Man in Motion

Tanner Fagan begins each workday with a purposeful stroll through an expansive food production facility in south central Wisconsin.

“I snake my way through the whole factory to check on progress and see how our teams are doing,” he says, “Getting to see all the great things that the team is building is arguably the best part of my day.” 

As senior project manager, Fagan provides onsite leadership to the McCarthy team members completing a $200 million expansion of the existing facility. This ambitious project involves the addition of a third production line, a large warehouse and a utility building to the venerable 20-building complex. 

The large-scale project benefits from the technical expertise and self-perform capabilities of McCarthy’s Industrial group. In total, construction teams are self-performing over 50,000 linear feet of process and utility piping, over 400 pieces of specialty equipment, 1,350 cubic yards of concrete, thousands of feet of conveyor and 600 tons of structural steel. 

The work is intricate and demanding, with extremely high quality standards for the stainless-steel orbital and specialty welding work that McCarthy is delivering.

Beyond the technical requirements, team members must overcome immense logistical challenges as they navigate tight spaces to carefully position piping and equipment within the multi-building facility. “We've had to come up with some creative solutions to even get material or equipment to the place that it needs to be installed,” he says. 

Those are the very challenges that have always appealed to Fagan about industrial and specialty construction. “It's highly technical work and takes a lot of critical thinking and quality craftsmanship to achieve a successful project,” he says. “Our people are among the best in the industry, and the creative ideas they come up with to solve complex problems is truly impressive.”

Building Beyond Boundaries

Since signing on with McCarthy’s Industrial team as a project engineer in 2014, Fagan has had ongoing opportunities to hone his skills while taking on a diverse range of assignments.
 

Some of his project experiences include: 

• Helping to expand a manufacturing plant that builds components for the Boeing 777X wide-body jetliner. 
• Managing site logistics and serving as a labor relations liaison for a natural gas combined-cycle power plant in Hudson Valley, New York, a joint venture with Bechtel.
• Assisting with construction of the City of Houston’s Northeast Water Purification Plant Intake Pump Station.
• Managing self-perform solar construction at the Willowbrook Solar Farm in southwestern Ohio. 

“I think it's pretty cool that I've gotten to experience all those different project types and challenges,” he says. “I've been able to take away some important learning experiences from every one of those projects that have helped lead me to where I am now.” 

Through his vast experience, Fagan has also gained an appreciation for McCarthy’s people and culture. “Everyone is really talented and passionate about their work, which makes McCarthy a great place to work,” he says. “I've worked alongside other contractors and have friends at many of those companies, and I honestly don't think anyone can hold a candle to our culture.”

The Backstory

Born in the northwest Chicago suburb of Crystal Lake, Illinois, Fagan’s family moved to Kansas City, Kansas, for a few years before settling in Boonville, Missouri, a sleepy town in the center of the state. 

Fagan’s early aptitudes provided clues to his eventual career path. “I think I always had an interest in building things and understanding how they worked,” he recalls. “I was always working on some sort of project as a kid. At age 9, a family friend and I rebuilt an entire go-kart all the way down to the last nut and bolt and gave it a new paint job.” 

A love of the outdoors initially led Fagan to aspire to a career in landscape architecture. But a college visit to Kansas State University convinced him it wasn’t a great fit. “I decided that they spent too much time in the studio and not enough time outdoors building,” he says. “It wasn't quite fast-paced enough for me.” 

So he shifted his focus to engineering and pursued a civil engineering degree at the University of Missouri in Columbia. But it didn’t take long for Fagan to realize he wasn’t destined to become a designer either. “I did one engineering internship and realized I didn't want to sit at a desk and do math problems the majority of my workdays,” he says. “I wanted to get out there and build something.” 

As a college senior, he connected with McCarthy’s Industrial group at the Mizzou career fair and landed an internship that led to a full-time position after he graduated. 

During the internship, Fagan learned foundational estimating skills and worked on an expansion project at the General Motors plant in Wentzville, Missouri. “We were installing a new production line with millwrights using high-precision tools and methods to set robots and conveyor lines. It was impressive, highly detailed work with some really talented individuals,” he says.

That experience convinced Fagan to embark on an industrial construction career at McCarthy.  

After joining the company as a full-time employee, he worked on several local power plant jobs before beginning a trek across the U.S. to take on a series of one-of-a-kind projects. 

While working in Hudson Valley, New York, Fagan met Anna, the woman who later became his wife. Hailing from Connecticut, she followed Fagan to Houston, Cincinnati and now Wisconsin. 

Though she remains a Connecticut loyalist, Anna has grown fond of Midwest living. “A few years ago, I took her to her first Chiefs game, and now she's a bigger Chiefs fan than I am,” Fagan laughs.

As work progresses on his current expansion project, Fagan is excited to see what the future holds for McCarthy’s Industrial group.