January 14, 2008
Opportunity knocks | Cianbro CEO Peter Vigue on finding jobs, keeping a skilled workforce and handling rumors of a 2010 gubernatorial bid
By Douglas Rooks
Peter G. Vigue has been president of Cianbro Corp., Maine's largest construction company, since 1991. He was the first non-family member to lead the company, established in 1946, which now has 2,100 employees and operations in 15 states. Cianbro was named for the three Cianchette brothers who founded the company with their savings from Army service in World War II. Cianbro has built bridges from the beginning, and has expanded to work in the paper industry, nuclear power plants, and shipping.
Since 2000, Cianbro has taken on a variety of troubled projects, beginning with what were then the world's largest oil rigs. Cianbro finished them in Portland Harbor, and they are now drilling off the South American coast. Since then Cianbro has rescued a bridge project in Connecticut, ship hulls from New Orleans and a concrete plant in Delaware. The company employs modular construction for most jobs, a departure from the usual on-site fabrication. In its latest venture, it will build modules at the site of a former paper mill in Brewer and barge them down the Penobscot to sites around the country.
Mainebiz spoke with Vigue at the corporate headquarters smack in the middle of Pittsfield, not far off Interstate 95, where he grew up and went to school at Maine Central Institute. Not long after our conversation, Cianbro announced that Vigue, the company's CEO since 2000, would also take over as the company's chairman, while his son, Peter A. "Andi" Vigue, would succeed him as president. An edited transcript of the interview follows.
Mainebiz: I'm particularly interested in the problem solving aspect of your business. To outsiders, construction seems to be about big contracts and specs, and then you go to work. You make money, hopefully, and sometimes there are problems. But you actually seem to enjoy taking on problems, things like the oil rigs in Portland Harbor that another company went bankrupt trying to finish.
Peter Vigue: Right.
They basically were failures. Or at least somebody had failed to complete them.
Yes. That's correct.
Most companies are pretty risk-averse. At least I would be if I were the CEO and asked, "Why would we try to do that when other smart people have tried to figure it out and couldn't?" But you actually seem to seek out these things. Why?
Our approach to looking at the world, and even internally in our own company, is that ˆ there's a phrase we use frequently ˆ "Every problem is an opportunity." If we make a mistake and it creates a problem, then it's an opportunity to improve later. So it's very important we look back at our mistakes and say, "How could we have improved? And how do we build on it?" It's a no-name, no-blame approach. "What did we do wrong?" is followed by, "I'll take responsibility for any of the mistakes we make, and we'll get better."
Do you have an example of how this works on the job site?
Right after we did the drill rigs, we did a project for Conoco Phillips that brought one of their ships up here. They brought it up, and we punch-listed it and got [it] finished. And little did we know at the time that they had a fifth hull down in New Orleans, and they were not having a great deal of success. We ended up taking crews down there to finish it. And it became very clear to us that the quality of the workforce that we had was superior to anything down in the Gulf. And so the word gets out, and we start getting calls. You know, "Can you send us two or three hundred people?" Like we'd just pick 'em off the trees. And, you know, it doesn't work that way.
What are some of the other ways you try to turn problems into opportunities?
That's essentially what has happened with our safety program, and it allowed us to become a leader in construction safety. Not just in Maine; in our industry. And that resulted from an experience we had back in 1987. One of our ironworkers on a bridge project in Connecticut was in the process of unhooking and re-hooking his safety belt, and he slipped and fell 60 feet to the water below. He died from the impact.
Was there an investigation of the accident?
[The Occupational Safety and Health Administration] came on site, gave it a clean bill of health. They said we did everything we could. Then I went to his funeral. His nine-year-old daughter comes up, and she pulls on my coat sleeve in tears and asks me why I killed her daddy. So even though OSHA and other people say that we fulfilled our responsibilities, we didn't think we had. And I came home, shut the company downˆthat was 50 projects. We asked the question, "What are we going to do so this doesn't happen again?" We had top management people, but also hands-on folks.
Next thing, one of the guys said, "You know these waist belts? If you fall any distance in them, you're going to hit your back." One had been a paratrooper, jumping out of airplanes, and said, "Why can't we use something like that equipment?" Twenty days later, the entire company was outfitted in full-body harnesses that you now see throughout the industry. And the double lanyard rule, so there's never a point where you're completely unhitched, got some teeth in it. First time, you lose a week's pay. Second time, you leave the company. We also went to Congress, saying "You've got to do this." It took us 10 years to convince OSHA, but we did.
So better safety actually improves the bottom line, in terms of insurance costs and productivity?
Yes. And it's the same thing in wellness ˆ and that goes back even further, to a man I hired in 1979 who became a friend when I was living in Maryland with my family. He had a very serious alcohol problem, and I took him to a rehab facility and insisted he be admitted or he wasn't going to be employed. And that had tremendous influence on him. This is a guy that already lost his family. He got his life back, and he went on to become one of our most qualified people, a superintendent. Then, years later, he developed lung cancer because he smoked three packs a day. I regretted that I never spoke out. When he was dying, we used to talk about this. I looked at all of the tobacco-related issues in our industry, and I said, "We're going to create a zero-tobacco environment. So, no smoke, no chew. No smoking areas; nothing."
When did you apply this policy?
On Jan. 1, 2003, after six months' notice. It's had a profound effect on our people, and our company. But it was a problem that became an opportunity. It's enhanced and improved the well-being of our employees, but it goes much further than that because we have an extraordinary wellness program that was started in 1996. We have a doctor and staff that monitors all our people, their spouses, their kids for critical factors. It's voluntary, and over 75% participate, and they're rewarded. We pay 75% of all family health care benefits. If people join our wellness program, they get additional benefits of about $1,500. And our cost of health care, including the monitoring, has been much less than the national average.
Like safety, I gather wellness programs are something you think other companies should do, too.
We began working with the Bangor [Region] Chamber of Commerce, and there were 85 companies engaged. The Wellness Council of America designated this the first wellness district in America. There are no secrets, so we share it with others, and it changes the standard.
It sounds like you had a different approach to business from an early age.
Yes. I came from a very humble beginning, and that picture over there is of my Latin teacher. She was 68, and she could make a grown man cry. I never worked for anybody as hard as I worked for her. But the real killer was this: I didn't learn any Latin to speak of. The one important lesson was something else. The most intelligent student in class, who's now a professor and an M.D. in Toronto, translated a passage on Monday, and on Tuesday, she was asked to translate again, which was unusual. And she said, "I can't. I can't." The teacher went right to the blackboard and she wrote the word, "Never!" again and again. You could tell she was ripped. The chalk was squealing. And then she wrote the same number of words, saying, "Can!" And she gave us a speech that would make Vince Lombardi look like a pussycat.
So you listened?
It left a mark on me. She talked about approaching life with a can-do spirit and it was incredible. It changed the way I looked at life. I went to Maine Maritime after that, and I've been very successful, but I've never forgotten that lesson. What we find is the people in our company love the challenge. They love to do the impossible. They love to win and succeed. And all we do is create the environment where they can.
You've spoken out about the problems of retaining a skilled workforce.
We have a huge issue in terms of the availability of people. You study the statistics and you see that the workforce overall is shrinking, baby boomers are retiring, fewer people coming into the workforce than leaving, and it's forecasted to continue beyond 2015.
And yet you also say that underemployment is a real problem in northern Maine.
If you go to a Home Depot in Portland, for example, you'll find younger people who can provide less information, and have less skill. And then the further north you go, the better the service gets. When you get to Bangor, you have craftspeople working there, a clear indication of under-employment. We do work at virtually every paper mill in the state, and the average age is 54. Because they're not hiring new people, that means the next generation's not coming in. We're going to have a huge erosion of skills. So this is what we're hoping to do in Brewer, to provide some opportunity for the next generation and people who are currently under-employed.
So in that sense there really are two Maines.
I was very involved in the [Baldacci administration] transition, working with the governor and his people on the paper mills: Great Northern, Lincoln, Old Town and Brewer. I saw the sheer lack of opportunity and lack of hope people had. And it just eats at me constantly. If you look at the Maine Development Foundation's numbers, the proportion of Maine people holding more than one job is over 30%. Communities like Milo, Brownville, Medway, Millinocket, East Millinocket, Patten ˆ their main streets are all but gone. But they've got existing infrastructure, schools; they're great little communities. And I look at the southern half, and we're dealing with sprawl, and very expensive housing. I see houses in the northern half available at a fraction of the cost, and they have the infrastructure, and I say, "Something's broken." We've just got to change this.
So who is responsible for changing it?
It's incumbent on anybody in a leadership position, whether you're in education, government, or business, to work together and try to make a difference. Try to improve, and not just run my business. I'm blessed to be in the position I'm in, and there are benefits but there's also responsibility. We have an obligation to do something about it, not an obligation to complain about it.
Let me ask you about that point, because this is different from what I usually hear. In Augusta, when business people come to talk to the Legislature, they're usually saying, "Fix government, and then we can go about growing our businesses."
"What are you doing about it?" That's what I say.
Even at the Maine Development Foundation annual meeting I heard, "Gee, wouldn't it be great if health care costs were lower, and taxes were lower, andˆ "
What are you doing about it? What are we doing about health care costs, you know going up 12 or 15% a year? Part of it is driven by the economy, and the number of people dependent on social programs and those who have no insurance. We can complain about it, but if we want to fix it, fix the economy. People in this state aren't looking for a handout. There's a lot of great people who have no benefits, who are hard-working, who are very committed. All they want is an opportunity.
But in a lot of places, they haven't come up with those opportunities. Sometimes, even when there's the willingness to engage in discussion, we end up with things like, in Washington County, the racino and LNG. It's hardly complete economic development, and it's not indigenous. It's not what you're doing in Brewer, saying, "We have the people. We can go to work right now."
Our challenge is that we're exporting our knowledge and skills. Bring it back here. I've traveled all over this country. I'm gone most of the time. And I don't like to travel. I've been with this company 37 years, and I know what it's like not to be part of the growing up of your children and their special occasions. It's not fun. And it's not fair to your spouse and your children. And so, why not Maine? Why do we have to be viewed as being at the end of the road?
Are we at the end of the road?
I go down the Gulf Coast to market our company and market this state, and I hear over and over that we're in the ice country, that we're very rural, and that we are, in fact, at the end of the road. And the thing that bothers me the most is many of us here in Maine believe it! Not only are we perceived that way from the outside, but we believe it ourselves. We have this mind-set that we can't be successful because of our location. I find that upsetting, and so what we're doing in Brewer is by design. We're running a business, but what I'm really trying to accomplish is to give people the courage and the belief that they can succeed and raise themselves up ˆ and not simply wait for somebody else to do it. Not to point fingers and suggest that government is responsible. We're all responsible.
You've done a lot of big projects, but presumably, you have some prudent business people here who tell you to say no sometimes. Do you turn down work?
No.
So if somebody, tomorrow, said, "We're going to build the pyramids over here," would you consider the job?
I want to share with you something about the Brewer project: There were four companies selected to do modularization. The owner of the new refinery looked at 168 companies worldwide. We're one of four to succeed. Now, can we compete? I think so. I didn't do that. Our people did that. So it's just how we frame it up and how we look at ourselves. And nobody's going to do it for us.
I've got to ask this question. Do you want to run for office?
You know, I've had a lot of people ask me that. And there are bumper stickers.
Yes, I've seen a few of them.
The lady that works with me in the corporate office has a sticker, so I said, "Bonnie, you've got to take that down." She said, "There's freedom of speech and I have a right to put that up." She's been here forever with me, but when I said, "Are you going to take it down?" she said, "No, I'm not taking it down."
So the sticker is still there?
For now. But the real answer is I can't predetermine what's going to happen. I've got essentially three things that I want to do with the rest of my life. Number one, I'm 60 years old. So I've got to prepare this company for the next generation.
Number two is to improve the economic environment in this state. And I'm extremely impatient about that. I'm not going to suggest it's somebody else's job, and I don't think I have to be in office to do that. There are people who are begging me to run for governor, and then there are people saying, "Don't do it, because you're more effective as a private individual."
Number three, I'm very involved on a national level with the industry. We were the smallest company in the Construction Industry Round Table, [an organization made up of roughly 100 CEOs from U.S. architectural, engineering and construction firms], where I was chairman. And one of the things I've committed myself to is really improving the construction industry. And I wouldn't want to give that up.
Since 2000, Cianbro has taken on a variety of troubled projects, beginning with what were then the world's largest oil rigs. Cianbro finished them in Portland Harbor, and they are now drilling off the South American coast. Since then Cianbro has rescued a bridge project in Connecticut, ship hulls from New Orleans and a concrete plant in Delaware. The company employs modular construction for most jobs, a departure from the usual on-site fabrication. In its latest venture, it will build modules at the site of a former paper mill in Brewer and barge them down the Penobscot to sites around the country.
Mainebiz spoke with Vigue at the corporate headquarters smack in the middle of Pittsfield, not far off Interstate 95, where he grew up and went to school at Maine Central Institute. Not long after our conversation, Cianbro announced that Vigue, the company's CEO since 2000, would also take over as the company's chairman, while his son, Peter A. "Andi" Vigue, would succeed him as president. An edited transcript of the interview follows.
Mainebiz: I'm particularly interested in the problem solving aspect of your business. To outsiders, construction seems to be about big contracts and specs, and then you go to work. You make money, hopefully, and sometimes there are problems. But you actually seem to enjoy taking on problems, things like the oil rigs in Portland Harbor that another company went bankrupt trying to finish.
Peter Vigue: Right.
They basically were failures. Or at least somebody had failed to complete them.
Yes. That's correct.
Most companies are pretty risk-averse. At least I would be if I were the CEO and asked, "Why would we try to do that when other smart people have tried to figure it out and couldn't?" But you actually seem to seek out these things. Why?
Our approach to looking at the world, and even internally in our own company, is that ˆ there's a phrase we use frequently ˆ "Every problem is an opportunity." If we make a mistake and it creates a problem, then it's an opportunity to improve later. So it's very important we look back at our mistakes and say, "How could we have improved? And how do we build on it?" It's a no-name, no-blame approach. "What did we do wrong?" is followed by, "I'll take responsibility for any of the mistakes we make, and we'll get better."
Do you have an example of how this works on the job site?
Right after we did the drill rigs, we did a project for Conoco Phillips that brought one of their ships up here. They brought it up, and we punch-listed it and got [it] finished. And little did we know at the time that they had a fifth hull down in New Orleans, and they were not having a great deal of success. We ended up taking crews down there to finish it. And it became very clear to us that the quality of the workforce that we had was superior to anything down in the Gulf. And so the word gets out, and we start getting calls. You know, "Can you send us two or three hundred people?" Like we'd just pick 'em off the trees. And, you know, it doesn't work that way.
What are some of the other ways you try to turn problems into opportunities?
That's essentially what has happened with our safety program, and it allowed us to become a leader in construction safety. Not just in Maine; in our industry. And that resulted from an experience we had back in 1987. One of our ironworkers on a bridge project in Connecticut was in the process of unhooking and re-hooking his safety belt, and he slipped and fell 60 feet to the water below. He died from the impact.
Was there an investigation of the accident?
[The Occupational Safety and Health Administration] came on site, gave it a clean bill of health. They said we did everything we could. Then I went to his funeral. His nine-year-old daughter comes up, and she pulls on my coat sleeve in tears and asks me why I killed her daddy. So even though OSHA and other people say that we fulfilled our responsibilities, we didn't think we had. And I came home, shut the company downˆthat was 50 projects. We asked the question, "What are we going to do so this doesn't happen again?" We had top management people, but also hands-on folks.
Next thing, one of the guys said, "You know these waist belts? If you fall any distance in them, you're going to hit your back." One had been a paratrooper, jumping out of airplanes, and said, "Why can't we use something like that equipment?" Twenty days later, the entire company was outfitted in full-body harnesses that you now see throughout the industry. And the double lanyard rule, so there's never a point where you're completely unhitched, got some teeth in it. First time, you lose a week's pay. Second time, you leave the company. We also went to Congress, saying "You've got to do this." It took us 10 years to convince OSHA, but we did.
So better safety actually improves the bottom line, in terms of insurance costs and productivity?
Yes. And it's the same thing in wellness ˆ and that goes back even further, to a man I hired in 1979 who became a friend when I was living in Maryland with my family. He had a very serious alcohol problem, and I took him to a rehab facility and insisted he be admitted or he wasn't going to be employed. And that had tremendous influence on him. This is a guy that already lost his family. He got his life back, and he went on to become one of our most qualified people, a superintendent. Then, years later, he developed lung cancer because he smoked three packs a day. I regretted that I never spoke out. When he was dying, we used to talk about this. I looked at all of the tobacco-related issues in our industry, and I said, "We're going to create a zero-tobacco environment. So, no smoke, no chew. No smoking areas; nothing."
When did you apply this policy?
On Jan. 1, 2003, after six months' notice. It's had a profound effect on our people, and our company. But it was a problem that became an opportunity. It's enhanced and improved the well-being of our employees, but it goes much further than that because we have an extraordinary wellness program that was started in 1996. We have a doctor and staff that monitors all our people, their spouses, their kids for critical factors. It's voluntary, and over 75% participate, and they're rewarded. We pay 75% of all family health care benefits. If people join our wellness program, they get additional benefits of about $1,500. And our cost of health care, including the monitoring, has been much less than the national average.
Like safety, I gather wellness programs are something you think other companies should do, too.
We began working with the Bangor [Region] Chamber of Commerce, and there were 85 companies engaged. The Wellness Council of America designated this the first wellness district in America. There are no secrets, so we share it with others, and it changes the standard.
It sounds like you had a different approach to business from an early age.
Yes. I came from a very humble beginning, and that picture over there is of my Latin teacher. She was 68, and she could make a grown man cry. I never worked for anybody as hard as I worked for her. But the real killer was this: I didn't learn any Latin to speak of. The one important lesson was something else. The most intelligent student in class, who's now a professor and an M.D. in Toronto, translated a passage on Monday, and on Tuesday, she was asked to translate again, which was unusual. And she said, "I can't. I can't." The teacher went right to the blackboard and she wrote the word, "Never!" again and again. You could tell she was ripped. The chalk was squealing. And then she wrote the same number of words, saying, "Can!" And she gave us a speech that would make Vince Lombardi look like a pussycat.
So you listened?
It left a mark on me. She talked about approaching life with a can-do spirit and it was incredible. It changed the way I looked at life. I went to Maine Maritime after that, and I've been very successful, but I've never forgotten that lesson. What we find is the people in our company love the challenge. They love to do the impossible. They love to win and succeed. And all we do is create the environment where they can.
You've spoken out about the problems of retaining a skilled workforce.
We have a huge issue in terms of the availability of people. You study the statistics and you see that the workforce overall is shrinking, baby boomers are retiring, fewer people coming into the workforce than leaving, and it's forecasted to continue beyond 2015.
And yet you also say that underemployment is a real problem in northern Maine.
If you go to a Home Depot in Portland, for example, you'll find younger people who can provide less information, and have less skill. And then the further north you go, the better the service gets. When you get to Bangor, you have craftspeople working there, a clear indication of under-employment. We do work at virtually every paper mill in the state, and the average age is 54. Because they're not hiring new people, that means the next generation's not coming in. We're going to have a huge erosion of skills. So this is what we're hoping to do in Brewer, to provide some opportunity for the next generation and people who are currently under-employed.
So in that sense there really are two Maines.
I was very involved in the [Baldacci administration] transition, working with the governor and his people on the paper mills: Great Northern, Lincoln, Old Town and Brewer. I saw the sheer lack of opportunity and lack of hope people had. And it just eats at me constantly. If you look at the Maine Development Foundation's numbers, the proportion of Maine people holding more than one job is over 30%. Communities like Milo, Brownville, Medway, Millinocket, East Millinocket, Patten ˆ their main streets are all but gone. But they've got existing infrastructure, schools; they're great little communities. And I look at the southern half, and we're dealing with sprawl, and very expensive housing. I see houses in the northern half available at a fraction of the cost, and they have the infrastructure, and I say, "Something's broken." We've just got to change this.
So who is responsible for changing it?
It's incumbent on anybody in a leadership position, whether you're in education, government, or business, to work together and try to make a difference. Try to improve, and not just run my business. I'm blessed to be in the position I'm in, and there are benefits but there's also responsibility. We have an obligation to do something about it, not an obligation to complain about it.
Let me ask you about that point, because this is different from what I usually hear. In Augusta, when business people come to talk to the Legislature, they're usually saying, "Fix government, and then we can go about growing our businesses."
"What are you doing about it?" That's what I say.
Even at the Maine Development Foundation annual meeting I heard, "Gee, wouldn't it be great if health care costs were lower, and taxes were lower, andˆ "
What are you doing about it? What are we doing about health care costs, you know going up 12 or 15% a year? Part of it is driven by the economy, and the number of people dependent on social programs and those who have no insurance. We can complain about it, but if we want to fix it, fix the economy. People in this state aren't looking for a handout. There's a lot of great people who have no benefits, who are hard-working, who are very committed. All they want is an opportunity.
But in a lot of places, they haven't come up with those opportunities. Sometimes, even when there's the willingness to engage in discussion, we end up with things like, in Washington County, the racino and LNG. It's hardly complete economic development, and it's not indigenous. It's not what you're doing in Brewer, saying, "We have the people. We can go to work right now."
Our challenge is that we're exporting our knowledge and skills. Bring it back here. I've traveled all over this country. I'm gone most of the time. And I don't like to travel. I've been with this company 37 years, and I know what it's like not to be part of the growing up of your children and their special occasions. It's not fun. And it's not fair to your spouse and your children. And so, why not Maine? Why do we have to be viewed as being at the end of the road?
Are we at the end of the road?
I go down the Gulf Coast to market our company and market this state, and I hear over and over that we're in the ice country, that we're very rural, and that we are, in fact, at the end of the road. And the thing that bothers me the most is many of us here in Maine believe it! Not only are we perceived that way from the outside, but we believe it ourselves. We have this mind-set that we can't be successful because of our location. I find that upsetting, and so what we're doing in Brewer is by design. We're running a business, but what I'm really trying to accomplish is to give people the courage and the belief that they can succeed and raise themselves up ˆ and not simply wait for somebody else to do it. Not to point fingers and suggest that government is responsible. We're all responsible.
You've done a lot of big projects, but presumably, you have some prudent business people here who tell you to say no sometimes. Do you turn down work?
No.
So if somebody, tomorrow, said, "We're going to build the pyramids over here," would you consider the job?
I want to share with you something about the Brewer project: There were four companies selected to do modularization. The owner of the new refinery looked at 168 companies worldwide. We're one of four to succeed. Now, can we compete? I think so. I didn't do that. Our people did that. So it's just how we frame it up and how we look at ourselves. And nobody's going to do it for us.
I've got to ask this question. Do you want to run for office?
You know, I've had a lot of people ask me that. And there are bumper stickers.
Yes, I've seen a few of them.
The lady that works with me in the corporate office has a sticker, so I said, "Bonnie, you've got to take that down." She said, "There's freedom of speech and I have a right to put that up." She's been here forever with me, but when I said, "Are you going to take it down?" she said, "No, I'm not taking it down."
So the sticker is still there?
For now. But the real answer is I can't predetermine what's going to happen. I've got essentially three things that I want to do with the rest of my life. Number one, I'm 60 years old. So I've got to prepare this company for the next generation.
Number two is to improve the economic environment in this state. And I'm extremely impatient about that. I'm not going to suggest it's somebody else's job, and I don't think I have to be in office to do that. There are people who are begging me to run for governor, and then there are people saying, "Don't do it, because you're more effective as a private individual."
Number three, I'm very involved on a national level with the industry. We were the smallest company in the Construction Industry Round Table, [an organization made up of roughly 100 CEOs from U.S. architectural, engineering and construction firms], where I was chairman. And one of the things I've committed myself to is really improving the construction industry. And I wouldn't want to give that up.
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