Texas & Southeast Specialty Firms Kept Hustling in 2024
Infrastructure and technology projects drove results for specialty contractors working across the Texas & Southeast region
Companies like MMR Group banked on electrical and instrumentation sector work last year.
Specialty contractors in ENR’s Texas & Southeast region tallied a very strong 2024. All combined, the top 15 firms on the region’s Top Specialty Contractors list reported revenue of $13.63 billion last year, up an eye-popping 42% from 2023.
This year’s list merges two former regions: Texas & Louisiana—covering Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas—and the Southeast, which includes Alabama, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Puerto Rico. Rankings are based on firms’ 2024 revenue.
Across all 113 ranked companies, revenue rose 33% to $25.5 billion, surpassing the prior year’s 26% growth. During that same period, average revenue per firm increased 22%, following 24% growth in 2023. Continuing that trend, firms averaged more than 51% growth since 2022.
Electrical contractors drove much of the surge, reporting $9.09 billion in revenue in 2024, a 73% increase from $5.24 billion in 2023. Transportation-related work also expanded, with revenue rising 51% to $1.26 billion. These figures highlight strong demand across multiple sectors, from industrial and energy projects to large-scale infrastructure.
MMR Group, named this year’s ENR Texas & Louisiana Specialty Contractor of the Year, exemplified the momentum present in the electrical and instrumentation sector.
The Baton Rouge-based firm reported $2.3 billion in nationwide revenue in 2024, nearly 67% higher than the previous year. James “Pepper” Rutland, the firm’s founder, president and CEO, credited growth to robust activity across liquefied natural gas, data center and artificial intelligence projects while maintaining a focus on core E&I work.
“Rather than wandering off to other sectors that maybe we might not be good at, we’ve strived to achieve excellence in trying to be the best electrical contractor,” Rutland said.
Following MMR’s lead, Primoris Services Corp., ENR Texas & Louisiana’s 2024 Specialty Contractor of the Year, continues to experience high demand for large, infrastructure-heavy projects. “We’re seeing strong, above-trend opportunities tied to AI campuses and hyperscale data centers,” says Koti Vadlamudi, president and CEO. Many initiatives that were recently only concepts are now fully funded, permitted and actively underway across the region, he adds.
“The projects are getting more complex and infrastructure-heavy—power generation, battery storage, power transmission, substations, fiber—all of it running in parallel. And owners want it delivered fast,” Vadlamudi says, highlighting the need for contractors capable of scaling to meet multiple scopes and demanding timelines.
The high pace and scale, coupled with the region’s strong specialty contractor performance across electrical, transportation and industrial sectors, sets the stage for a closer look at the firms in the Top Specialty Contractors ranking and the breakout tables highlighting specialty work by state and sector.
