The Business Magazine’s “Risking It All” section highlights the entrepreneurs who made sacrifices to build their businesses in our region. This month, we met with Frank Lundy III, chief executive officer of Lundy Construction Company in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, to talk about the history and success of this 80-year-old family owned business.
Soon after Maurice Lundy left his home in Slido, Ireland as a stowaway bound for the United States, he found himself in a flourishing career in the lumber industry in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. His son Frank B. Lundy and grandson Richard H. Lundy would eventually follow in his footsteps, starting their own business, Lundy Lumber Company.
With the success of lumber company firmly intact, Richard and family member John Lundy decided to partner with E.M. “Dick” Jonas to focus on the commercial side of the business, forming Lundy Construction Company in 1933.
It was a huge risk during one of the worst years of the Great Depression, but one that would become the Lundy legacy.
According to CEO Frank Lundy III, these entrepreneurs not only had to overcome fear, but the conventional wisdom of the time — to steer away from investing in a new venture, coupled with the challenges of procuring building materials and securing credit for construction during a fragile and weak economic time.
“But, not being scared of hard work, believing in one’s self to accomplish personal goals and the ability to move against conventional wisdom prevailed,” says Lundy, “and we are here 80 years later to prove that challenges can be identified, met and overcome.”
Proudly pointing to such projects as the east wing of Divine Providence Hospital and the original Roosevelt School — built during World War II and when the basic building materials of concrete and steel were in short supply — Lundy Construction Company is truly a model of success. The company is today widely considered one of the most recognized contractors for industrial and commercial construction, remodeling and renovations in central Pennsylvania — a credit to its wide range of services and core competencies.
“We can design, estimate and deliver sophisticated light and high-tech manufacturing facilities with our staff, procedures and our highly skilled, dedicated and proven field personnel,” explains Lundy. “We are able to provide design construction services to most industrial, institutional, health-care and commercial customers that could locate or expand in our geographical area.”
Lundy, for one, saw a new future in the area when he drove up from Philadelphia one day to assist his father with some business issues and noticed a convoy of what appeared to be drilling pipe loads on tractor-trailers heading toward Williamsport — at the beginning of the Marcellus Shale boom.
“I learned a long time ago that if you want to build, you have to have someone to build for,” he says. “So, when you see others investing in an area, part of the collateral impact is construction. So follow the money.”
At Lundy Construction, however, there is no secret to the company’s success. Notes Lundy, “It is what you can see that is our winning formula: Hard work, a desire to retain customers, a top-down requirement that the customer is the most important element in our business plan, and, finally, what feels like an inbred commitment to the Golden Rule.”
For more information about Lundy Construction Company, visit www.lundyconstruction.com.
