A Chat with Jake Marsac, Senior General Superintendent at Messer Construction

Cohesive team, mutual respect key to successful projects

By Chris Maday Schmidt

Senior General Superintendent Jake Marsac possesses more than a dozen years of experience in the construction industry, with the last five years at Messer Construction (Cincinnati, Ohio). In his position, Marsac directly manages field operations for multimillion-dollar scopes of work. Throughout his day-to-day responsibilities, he focuses on safety, quality, schedule and budget, while valuing teamwork, quality, collaboration, ingenuity, stewardship and relationship development. Join Construction Superintendent as Marsac shares advice for breaking into the trades, mitigating the labor and materials shortages, and more.

(Q) How did you end up working in construction?
Working in construction runs in my family. My father, both grandfathers and several uncles have worked in the industry. Growing up, my dad (also a superintendent) brought me to work with him regularly. Many Saturdays were spent hanging out in a jobsite trailer. I knew this was the path I wanted to take and began that journey when I enrolled at Auburn University and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Construction Management.

(Q) Early on in your career, you were involved with a couple construction co-ops. What exactly did this entail?
I did several co-op terms and had the opportunity to work in different roles in the field and office. I learned about document control, estimating, overseeing day-to-day operations, general labor, carpentry, project management, surveying and more. This experience gave me a well-rounded understanding of construction and helped me find the role best suited for me.

(Q) What advice would you offer for anyone interested in the trades and/or becoming a superintendent?
Being a superintendent can be challenging. It often involves having difficult conversations and working with difficult people. I recommend gaining exposure to the role by having a few co-op terms in the field before beginning a career. Also, consider if it is a good fit for your personality. Superintendents need to be confident, motivated and outgoing. If that’s not you, you may not enjoy the work. The good news is that there is a role in construction for every personality.

(Q) To date, what has been the most challenging project you’ve worked on? Why?
Prior to Messer, I worked on a team that built a large medical campus consisting of a 400,000-square-foot hospital, 250,000-square-foot medical office building, 150,000-square-foot clinic and 150,000-square-foot administration building. We were an out-of-town contractor in a rural town with a limited labor force and supply chain. The schedule was aggressive. We had several young managers on the team still finding their leadership styles and struggling to gain respect from subcontractors. It was painful, but we all learned and grew in the process.

The experience taught me that there is no such thing as planning too much or too far in advance. Also, having a cohesive team with mutual respect is one of the most important aspects of a successful project.

(Q) Talk a bit about the scope that’s involved with developing and managing mass grading/excavation.
Mass grading and excavation are used for heavy civil work and involve handling and disposing of large quantities of dirt and rock to prepare the site for building. This work is critical to the construction schedule and any mistake can have significant cost impacts. It’s important to identify risks and carefully plan the work to mitigate these risks. The most important aspect is the plan for cut/fill quantities, stockpile locations and haul routes.

(Q) In what ways do you get your crew to buy-in to quality control and safety?
To generate buy-in, I help my crew realize that our quality control and safety processes benefit them. More often than not, these processes make us more productive and efficient. When we focus on quality, we have less rework. When we focus on safety, we prevent incidents and injuries that will set us back.

The culture that exists at Messer makes my job a little easier. Internal and external workers know a Messer jobsite has high expectations. We have many repeat clients because of it, and because of the results we deliver. It’s my job to sustain this culture.

(Q) Has Messer been hit with the labor shortage? If yes, in what ways has the company mediated it?
We have definitely seen a labor shortage. Messer mediates the effects by leveraging our Lean construction techniques like flow scheduling. We can provide clear direction to subcontractors to streamline operations. Our subcontractors trust our schedules and can accurately forecast their work.

Messer also has in-house support departments like Virtual Design and Construction that help us accurately plan and execute work. We use Building Information Modeling for prefabrication and other solutions that make our projects and subcontractors more efficient.

(Q) How has the materials shortage and delays affected your role?
The materials shortage and delays have completely changed how we think about procurement. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the list of long-lead items to keep an eye on was short. We received nearly 90% of our materials in four weeks or less. Today, we are closely monitoring all materials and facing the longest lead times the industry has ever seen.

We are spending extra time with each trade partner to understand what items they have or have not procured. We are being diligent about checking in with manufacturers and communicating regularly with material suppliers.

The current conditions have added several levels of logistical planning, but the silver lining is that it has helped subcontractors (and us) become better planners.

(Q) What type of advancements have you seen with exterior skin installations? Are you working with more prefab components?
In the last 10 years, we’ve seen many advancements in water and air vapor barriers/coatings. Insulation of the building façade has also changed drastically. We are doing several different types of insulation and different placements within the wall system that are making buildings more efficient. As a result, MEP systems can be downsized significantly.

We’re beginning to see prefab components for metal stud walls, but it has not increased significantly. For the exterior skin, prefabrication components are behind in comparison to other aspects of construction. Glass curtainwall prefabrication is growing, but procurement is challenging due to supply chain issues.

(Q) What are some recent challenges you have faced with MEP coordination & equipment installations?
BIM has changed the way MEP coordination is done. Designers can now tighten up the spaces where systems live. We’re coordinating MEP systems within fractions of an inch. This causes challenges because ceiling components can be less than an inch away from MEP coordination. The building structure and other building components haven’t caught up to these changes and can’t be built to the same level of accuracy.

The equipment installation challenges we are facing are related to supply chain issues. Large pieces of equipment are arriving late, making it difficult to physically get those items into their final resting place. For example, on a recent higher education project, we received the switchgear and transformers when the building façade was near completion. We had to get creative on how to install them. Under normal circumstances, we would have installed these large pieces of equipment before building the rest of the structure.

(Q) Of all the tools in your toolbox, which one would you be lost without?
My iPhone. It’s hard to imagine how I did half of my career without a smartphone.

(Q) What’s your favorite pastime off the clock?
I’m an avid mountain sports person. I enjoy mountain biking, trail running and rock climbing. I like to go out west to Wyoming or Montana in the winter for ice climbing, and to Washington in the summer for mountaineering.

(Q) Share something about yourself with Construction Superintendent that most people don’t know about you.
I have a very keen sense of taste. I regularly like to pick out different seasonings or ingredients, especially in my mother-in-law’s cooking (which she doesn’t always find as fun as I do).