75 Stories: Ken Lawless, Clark Retiree

2021 marks the 75th Anniversary for Clark Construction Company. To celebrate, we’re using our employee’s voices to explain the impact Clark has made to ourselves, fellow teammates, communities, and clients. This is Ken’s story.

I was hired in 1978 while still attending Ferris State University in the spring of 1978. I believe the exact words Leon P. Clark used were, ”We will give you a try, anybody from Portland can’t be all bad. When can you start?” I had already accepted a position with an insurance company and was due to start there in May after I graduated, however this completely rerouted my career plans.

I have often wondered how different my life would have been had I worked in the insurance industry vs. the construction industry, and more importantly working for the best construction firm there is. Not only does Clark treat their employees like family, they also treat their customers with the same attention and compassion to make sure the owner realizes their goals. That is the reason I spent every day of my entire career working for Clark.

My favorite project was more of group of projects that ran for almost 10 years in the construction of prisons. We were one of the first companies hired by the State as a construction manager in the mid-80s for a $42 million maximum security prison in Ionia, Michigan.

This was special to me because:

1. My dad had worked in the Ionia prison system for over 30 years.
2. It was in my home county.
3. It was truly the start of construction management for Clark.

Leon Clark, John Clark, and I, went to a meeting at the State for the construction manager selection of a prison project. We went armed with our four-page color brochure. Under the wisdom of: Always better to listen and ask the customer what they want than tell them what you think they want to hear. We listened to the Director of Construction tell us they had selected three contractors to each build one entire prison consisting of 65 acres, and 11 completely new Masonry buildings totaling around 300,000 square feet.

In one of the smoothest moves, and showing how to live in the moment, Leon Clark quietly slid that glossy company brochure from in front of him to under his notebook. As we left the meeting, he said, “No sense selling something that is already sold.” We went on to construct four new regional prisons and thousands of medium security bed spaces on a very rapid pace.

John and Chuck Clark were both great mentors of mine and really shaped my career in construction. They always allowed me to have input and rarely did we have disagreements. When we did it was because we were all trying to explain the same answer in a different way. We had many laughs over the years about the discussions.

The best memories I have over my years was the relationships I had with all the employees! Truly a special group that displayed skill, integrity and caring about each other and their families. I could go on and on with stories of fun times, hard work and compassion this group showed for their fellow employees.