The second generation of family leadership is officially at the helm of one of the state’s largest general contracting firms, VCC.
Derek Alley has taken on the title of chief executive officer at the Little Rock-headquartered construction company. He succeeds his father and co-founder of VCC, Sam, who will remain as chairman and focus on strategic initiatives.
“VCC has always focused on long-term resiliency, and this is the culmination of a multi-year succession plan,” said Sam Alley in a news release. “Our industry finds itself in a dynamic place, and so does VCC. The time was right for this transition, setting the stage for VCC’s continued growth for years to come.”
Sam Alley will remain quartered out of the Little Rock corporate office, home to the company’s largest concentration of staffers at 60. His son will continue to work primarily from the Dallas office, the base of operation for 30 additional staffers.
Derek Alley, 37, grew up in the business as a teenager and joined the company in a leadership role in March 2008 as a director and later as a managing director.
“Functionally, I was doing the job of CEO for a number of years, but the title change is official now,” he told Arkansas Business in an interview. “As a company since day one, the leaders understood that planning for succession is critical. We pride ourselves on training, mentoring and bringing up the next generation of leadership within the company. We have close to 40 people who have been with VCC for 20 years or more.”
Derek Alley said the company has a pipeline of work in place that will likely produce a record year for revenue in 2022. VCC set a high-water mark for annual revenue in 2019 at $950 million, which ranked it as the 107th largest construction company in the nation.
Hampered by the pandemic ripples, 2020 revenue was stunted at $650 million, according to Arkansas Business' most recent list of the state's largest commercial contractors, published in April.
“This is an exciting time for our company and our industry,” Derek Alley said in a news release. “I’m honored to help lead our firm by focusing on several key areas: building resilience in our processes to adapt to the fast changing industry, adopting technologies that drive operational excellence in the office and in the field, driving new lines of business that provide additional value for our clients and supporting our amazing employees and company culture that truly sets us apart.”
Founded in 1987, the company has grown from a single office in Little Rock to include a network of eight additional offices around the country. Along the way, VCC established a track record as the largest contractor of retail space in America and worked on construction projects totaling more than $25 billion in all 50 states.
“Developers in any asset class are looking for experts who can help them navigate complex risk factors in all phases of construction,” Derek Alley said in a press release. “They realize that cost isn’t the only, or perhaps most important, consideration. It’s also about who can navigate supply and production challenges while delivering quality, innovation and safety, and VCC is well-positioned to deliver on all three.”
(Correction: VCC ranked No. 1 among Arkansas contractors on Arkansas Business' 2020 list; it was No. 2 in 2021. A previous version of this article misstated the ranking.)
