William J. Gilbane Jr. Builds On a Family's Quality Legacy

By focusing on project owners' needs, Gilbane exceeds expectations

William J. Gilbane Jr., 60, president and COO, of family-held Gilbane Building Co., was raised to believe that customer satisfaction and loyalty are the keys to happy and engaged employees. To ensure that goal, he created a number of quality-driven systems to spur continuous improvement.

Gilbane High-profile projects are a Gilbane specialty.

The Providence, R.I., company helped pioneer construction management, and he uses CM as a business model for evolving client-based systems. After graduating from Brown University and attending the Philip Crosby Quality College, Gilbane became an early advocate of client surveys and project-quality checklists. Crosby concepts such as zero defects, executive integrity and embracement of change drives Gilbane’s commitment to quality improvement and monitoring client satisfaction. Last year, his firm processed over 650 surveys that were used to generate the corrective measures necessary to satisfy clients, identify areas for improvement and form the basis of individual performance reviews. The goal is to exceed customer expectations on every assignment.

To meet increasing technical, ethical and financial challenges, he started Gilbane University, which boasts 400 staff-led courses and costs the firm over $6 million annually. Gilbane himself teaches the foundation course, Building Exceptional Customer Satisfaction. “This is the most important subject because it creates innovation and change,” he says. “By listening to our clients...we become a better company. I want every new employee to understand that this is our family heritage.”

Multimedia  View Award of Excellence Luncheon and Acceptance Speech of William J. Gilbane Jr.  April 3, 2008

Gilbane created the position of client satisfaction director and started six centers of market excellence and 16 operations peer groups. His lessons-learned database now has 5,000 lessons.

“With Gilbane, I could talk directly with the owners anytime, plus their team ...brought honest dialogue and solutions that were in the best interest of the project,” says Jeffrey Vanderbeek, chairman of Devils Arena Entertainment LLC.