS (Alberta Shock Trauma Air Rescue Society) and the 2003 World Cup Triathlon and a board member with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Edmonton.
* Passions: Flying (as a licensed pilot), skiing, squash.

THE COMPANY: Lockerbie & Hole
* Brass: J.D. Hole, president/CEO; Gordon Panas, chief financial officer; Darcy Trufyn, chief operating officer.
* Profile: Lockerbie & Hole is an employee-owned construction firm that serves the industrial, municipal, commercial and institutional markets with offices in Edmonton, Calgary, New Westminster, B.C., Victoria, Mississauga, Ont., Brantford, Ont., and Kingston, Ont. The company’s projects include office towers, hospitals, water and sewer plants and industrial plants.
* History: Lockerbie & Hole was founded as a plumbing company in 1898 by J.A. Lockerbie.
* Estimated 2003 Revenue: $400 million.
* Acquisitions: In recent years, Lockerbie & Hole has acquired two industrial contractors – Industra Service Corporation Canada and Adam Clark Company.
* Website: www.lockerbiehole.com
* Head Office: 10320-146th St., Edmonton, T5N 3A2 (780-452-1250, fax 780-425-1284).
* Calgary Office: 7335 Flint Rd. SE, Calgary, T2H 1G3 (403-571-2121, fax 253-5725).