Liam Coakley

This transcript has been edited for better readability: Henry Harrison Podcast — Entrepreneurs, Business & Finance Guest: Liam Coakley Henry Harrison Well hello, Liam. Thank you for coming on. Good to see you. Welcome to Entrepreneurs, Business and Finance. For those of you who don’t know Liam, he is a longtime resident of Arlington and McLean, Virginia. Our families knew each other, and at a young age we played tennis together, golf together, ping pong together — you name it, we did it together. We were single together too, so in some cases we even went on double dates, although I can’t remember exactly. It’s been a long time. He’s also kind enough that when I come stay in Arlington, sometimes I stay at his and Caroline’s house — where there used to be four kids at home, and now there are three. But we’re here today because he is the co-president of C.J. Coakley Co., and it’s an extraordinary story. We’re also here because he’s a friend, but he’s on the podcast because it really is an extraordinary business story. His father, Cornelius — I always called him Mr. Coakley, so I’m not even sure I knew his first name was Cornelius — started the company in 1962, and it continues to this day with Liam, his brother, and his sister now carrying it forward after both of their parents lived long lives and passed away. Why don’t you talk a little about how it all started? Liam Coakley Sure. My dad came from Ireland when he was 18. He came to stay with my Aunt Margaret, my Aunt Molly, and my Uncle Fergus — who I’m actually named after. My Uncle Fergus had been after him to come to the United States, and once he got here, Uncle Fergus, who was in the plasterers’ union, got him into the plastering apprenticeship. From there, my dad went to work for a large commercial plastering company called Rabinow & Ferris. At some point, they made him a superintendent, and he stayed there for several years. Then in 1962, he decided to go out on his own and start his own company. Back in those days, plastering was just about everything. Walls and ceilings were all metal lath and plaster. But as everything does, the business evolved. It moved into drywall, then acoustical ceilings, and through the plastering side also into fireproofing. So as the market changed, the business changed with it, and my dad continued adapting as new opportunities came along. We did a lot of work for George Hyman, which was a very large general contractor. At some point, when the market started shifting and union work began opening up to more non-union alternatives, George Hyman opened a company called Omni Construction. At that time, we followed suit by creating Dominion Applicators, and my mom became the president of that company. That ran until 1993, when we pretty much moved away from the union side and merged Dominion Applicators back into C.J. Coakley. Around the same time, George Hyman and Omni merged into Clark Construction. So all the employees from Dominion Applicators — management, field staff, everyone — came into C.J. Coakley, and we grew a lot that year. At that point, C.J. Coakley was probably doing around $15 to $20 million a year, and Dominion was doing somewhere around $12 to $15 million. Once those came together, we were able to take on much more work because of the expanded leadership team and field staff. Then in 2013, after Doug Roach stepped down, Mike and I took over as co-presidents, and since then we’ve continued evolving. Over the last several years we’ve added a lot of new services, including: metal panels rainscreen systems man and material hoists overhead protection prefabricated exterior wall systems Just before the pandemic, we also started a prefab company. Since then we’ve been prefabricating exterior wall framing, sheathing, and air barrier systems under one contract, with one point of responsibility. We’ve also expanded into rainscreen materials like: fiber cement terracotta metal panels So really, we’ve continued doing what the company has always done — looking at where the market is going, listening to what customers need, and evolving to provide it. Henry Harrison Just to give people a sense of the scope, some of these projects are among the most iconic jobs in the entire Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Northern Virginia area. One that stands out in my mind is the stadium. Liam Coakley Yes, it’s kind of wild when you look back at the range of projects we’ve been involved in. When I first came out of school, we did the IRS Headquarters. We worked on the Pentagon renovation. We’ve done malls like: Tysons Corner Center Annapolis Mall White Flint Mall Montgomery Mall Nordstrom projects We’ve done major hospitals, and now we’re back doing hospital work again, including a large hospital project at INOVA. We’re also doing work at the Federal Reserve’s Eccles Building, which is another huge project. Over the years, we’ve done a lot of different kinds of jobs as the market has shifted. For the last ten years, there has been a tremendous amount of residential work, and we’ve done a lot of that too. We worked on the Verizon building right next to where Amazon’s headquarters is going in, and we’re currently finishing another big project called Bell Street, the East Tower. We also finished one of the early phases of the Amazon project, which was obviously a major job. So yes, we’ve done a lot of large, significant jobs — government, private, residential, institutional, all of it. Henry Harrison And for people who aren’t construction experts, what C.J. Coakley is doing can be both the inside and outside of the building envelope. So if someone pictures a 30-story high-rise, C.J. Coakley may be doing the entire interior wall package and, in many cases now, the exterior wall systems too. Liam Coakley That’s exactly right. We did our first 33-story residential tower in Rosslyn called Rosslyn Central Place. On jobs like that, we may be doing everything from the exterior wall framing — structural studs, sheathing, air barrier — all the way through the skin systems if that’s part of the scope. And inside, we’re doing: all the interior walls all the drywall hanging all the bathroom wall board systems framing for ceilings acoustical ceilings specialty ceilings Ceilings in particular have really evolved in our trade. There are all kinds of wood ceilings and specialty systems now. For example, we just finished major work for Johns Hopkins, where there were some really beautiful, highly detailed wood ceiling systems. So yes, the scope today can be very extensive. Henry Harrison The Coakley family has also always been known for giving back. Caroline has her own charitable involvement, your mom was deeply involved in charitable work, your family has supported the Catholic Church, and you’ve all been part of the community not just by creating jobs and building projects, but also by giving back. And I remember that even when you were very young — maybe 14 or 15 — you were already getting up on Saturdays and going out to jobsites and hanging drywall. Liam Coakley Yes, I worked in the field for a lot of years. I spent my teenage years around the shop, the trucks, the equipment, and the field crews. When we were renovating Tysons Corner Mall, I was out there building scaffold with the guys, hanging drywall, putting on beads — all of that. Tysons is a good example of how much these projects change over time. Back then, the lower level of the mall was used mostly for trucking and storage. When we renovated it, they transformed that into retail space with skylights and all kinds of finished storefronts. So yes, I’ve seen the work from the ground up and from the field level for a long time. Henry Harrison That’s really a neat success story. From 1962 to 2024, just imagine how much the industry has changed — the materials, the methods, the technology, the scale of the projects. And yet the family business is still there, still adapting, still growing. A lot of huge companies have come and gone in that same time. Liam Coakley That’s exactly right. We talk about it all the time: if you’re not changing, you’re dying. That’s just the reality. At the same time, you have to be careful, because technology and innovation are expensive. You can spend too much, or you can spend too little. You can move too early, or too late. That balancing act is constant. And right now, the industry is changing very quickly — with cameras, document overlays, AI coming into estimating and takeoffs, and all kinds of technology beginning to transform the way work gets done. It’s pretty wild what’s happening in our industry, and it’s only going to keep evolving. Henry Harrison Well, I’m glad you’re there, and I’m glad C.J. Coakley is there. A lot of people are grateful not just for the company itself, but also for the family’s charitable work and the way you’ve all contributed to the community over the years. I know your mom had me over many times, and I know your sister, the whole family, and of course Caroline. God bless your parents up there in heaven. Thanks for coming on the show. I think people are really going to enjoy hearing this story. Liam Coakley Thanks for having me, Henry. It’s always good seeing you. I appreciate your friendship, and if I can ever help in any way, I’m always here.