In September 2014, Rand Construction Corp. was nearly a decade into its succession plan when tragedy struck. Jon Couch, the company’s 46-year-old president who was selected by founder Linda Rabbitt to lead the next generation at Rand, died in a plane crash in southern Virginia.
Mixed with a deep sense of grief and loss was the uncertainty of the path forward for the then quarter-century-old company. Over the years, Rabbitt had been approached to sell her Alexandria, Va.-based construction firm numerous times, but she chose to hold to the path and keep the company’s culture and core values intact.