John Paul Construction embraces the benefits of American investment and fresh thinking
Rosslare Europort, a development led by John Paul Construction.
Ireland continues to enjoy a productive and mutually beneficial relationship with the United States. , Managing Director of John Paul Construction, explains why the opportunity to continue to learn from each other is a truly exciting prospect as practices in safety, quality and engineering continue to evolve.
There’s a great quote attributed to Bill Marriott Jr, that reads: "The four most important words in business are ‘What do you think?’.”
The same question has been crucial to our own progress in recent years. Entering new sectors, exploring new markets, and embracing new technologies. Each decision has been made in a collaborative manner, utilising the expertise and wisdom of the people we know and trust both inside and outside the business.
Arguably the bigger question is what drove myself and the team at John Paul Construction to take on these challenges? Part of it can be explained by the fact that progress can only be achieved through change, but a more interesting driver is that of ambition.
After all, it was ambition to create a brighter future for the nation that saw Ireland evolve from a closed to an open economy. It was ambition that ensured the IDA worked to generate the necessary contacts and relationships to bring investment to our shores. And it was ambition that has seen American companies invest billions into a country that consistently demonstrates a willingness and ability to learn new skills.
Today, John Paul Construction is proud to be working on seven large-scale projects for FDI clients in Ireland encompassing data centres, pharmaceutical facilities, manufacturing, and life sciences. Encouragingly, these projects are spread across locations throughout Ireland and the relationships developed with our FDI clients has seen us enjoy repeat business on a number of occasions, while also opening opportunities for us in new markets such as the UK and Germany.
However, ambition must be tempered with a sense of respect. Respect for who we work with in terms of integrity and a sense of fairness. Respect for our employees ensuring that all our people feel valued. Respect for the environment through our sustainability strategy that demands challenging targets.
This word ‘respect’ is one of our three core values, and alongside ‘Excellence’ and ‘Teamwork’ encapsulates how we work. Together they govern our ethos of building a respectful relationship with both our clients and our supply chain to ensure that we can deliver to the highest levels of excellence through a collaborative approach.
Today we know that the United States has a key role to play in the global economy and its policies will have far-reaching implications. At such a time, our own sectoral and geographical diversification gives us an element of flexibility while being cognisant of the need to constantly improve.
This desire to always seek improvement is best exemplified in the area of safety. As a business we made safety our number one priority and have made incredible progress in the last five years. Safety demands constant vigilance and a willingness to always seek fresh areas for improvement.
As part of that journey, a new US FDI client we engaged with recently has been sharing their own perspective on the topic and we are now integrating their processes into our own. Learnings of this nature are invaluable and go far beyond the commercial benefits of any contract.
It's important to reflect on the power of positive relationships. To maintain the excellent dynamic our economy enjoys with US business, it’s paramount that we as a country continue to invest in our own infrastructure.
Encouragingly the published program for government recognises this, and it represents another opportunity for John Paul Construction to build on its 75-year legacy of creating buildings and infrastructure critical to Ireland’s development.
So, while the country is in a strong position and we, along with many of our peers in the industry, are enjoying growth I am confident that everyone in our own business will continue to manage projects and win business by asking each other the same pertinent question, ‘What do you think?’.
