Building Beyond Boundaries: How Clark Lowe Is Revolutionizing Commercial Construction Through Empowered Leadership
Clark Lowe, President and CEO of O’Connor Company, embodies the rare combination of military precision and entrepreneurial vision. A former Marine Corps veteran with an MBA and certifications in Lean Six Sigma and Project Management, Lowe has transformed his leadership experience into a blueprint for success in the commercial construction industry. Since acquiring O’Connor Company in December 2023, he has steered the firm from a single-client dependent business to a diversified national player in non-residential construction.
In an exclusive interview with Entrepreneur Loop, Lowe shares his journey of acquiring and scaling O’Connor Company, revealing how his unique approach to remote work platforms and team empowerment is reshaping the construction landscape. His refreshing perspective on business leadership, emphasizing simplicity over complexity and fulfillment over traditional work-life balance, offers valuable insights for both seasoned entrepreneurs and aspiring business leaders.
- Please provide a brief introduction of yourself and your professional background.
I’m Clark Lowe, President and CEO of O’Connor Company. My journey began in the Marine Corps, where I honed leadership skills that I’ve carried into a career spanning construction and business management. With an MBA, certifications in Lean Six Sigma and Project Management, and experience driving high-impact projects across diverse sectors, I focus on solving complex challenges, fostering innovation, and building teams that thrive.
- Please tell us a bit more about your startup—what does it offer, what problem does it solve, and who is your target audience?
I purchased O’Connor Company in December of 2023. We are a non-residential General Contractor that operates on a national platform. We complete both private and public work ranging from complex interior renovations to large ground up structures.
- What inspired you to start your own business? What was the “aha” moment?
I worked for many companies – ranging from Fortune 25 companies, down to small private family owned businesses. I’ve always wanted to be able to exponentiate the talent and opportunities of those around me – and working for others always made me feel trapped and constrained.
- What were some of the biggest initial challenges you faced in getting your business off the ground? How did you overcome them?
Diversifying the portfolio of work was our first largest hurdle. Initially, when we explored buying the business, the company did about 90% of it’s revenue with 1 client. This made the transaction extremely risk intensive for a bank to support a loan. We dove pretty deep into bidding public jobs to help diversify the portfolio of work. When we bought the company, we were able to drive backlogs so the 90% of revenue with the initial client, dropped to about 40% of total projected revenue and this grew the company substantially at the same time.
- How did you identify a gap in the market or need that your business fulfills?
We leaned into our strengths – and with the experience with the team we had, we started surveying and finding opportunities that fit our business model.
- What has been your approach to funding your startup? Did you use your own savings, seek investors, crowdfund?
We were able to get a SBA loan with the help of some backing investors (who were mostly friends and family).
- How did you go about building your team and attracting talent in the early days?
Vision and growth are important – especially to Millenials and Gen Z. Attracting talent was about providing a vision where folks could come into a company and help it grow. Not only was that talent doing what they love, they were tangibly adding value to the company in a multitude of ways!
- What have been some of the toughest decisions you’ve had to make as a founder? Any stand out as pivotal?
Getting together the whole investment strategy, and persuading a bank to give us a very large loan with no collateral in late 2023 – a time when interest rates were high and the industry was constricting. Navigating these waters successfully was, by far, the hardest part of making the entire transaction happen.
- What have been your key strategies for growth and gaining traction/users?
Right now we are leveraging our access to private work while continuing to do work with past clients. We are pushing PR over marketing and asserting ourselves as industry leaders in what we do.
- 10. How do you stand out from the competition in your space? What sets your product/service apart?
Our remote work platform gives us a unique ability to tend to our value chain in ways that other general contractors simply aren’t able to. We are able to dedicate manpower to projects in certain ways that promote and foster collaboration, success, and attention to detail.
- What have been some mistakes or failures you’ve made along the way as an entrepreneur? How did you recover and learn from them?
Being a part of too many decisions. Very quickly, I realized as a CEO I needed to go from an executive who was making hundreds of decisions per week (very ingrained and instrumental to the operational work) to someone who was making maybe 2 decisions a day (on a good day). I spend more time and energy now ensuring teams are empowered and equipped to make big decisions, leaving the landscape and the horizon of the company on my plate to forge.
- What do you know now that you wish you knew when you were first starting out?
Do not outsmart yourself. There is this common idea that hyper successful business leaders are “genius” or are just the purveyor of great ideas. In reality, I see hyper successful leaders and rather simple thinkers. They are not playing chess and thinking 5-10 problems ahead – most often, hyper successful leaders are simply tackling the immediate problem in front of them. This is the largest misconception I see in young and struggling businesses. They are trying to build the perfect mousetrap – there is a reason most business leaders tell you to start doing something even if you don’t know how. Often, the problems you think you have, either don’t exist, or are so small that they just don’t impact results in a material way.
- What are the most important skills someone needs to be a successful founder, in your opinion?
Intellectual curiosity – my favorite idiom is “The key to all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious.” You need to be curious about how the world works – not just your industry. How does banking work? Venture capital? Public companies? Stock market, etc. Understanding how your business fits within all the other frameworks of business and life is important. Intellectual curiosity leads to business empathy – and when you can understand how other companies make money, and understand their core problems, you can solve both their problems and your problems. Don’t get stuck defending your own turf too often.
- What does a typical day or week look like for you? How do you manage work-life balance?
I really despise this idea of “work-life balance.” We don’t talk about work-life balance at O’Connor – ever! We talk about fulfillment and what having a fulfilled and enriched life looks like. “Balance” suggests this idea of perfection – a point or place where all things are equal. Chasing balance is like chasing a ghost – there is simply no end. Fulfillment is a much more internal emotion and reward – and we can lead our teams towards fulfillment easier than we can lead them towards balance!
- What do you find most rewarding and most challenging about being an entrepreneur?
The most rewarding thing is being able to exponentiate the lives of others! I really enjoy supporting employees and providing benefits that I believe people deserve. And I love building a business around those values.
- 16. What are some future goals or plans you have for your business in the next few years?
We want to double in size every 2 years – 2025 we have a $85M goal and $120M in 2026 – with hopes of reaching $500M+ and taking the company public in early 2030s.
- What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs who want to start their own company?
Nike says it best – “Just do it.” Most all businesses are sunk in the stages of dreaming about what could be. Just move forward, tackle the next most important problem. You DO NOT need to have everything figured out – you just need 1 thing figured out, and that’s what you want to build. Once you know that, the rest just becomes solving one simple problem at a time!
