Preconstruction Powerhouse

During a visit to New York City in April 2024, Mark Duda experienced what he considers the pinnacle of his 18-year McCarthy career.

At a waterfront venue in the city’s Chelsea Piers district, he and hundreds of other construction professionals gathered to celebrate the year’s top construction projects at the annual ENR Award of Excellence event. 

Joined by several McCarthy partners, Duda witnessed the National Bio & Agro Defense Facility (NBAF) earn recognition as a national “Best of the Best” winner and one of three finalists for the prestigious “Project of the Year” honor. 

For Duda, the accolades affirmed his years-long involvement in managing the preconstruction phase that set the project on a path to success. “That project team was absolutely incredible, and I learned so much working with them,” he recalls. “It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

As vice president preconstruction, Duda currently manages an experienced team of preconstruction directors while continuing to pursue projects and execute work. “My role is to make sure all of our projects have the resources to be successful,” he says. 

One of his top priorities is to broaden McCarthy’s preconstruction expertise. “I coach and train people to gain more diversified experience so we have a deeper set of resources and can pursue a wider range of projects,” he says.

Since joining McCarthy as a lead estimator in December 2005, Duda has helped expand the company’s capabilities during the early phases of construction projects. The preconstruction team now functions within a broader Design Phase Services group that includes expertise in design integration, virtual design and construction (VDC) and mechanical/electrical/plumbing (MEP) estimating. 

Finding His Way

Hailing from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Duda enrolled at Virginia Tech with plans of becoming an architect. “I liked drawing and I liked math, so I chose architecture,” he recalls. “When that didn't work out, I figured I could take my math and drawing skills and apply them to engineering.” 

He completed a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and wanted to work in infrastructure design, but a weak job market led him to consider other options. “I had some friends who worked in construction, and they steered me in that direction,” he says.

Duda secured a job as a project engineer at HBE, a St. Louis-based design-build construction firm. During his three-year tenure, he learned foundational construction skills in the field, though he grew weary of the constant travel. “I ended up coming back home to St. Louis, got married and settled down,” he says. 

After taking a couple of years to pursue an MBA degree from Maryville University, Duda landed a new job as project manager at McGrath & Associates, a local general contractor. “I ran my own work and was also a part-time estimator, which I started to really enjoy,” he says. “I decided I wanted to do estimating full-time, but I wanted to work for a company that did large, complex projects and had a dedicated estimating team.”

Lucky for him, Duda’s wife had a college friend who had recently started working as a recruiter for McCarthy. That person—R.J. Morris (who currently serves as vice president, talent management at McCarthy)—played a pivotal role in helping Duda connect with his dream job.

When Duda called Morris to inquire about potential job opportunities, he didn’t realize he was catching him on his first day on the job. “I think R.J. was still filling out his HR forms when I called him,” he laughs, “but he was great and helped me get my foot in the door with the preconstruction group.” 

It didn’t take long for Duda to achieve his ambition of working on large, complex projects. His first assignment involved a new 12-story patient bed tower at St. Mary Medical Center in Grand Junction, Colorado. “On day one, they had already made a copy of the blueprints and set them on my desk,” he says. “It was exactly what I wanted.” 

Over the course of his McCarthy career, Duda has overseen the preconstruction phase for a diverse range of projects—from pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities to the Next NGA West campus currently under construction in the city of St. Louis. 

And each project, as he has discovered, brings unique challenges. “You have to roll up the sleeves and figure it out,” he says. ”It's a learning process, and you have to be willing to listen to others who have built similar jobs for the lessons learned.” 

In his current position, Duda is ideally positioned to share his own lessons with others. “I’ve had incredible mentors who took me under their wings and taught me,” he says. “Now's the time for me to help the next generation.” 

One person who appears to be following Duda’s lead is his son Gus, who served as an apprentice carpenter on the NGA project last summer and is part of the 2024 class of McCarthy summer interns. “I'm super proud that he's part of the McCarthy organization and working on a pharmaceutical project in Omaha” he says.