‘Teammates and collaboration’ are secret to Rochester construction firm’s success

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They had met as roster hopefuls during tryouts for Rochester Institute of Technology’s basketball team back in 1999, formed a friendship during their time on campus and a decade later became business partners in the construction industry.

Throughout the years as principals in Hamilton Stern Construction, Justin Hamilton and Chris Stern have guided their firm from infancy in 2010 to what today seems like a perpetual place on the Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce Top 100 List for fastest growing private companies.

As Hamilton Stern closes in on its 15^th anniversary, growth remains steady, perhaps in large part because the company leaders believe strongly in the most basic of principles taught by sports: teamwork.

“It’s all about the teammates and collaboration,” Hamilton Stern president Jason Van Zeilen said.

From the beginning, Hamilton and Stern knew having the right people on their team would be critical to success. While each had gained industry experience within — as well as outside of — the Rochester area, they were still relative construction newbies when they launched the company in 2010.

That’s why they implemented a hiring strategy that isn’t necessarily found in the conventional How To Start A Business playbook. They targeted industry professionals who were well respected in the Rochester market and would provide project expertise. And they did so well before they had the projects for the new employees to oversee.

“Nobody was going to trust two 30-year-olds who just started a construction company,” Hamilton said. “So we started hiring larger names in the area.”

Said Stern: “We were hiring people with the right mindset and the right character before we really had openings. Yes, that costs money up front. But when the project came along, the right people were already here.”

The strategy has certainly paid off. In nine of the past 11 years, Hamilton Stern has been named to the Chamber’s Top 100 List for revenue growth, including No. 1 in 2016 and No. 19 this year.

Not bad for a company whose first job, in May of 2010, was a bathroom remodel.

“We sold a master shower renovation wearing a suit and tie one day,” Hamilton said, “and the next day showed up in a T-shirt and jeans and demo’d it.”

That there was seven years between their graduation from RIT and the launch of their company was a little beyond the timeframe Hamilton had envisioned. But when he had suggested a few years earlier that they become business partners, Stern wasn’t ready.

Then in early 2010, Stern decided it was time.

“He called me from the beach in Hawaii and said, ‘I’m ready to start that business.’ ” Hamilton recalled.

What prompted the epiphany?

“The overarching theme was that we had enough confidence to know that if it didn’t work, we just go get a job,” Stern said. “But the worst-case scenario was not giving it a try and living with 50 years of regret.”

They began as a three-person operation, with Ty Ross their one other employee, largely because of his electrical background. He’s now senior project superintendent and part of a team of 63 employees.

While their first project was a bathroom remodel, and while single-family homes still comprised a good percentage of their workload in 2019, Hamilton Stern is now strictly a full-service a commercial construction project management company.

Their work can be found across Monroe County and across the state, from the offices Aerospace Global and Canal Commons in Rochester to Reynolds Way apartments in Elmira and Founders Way affordable housing in Ithaca.

Current projects include Alta Vista at St. Joseph’s Park, a mixed-use housing property in downtown Rochester for the Ibero-American Development Corp. and Edgemere Development, and Lavery Library, the largest capital project ever at St. John Fisher University.

“We’re not actively looking for random projects across the state but we’re often asked to go somewhere by a client or consultant,” Hamilton said.

That’s because the Pittsford-based firm has established a reputation for quality work and treating clients the right way, as explained in a testimonial on their website.

“We originally selected Hamilton Stern based on a recommendation and their competitive bid,” said Eugenio Marlin, executive vice president of Ibero-American Development Corp. “From the beginning, it quickly became clear that their level of professionalism is what sets Hamilton Stern apart.”

Said Van Zeilen: “That is who we want to be.”

Indeed, exceeding client expectations in their primary sectors of expertise — higher education, affordable housing, industrial and retail — is pretty much a requisite.

Stern was told years ago by an industry veteran, “I’ve never seen a contractor go out of business because of a lack of work, but I’ve seen a lot of contractors go out of business.”

In other words, there’s only one right way to do things.

“We try very hard,” Stern said, “not to put ourselves in a position to fail.”

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