Though buffeted by gas price spikes, supply chain issues and inflation, the Southeast’s construction economy has so far managed to demonstrate the same resilience that helped it weather the pandemic, with most locations and sectors showing moderate to strong growth. That’s encouraging news for the region’s specialty contractors, who nevertheless are finding those proverbial “good problems to have” increasingly challenging to solve.
“The past 12 to 18 months have been interesting,” observes Ed Witt Jr., president and CEO of Miller Electric Co., Jacksonville, Fla., this year’s fifth-ranked specialty contractor. Along with significant growth in the firm’s core data center and health care markets, some of which Witt attributes to pandemic-delayed projects, “we’ve benefited from the ‘Great Resignation’ and the ‘Great Migration’ of people and businesses to the region, and Florida in particular.”