When Jimmy Severson was growing up in Oregon, construction was in his background, but it wasn’t on his mind.
His dad Jim Severson founded Centrex Construction 40 years ago in the San Fernando Valley in California, then moved it to the Portland, Ore., area in the late 1970s. Though Jimmy Severson was surrounded by construction as a kid, he was bitten by the aviation bug.
“I had a career path set to become a pilot. That’s what I dreamed of when I was a kid,” he said. “I worked on my private pilot’s licenses and I got it on my 16th birthday. I went to college and wanted to design airplanes and do engineering, but I always had construction in the back of my mind.”
While Severson eventually got his aviation career off the ground, an opportunity arose to come back and lead his father’s company. When he made that decision, it grew a chance to build a unique opportunity in the aviation realm.
Severson said he was working as a pilot for Skywest Airlines when his younger brother contacted him with an opportunity. Their dad was contemplating retirement and they wanted Jimmy to take over the company.
While he loved his job, Severson said he quit Skywest after five years of being a pilot and decided it was time to come lead Centrex.
“I loved flying for the airlines, but doing that and having a family can be a bit rough,” he said.
When Severson came to the company, he found plenty of aviation connections. While Centrex had done aviation projects amongst others, his dad had worked on getting a pilot’s license, his brother-in-law Steve Leasure was joining the company and had worked as an engineer at Boeing, and his brother Tom Severson also pursued a pilot’s license for some time.
“He was one of my first students when I was a flight instructor,” Jimmy Severson said. “I got him through his solo, but after that he had decided it just wasn’t for him.”
Jimmy, Tom and Leasure found themselves taking over the company in 2008 when the Great Recession was taking hold. Work was light, but there were a few hangar jobs available at the time. But given each of them had experience in aviation, it gave them a chance to show clients they were hiring a competent company during the hardest economic time of the century.
“Frankly, we understand both sides of the equation from the end-user and the construction side,” Jimmy Severson said. “I think our clients see a lot of value in that."
Leasure, who is currently vice president of planning and estimating for Centrex, began working at the company while in college. He worked there before he got a job as a design engineer at Boeing at its Everett, Wash., facility.
“I worked there for about five years and I actually got to work on the Dreamliner project,” he said. “I got hired a few months after they launched the (787 Dreamliner) project, so I got to see it from the ground up.
“It really developed my love for aviation and for aircraft, just how pure flight is in its design. Really having a passion for aviation and being involved with the Severson’s, who owned aircraft, it was a match made in heaven.”
A different eye for building
With their background in aviation, Jimmy Severson said they work with clients to make sure they’re building not just for their needs, but future needs. When working on a hangar for Helicopter Transport Services at the Aurora State Airport in Aurora, Ore., he said they not only looked at the current needs of the company but how they planned to expand in the future to make sure there was door width and height available to accommodate bigger aircraft.
“Concrete slab thickness is another example,” Jimmy Severson said. “Just through experience, we know that certain aircraft have point loads that need a certain concrete thickness, so we make sure it’s set up for their 10-year plan rather than just what they’re currently running.
"Replacing a concrete slab is even harder to change out than a door."
“What really got me to come back to Centrex was that working at Boeing was an awesome career, but as a designer, you see a lot of designs come across your desk that you send out to the fab shops, but you never get to see the whole lifecycle process,” Leasure said. “I wanted to be involved in that complete lifecycle process, from that initial concept of an idea in that owner’s head, to the completion of the project and even the maintenance of the project.”
With the background in aviation Leasure said they have, it gives him a level of respect when coming to meet with clients about projects.
“When you understand the aircraft, small and big, and just the level of attention and detail those machines have, the owners of those machines typically want that same level of attention to detail,” he said.
Centrex worked on the new Atlantic Aviation facility at Portland International Airport (PDX). Leasure said the company’s facility is right next to where Icelandair overnights its aircraft and employees of Centrex are so passionate about the industry they will even walk the ramp to check for FOD.
“Being a family business, it raised a lot of eyebrows at first because people said it wouldn’t work,” Leasure said. “It’s one of those things that when we were getting going early on my brothers in law and my father-in-law, we all came together early on and looked at each other and said that if we can’t at the end of the day go to each other’s house and have dinner, then it’s something not worth doing.”
Tom Severson said he always had a mechanical background growing up and initially started college at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, Calif. in the hopes of becoming an aerospace engineer. Despite the love for aviation, he said he decided to change to a business administration major when he thought about a future career.
“I like to rub shoulders and talk with a lot of people,” he said. “I had this dark vision of working on missile telemetry systems in a concrete vault underground. Even though I could get trained to do something else, I decided to go with something a little more broad.”
Tom Severson said while in California he also worked with a roommate to develop a software system similar to Mint. However, when his dad started to toy with the idea of retirement, he knew he wanted to try and take over the business.
His dad agreed to give him a three year window to prove himself and during that time approached Jimmy about coming to work with the company.
“That three years quickly turned into five years, then six, then seven and we kept rolling,” Tom Severson said.
Coming into the business right when the Great Recession hit, Tom Severson said the trio got to “fall flat on our face,” right out of the gate, but their dad continued to support them through the economic downturn, assuring them as long as they kept their heads down and focused on work, they would pull through.
“The way we know the industry, we’re around it and the whole company is so deep in aviation that there’s a passion for aviation and for what it has done for mankind, what it continues to do and it lights a fire that gives us depth when talking with clients,” Tom Severson said.
Tom Severson said Centrex strives for employees who work hard, but are not involved in the typical construction culture in order to make them more focused and to show their appreciation for what they do. When they do company retreats, often times the employees will ride with one of the Severson’s on a small aircraft. Some have never been in an airplane before and when they go for a flight some have gotten the same passion for aviation.
“They’re not sitting in the back of a 757,” he said. “They’re sitting up front in a Pilatus or Centurion."
