Back in 1990, after working together in the industry for many years, Daryl Long and Ronnie Blalock partnered up with the vision of a construction company focused on its community. “We were committed to and passionate about demonstrating our abilities—brick by brick and building by building—in the communities where we lived,” Long says.
They founded ICB Construction that year, in Middle, Georgia. It was incorporated in 1993, and it has since grown from its modest roots into a major regional business that has worked on more than $400 million worth of facilities across its home state, including corporate complexes, industrial facilities, medical facilities, religious spaces, educational complexes, and municipal buildings.
As the company has grown, so has its staff. In 2012, ICB welcomed a construction industry veteran, Kenna Scragg, who currently serves as the president of ICB Construction Group. Scragg’s experience has brought a vast knowledge of educational construction, which has allowed the company to reach a new depth of community involvement in the educational sector.
Even as it has grown, though, it has never wavered from its dedication to the areas in which it works. “We feel like our communities have given more to us than we could ever give back; these people are our community and friends,” says Long, now ICB’s CEO (Blalock is now vice president). “We want to be involved in their lives in a way that has a positive impact.”
Community uplift is therefore a top priority for the firm. ICB takes every possible opportunity to hire and mentor local employees and subcontractors, helping them build skills that they can give back to the community. Today the company works primarily on socially beneficial public projects, including schools, parks, and libraries. Long feels such projects achieve uplift “from the service they ultimately deliver, to the jobs that are produced, to the sense of pride they instill in the communities’ families.”
ICB’s passion for community can even be found in some of the firm’s bigger projects across the state. For instance, the SE Little League Headquarters in the town of Warner Robins was a very personal project for Long. “It brought back memories of my time playing in the Little League,” he says. As the design-build contractor for the headquarters, ICB teamed up with JMA Architecture to completely design and construct the facility. “This is one of the most exciting projects we have worked on,” Long says, “and an opportunity we are certainly thankful for.”
An ambitious project ICB completed nearby was the Warner Robins Law Enforcement Center. The company was selected to be the construction manager “at risk,” before the design process began, meaning it was responsible for preconstruction services as well as the facility’s completion. The 44,000-square-foot facility, now a cornerstone of Warner Robins’s governmental corridor, contains state-of-the-art law-enforcement resources, including laboratories, interview rooms, and more.
Meanwhile, back in Macon, ICB was recently involved in the construction of Veterans Elementary School, a new complex built to replace the aging Morgan Elementary School, in an economically depressed area of the city. Through hard work and the recruitment of local workers, ICB finished the 109,000-square-foot facility, which today provides students and faculty with the latest educational technology as well as sustainable elements such as intelligent windows that respond to outdoor conditions.
ICB doesn’t just assume its projects will lead to community uplift, though. The firm actually tracks the metrics. In constructing Veterans Elementary School, for instance, the company was able to put together a workforce that was 82 percent local, and it achieved similar numbers for the Warner Robins projects. Additionally, ICB has determined that its projects have contributed actively to Georgia’s economic growth, revitalizing aging communities and increasing property values. The company’s work in Warner Robins alone has fueled the need for new local businesses, including an entertainment center and water park near the SE Little League Headquarters.
The company has also found that with each community project comes opportunities to go deeper into the communities it serves. For example, after completing the Hutchings College and Career Academy project for the Bibb County School District, Scragg was asked to serve as a board member on Hutchings’s board of directors. And, after ICB’s involvement in a park improvement project in Central City, which hosts the long-standing Macon/Bibb International Cherry Blossom Festival, Scragg accepted a nomination to serve on the festival’s board of directors, too. “As we work through these projects, they become more than sticks and bricks,” Scragg says. “They become part of us, and we are excited to go deeper to see our community excel.”
Long hopes that ICB’s work throughout and its investment in Georgia will continue to improve the health of the state and the towns that populate it. “Our hope is that we have changed the lives of people that live in our community for the better,” he says. “We want to be known as a company that listened to our clients and delivered on the promises that we made to each person.”
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Congratulations to Daryl Long and his team at ICB Construction Group! They have developed and maintained many strong relationships with both clients and subcontractors through the years. Their commitment to completing quality construction projects on time and in budget has proven to benefit all involved. Pyles Plumbing & Utility Contractors, Inc. is proud to be a part of their success!
