After graduating from Auburn University with a degree in construction management, Jacksonville native Coleman Lay expected to go to work for a large builder.
Instead, at age 24 he found himself running his own small company.
The turn of fate happened three years after Lay’s graduation when the owner of Duckworth Construction, for whom Lay had interned and served as a project manager, decided to sell the company.
Hank Duckworth talked to Lay’s father, Rodney, a fishing buddy, and the two approached Lay about taking over the company.
“He had run a successful business here in Jacksonville for 30 years, and he was looking for an exit strategy,” Lay said of Duckworth.
“He and my dad spun the idea to me, and I thought they were all crazy.”
But the more Lay considered the opportunity, the better it sounded.
He’d grown up watching his dad, a naval architect whose designs included casino riverboats and the ship that recovered booster rockets from the space shuttle, run his own business near the Intracoastal Waterway along Atlantic Boulevard.
Encouraged by Rodney Lay, he took an early interest in working outdoors on the family’s 15-acre property to fix fences, repair the dock, build a treehouse and make other improvements.
After originally pursuing an architecture degree at Auburn, the Bolles School grad switched midway to construction management.
“The construction management school and the architecture school were right next to each other,” he said. “The lights in the architecture school never turned off, and all the construction management guys seemed to be the ones who are always having fun – fishing, hunting. And so I kind of gravitated toward that.”
Asked whether he struggled over whether to acquire the company, Lay, now 30, said he came to the conclusion that “maybe this was the only decision.”
“I knew it was going to be a lot of work and a lot of responsibility – and maybe I didn’t know how much – but it just seemed like the right thing to do. I have a huge attachment to Jacksonville, and I wanted to play a part of what’s going on here,” he said, adding that his wife’s family also is rooted in the community.
Lay, who financed the acquisition with funding from his parents and a couple of other sources, said he eased the company into the transition after taking over in January 2019.
He maintained core talent among the staff and originally operated the firm as Lay/Duckworth Construction to allow customers time to adapt to the change in ownership.
“I didn’t come in flipping over any tables,” he said.
A little more than a year after Lay became the owner, he and his staff faced a potential crisis from the coronavirus pandemic.
He said the company came through unscathed, adopting jobsite-distancing protocols that allowed the staff to maintain steady work.
“Ultimately, I’d say it never really affected our business,” he said.
In five years under Lay’s leadership, the company has doubled its revenue to $15 million-plus and increased its staff.
LAY Construction specializes in Class A office build-outs, industrial projects and adaptive reuse, including building its headquarters in the former offices of Rodney Lay’s naval architecture firm.
Lay said his focus throughout has been on maintaining sustainable growth by providing reliable, high-quality work across all projects.
“You hear a lot of horror stories of companies growing too fast,” he said. “And it really only takes one bad project to gain a not-so-good reputation.”
Asked what advice he would give to a startup entrepreneur or someone considering starting a business, he smiled and said that while “it’s hard to give advice at 30 years old,” he would encourage them to concentrate on building a good team.
“To be able to surround yourself with trustworthy, hardworking folks is really invaluable,” he said. “And I think that’s where we’ve been able to be successful is because of our people here.”
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