Building Relationships, Building Raleigh: A Conversation with Kellie Ford

When Kellie Ford joined McGough as its new Vice President of Client Engagement for the Southeast region in January, she found a company that shared her most important professional and core values. “This company values long term partnerships, not just transactions,” Ford said. “Because I’ve always prided myself on building long-term relationships and friendships, that spoke to me. Now that I’ve been here a few months, I really see that is true.

“This company values long-term partnerships, not just transactions,” Ford said.

Kellie should know something about long-term professional commitments: While new to McGough, she brings the firm a pedigree earned over two decades in the architecture, engineering and construction industry in the Triangle region. That included a tenure of 18 years with one firm in a variety of roles. “I was with this wonderful civil engineering firm,” she recalls. “And I watched it grow and I had an amazing career there with iterations of jobs that didn’t even exist when I started with the company.”

Time spent doing everything from proposal generation to team leadership to client management has given her a unique breadth of experience. So, when it came time to make a change, she wanted to go someplace that would apply her deep knowledge of the industry and the North Carolina market while breaking new personal and professional ground.

We sat down with Kellie for a Q and A session about how she sees Raleigh-Durham and the surrounding construction markets, trends to follow, and what brought her to McGough.

FORD: Since I landed here in Raleigh in 1999, the region has grown immensely in population, infrastructure, and as a leader in the healthcare, life sciences, pharmaceutical and life sciences industries. We have a business-friendly environment, great colleges and universities, multiple research institutions and Research Triangle Park. For residents and people moving into the region, it was a great place to live when I moved in and it’s even better now. That’s the foundation. I think that for businesses in those key industries, the mix of business advantages and quality of life for any employees who would relocate makes the Triangle an excellent place to open a Southeast regional office, add or expand research or manufacturing, or establish a startup. In fact, given the new wealth in the region and the expansion of venture capital available, this is an especially great time for seed-stage and startup firms to move to the area.

FORD: We are in the midst of a demographic shift in the region. It’s trending younger, fueled in part by people moving here to go to college who then stay when they graduate because the area has so much to offer. Adding to that are remote workers from Chicago, Los Angeles and other major cities, who are attracted by the great quality of life and affordable cost of living. The trend towards younger people and families increases the demand for cool mixed-use development and adaptive reuse. It also drives the demand for new workplaces, infrastructure, commercial buildings, higher education, K-12 schools, and healthcare – all of which create opportunities for owners, developers and builders.

FORD: After just a year, McGough already has this reputation in the region of building strong relationships with key partners, and people have learned that we do high-quality work from our portfolio across the country. The experience McGough has in Minnesota and Dallas and other markets matters. For example, McGough has experience building large billion-dollar healthcare campuses , experience that is translatable wherever we operate. McGough has proven its capabilities both as a leader on billion-dollar projects and as a partner with other national firms, which I anticipate could be an opportunity for us here in the Triangle. We already have established working relationships in other markets with some of the large players that operate here in the Raleigh-Durham area.

FORD: First, I believe an emphasis on attracting headquarters or regional offices and continuing to be a destination for corporate migration will set the city up for long-term success. Continuing to invest in infrastructure, quality of life improvements, a positive business environment, and promoting the region is important because when you are experiencing high growth, it’s not always easy to maintain. We’ll also want to encourage redevelopment and infill. There are many leaders and citizens in the community who want to see that happen so the area doesn’t just sprawl.

As for myself and McGough, I look at how McGough has made this lasting impact in other regions. The opportunity to help us make a similar impact in the southeast just feels awesome. I’m excited to be able to get in early and be a part of that journey!