2002 NAWIC Outstanding Woman in Construction

Elaine Martin Back to Elaine Martin  Elaine Martin: Her Bio

WHATEVER ROAD SHE TRAVELS, ELAINE MARTIN HEADS FOR SUCCESS

By Michael Boss 

Elaine Martin isn't one to let a few potholes keep her from reaching her destination on the road to success.

“Most people quit too soon when there's a problem,” says Martin, principal owner of MarCon, Inc., and MarCon Precast, Inc., of Nampa, Idaho. “Stick with it; there's a solution out there.”

Her success as an entrepreneur is a tribute to her philosophy. MarCon's demonstrated expertise in making and installing concrete highway barriers is an essential element in the largest highway project in Idaho's history -- the $73.2 million reconstruction of the Flying Wye Interchange in Boise, Idaho. Over the next two years, MarCon, Inc. will install more than 142,000 linear feet of temporary and permanent concrete barriers at the interchange of Interstates 84 and 184. And MarCon Precast made more than 87,000 linear feet of those barriers.

Such projects have won the 56-year-old Martin praise from the male-dominated highway construction industry, where any woman's ability is often under suspicion. “Elaine's not looked upon as being a woman trying to run a man's business,” says Jim Nelson, owner of Nelson Construction in Boise. “She's viewed as a contractor who does her work very well.” Nelson should know. His company worked with Martin on the $47 million Cole-Overland interchange and the $73 million Flying Wye Interchange projects in Boise.

“The reason we use MarCon is that they are very good at what they do,” says Scott Williams, vice president of Hamilton Construction Co. in Springfield, Oregon. “Our people always like it when MarCon is on the job.”

Acceptance in an industry where muscle and machines build the nation's highways didn't come easily for Martin. When she began working in construction in the mid-1980s, no one was anxious to let a woman in, no matter how hard she worked.

“A man with no construction experience was perceived to know more about construction because of his gender,” Martin says. “Contractors thought I'd walk off in the middle of a job or cost them money. One contractor threatened to fire an estimator for giving me a job.”

She's not bitter though. “They just didn't know me,” she says.

Indeed they didn't -- or they wouldn't have been so quick to dismiss her abilities. Growing up on a family farm in Jerome, Idaho, Martin learned from an early age about the connection between hard work and success.

“It was tough,” Martin says of rural life in Idaho. “We had enough money for the basics, but we didn't have money for the extras. So I learned that if I wanted something, I was going to have to earn it.”

From age 9, Martin earned her spending money through a variety of jobs -- babysitting or going door-to-door to sell greeting cards to neighbors. She earned her first new bicycle selling newspaper subscriptions for the Northside News in Jerome. She spent Christmas vacations working at King's five-and-ten-cent store. “There was always a job, if you were willing to work,” Martin says.

The childhood jobs and a stint in high school as vice president of the Idaho Future Business Leaders foreshadowed the entrepreneur Martin was to become. But upon graduation from Jerome High School in 1964, Martin followed a more traditional route: She went to college to pursue a major in home economics, minoring in business. She also worked 10 to 36 hours a week.

Upon graduation from Utah State University in 1968, Martin became a home economics teacher in Idaho. “What else was a woman to do in the '60s?” she asks. In 1968, she married. Higher wages beckoned her and her husband, Terry, to Nome, Alaska. In her typical hard-working fashion, Martin and another teacher developed what became a model for school-to-work programs in California, Oregon, and Hawaii.

Their stint in Alaska ended in 1972 when she and her husband were called back to Jerome to help run his parents' cattle ranch and farm. He concentrated on running the Jerome ranch. She busied herself with rearing their two sons: Tory, born in 1972, and Justin, born in 1974.

She also sought to bring in some extra money and, at the same time, to help other struggling Idaho farmers by serving as secretary and then executive director of the Idaho Carey Act Development Association. Under her leadership, the association gained concessions from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management that could help Idaho farmers develop new land. When farmers' water rights were threatened, she formed the Idaho Water Rights Development Association, in 1983, and successfully protected the rights of 5,000 Idaho irrigators.

The agricultural recession of the 1980s hit the Martin farm hard, and the family needed more money to save the operation from bankruptcy. “One thing we knew how to do on a farm was build fences,” Martin says. Her brother, Bob Jackson, suggested that they could build fences for highway rights of way. “He forgot to mention that I would be working 24 hours a day, running the office at night and managing field crews during the day,” she says.

Borrowing $25,000 in start-up money from her mother, Martin and her sister-in-law Maxine Jackson formed J and M Corporation (Jackson and Martin) in 1986. It employed both the Martin and Jackson families. Finding work for a fence-building company owned by two women without any construction experience wasn't easy. Martin finally persuaded one contractor to take a chance. By day, the 140-pound Martin lifted rail and pounded nails for 10 hours. By night, she studied drawings and learned new fence building techniques by reading books and talking with others. She went without wages for two years so that the other family members could be paid.

Martin proved to be an innovator, quickly finding solutions to problems. “She and her company found ways to brace fences in soft ground that are still used in Idaho Transportation Department standards today,” says Ed Bala, ITD's District 5 engineer in Pocatello.

But building fences didn't bring in much money at first. The company took in just $13,000 in its first year. By its second year, however, Martin's outfit earned $200,000 - and her horizons expanded. “I started bidding for highway guardrail jobs.” Her first guardrail job in 1987 led to a chance encounter with Jessie Alexander, who, with his brother Jim Alexander, ran Alexander Construction of Nampa, Idaho. Jessie reported back to his brother, Martin says, that “I didn't know anything about guardrail, but that I ran a really hard-working crew.”

When Jim Alexander and Martin met later that year at an Associated General Contractors meeting in Boise, he suggested they work together. In 1989, Jim Alexander helped his brother and Martin became partners, forming Alexander-Martin, Inc. Martin served as president, general manager, accountant, and estimator, in addition to occasionally working in the field with the crews. In its first year, the company completed more than $1.2 million in work. That amount more than doubled by 1992 as the company expanded its work into Oregon, Nevada, and Utah. One of their major projects included erecting signs for the newly constructed I-184 Connector in Boise. Two years later, Alexander-Martin installed concrete guardrail for the Cole-Overland interchange construction, at the time the biggest highway project in Idaho's history.

Martin has faced her share of potholes on the road to success. With the retirement of Jessie Alexander in 1995, Martin became the sole owner of Alexander-Martin in 1996. At the same time, she faced some difficult personal challenges. She and Terry divorced after 27 years of marriage. She had some personal health problems. It was a challenging two years on all fronts, and 1996 ended with a financial loss for the company after seven straight years of profitable growth.

Many people would have given up, but that's not Martin's style. As 1997 began, she started reorganizing Alexander-Martin. She formed two companies, MarCon, Inc., and MarCon Precast, Inc., which employees and other contractors helped name. She and her employees created job descriptions and a management succession plan. They completed management training and cross-trained employees for better efficiency. Martin also took on a new partner, Darrell Swigert of Grand Junction, Colorado, who bought about 12% of the stock of the companies.

The successful reorganization allowed MarCon to expand operations and win the $6.3 million contract for providing safety barriers on the reconstruction of the Flying WYE Interchange in Boise. Martin estimates her companies will undertake nearly $8 million in projects in 1999 and 2000.

Along her road to success, Martin has also taken time to mentor others, especially women in construction. “When I've faced a problem, I've called Elaine,” says Jane Stone, owner of Safety Corp., a traffic control firm in Garden Valley, Idaho. Martin has also worked through such groups as the National Association of Women In Construction to network with and mentor other female owners of construction firms.

She's also gaining her share of hard-won honors. The first woman board member of the Associated General Contractors of Idaho, Martin served as Idaho AGC's first woman president in 2000.

Eventually, Martin plans to pass her business on to her sons or to key employees. “But,” she says, “Who knows? A year or two after retirement, you may find me embarking on yet another career.”

No matter what road she chooses, you can be sure she'll be headed toward success.