Some folks celebrate their 50th anniversary with gold. CBM Construction in Little Rock will likely mark the occasion with concrete and rebar as it continues building the structures that define central Arkansas.
“CBM’s never had a tagline. I think 50 years kind of is the tagline,” said Matt Gray, vice president. “Anybody that can maintain anything for 50 years is pretty special, in my opinion. No matter what you’re doing or who you are, 50 years is a long time.”
Kevin Newton, company president, agreed that it is a landmark year for the company.
“It feels great,” he said. “We’ve come a long way.”
Although CBM Construction officially started in 1976, the legacy of founder Clark McGlothin’s family dates back even further, to 1921, when his great-grandfather, W.E. Clark, opened W.E. Clark and Sons Masonry in North Little Rock.
W.E. Clark’s sons and grandsons — Henry Clark, Jimmy Clark, Bill McGlothin and Jack McGlothin — inherited the company in 1959. In 1975, the partners started an additional company, The McGlothin Co. General Contractors, with Jack McGlothin as president.
Jack’s son, Clark McGlothin, was hired on as a trainee in 1976. Following the death of Jimmy Clark, Clark McGlothin, Jack McGlothin and Henry Clark bought out all their heirs and partners, and the name of the company was changed to Clark McGlothin’s initials — CBM.
In 1981, Clark McGlothin bought Henry Clark’s stock, becoming president and managing partner. His sister, Michelle McGlothin Esentan, became partner a year later. Jack McGlothin died in 2013, after 64 years of work, leaving all of his stock to the two siblings.
The company moved to its current location at 401 S. Victory St. in Little Rock in 2010, following the Great Recession. As the economy began to thaw, Clark McGlothin hired his son-in-law, Newton, as vice president of marketing and public relations to help with a reboot of the company.
Newton, Clark McGlothin and Gray (Photo by Jane Colclasure)
“I had been in telecom for 17 years, and he approached me on vacation and said, ‘Hey, would you want to come work for me?’” Newton said. “I said, ‘I don’t know much about construction,’ and he said, ‘Well, you can learn it,’ and so I came on board in 2013, and it’s been great ever since.”
Gray was hired as project superintendent in 2016. In 2018, McGlothin became CEO, Newton became president, and Gray became project manager. Newton and Gray bought the company a year later.
Gray said he considers McGlothin to be like an adoptive father.
“I think when Clark started the company at CBM, he really based it on he wanted to be the guy that paid his bills on time and that people wanted to work for,” he said. “The reputation that Clark built and the way he set everything in place with how he conducted the business, the reputation’s what kind of coasted it to 50 years to where we’re the kind of contractor that people want to use.”
Newton added that developing close relationships with customers in the community has allowed the company to grow from three to 27 employees and from a business worth a few million dollars into a multimillion-dollar operation.
“We started as a small commercial contractor, getting small jobs here and there,” he said. “Through our relationships that we have with our municipalities and churches and different commercial groups, we’ve grown our business tenfold from what it was in 1976.”
The company works on a variety of commercial projects, from tenant finish work to ground-up construction. Most clients are composed of medical, church, fast-food and commercial office projects that help shape the built landscape of central Arkansas, including some of the most impactful structures in the area.
Shopping stores at Pleasant Ridge Town Center (Photo by Sarah DeClerk)
One of the company’s most recognizable projects to date is Pleasant Ridge Town Center, the landmark shopping destination in west Little Rock developed by Lou Schickel and opened in 2006.
“We’ve had that relationship with Lou and his family for a long time,” Newton said. “We continue to do work out there with the different variety of shops that they have.”
Gray added that the project was a milestone not only for his company but for the entire community.
“I think that was one of the first staples not only for a contractor-developer but for central Arkansas and Little Rock as a whole, that Town Center being a town center and still being the town center it is today,” he said. “It’s one of the nicest places in Little Rock.”
North Little Rock Event Center (Photo provided by CBM Construction)
CBM Construction has also completed a variety of projects for the city of North Little Rock and is currently working on the highly anticipated 31,000-square-foot North Little Rock Event Center on Main Street. Also in the works is the new emergency hospital in west Little Rock. CBM Construction previously worked at the emergency hospitals in Cabot and Fort Smith.
“I think when they get those microhospitals in areas that need them, it definitely shapes the landscape around us,” Gray said.
Goodwill building in west Little Rock (Photo provided by CBM Construction)
In addition, CBM has worked extensively with Goodwill Industries of Arkansas and recently finished a flagship retail store in west Little Rock. Newton said CBM gives back to the community by supporting Goodwill and other charitable organizations.
“I’ve been working with them for eight years, so I really see the ins and outs of what they do and the second-chance programs and the career development, career navigator and the school programs that they do,” Gray added. “I think that Goodwill Industries of Arkansas has a very, very big impact in the whole state of Arkansas that no one really sees.”
Gray said he and Newton have worked to take on different kinds of projects since becoming owners.
“Kevin and I, we’re never comfortable being comfortable, so we’ve kind of expanded and broadened the type of jobs we do, the jobs we kind of go after, and we’ve grown it in the aspect of medical work and ground-up construction instead of just the same routine, same customers — the comfortable,” Gray said. “We kind of got comfortable being uncomfortable with the projects we’re willing to take.”
“On time and on budget” is a recurrent slogan in the construction world, but Newton said the words are more than just a phrase at CBM.
“We really do it,” he said. “We work with the owners to really stay within their budget and really get their building done as quick as possible. We’re pretty good at doing that, and we’ve got good workers and good subs that allow us to do that.”
That work ethic has garnered the company return customers that have been integral to CBM’s growth.
“Relationships are really important to us,” Newton said. “I would say probably relationships, for any company, are the key to success, but we really keep our customer base and have repeat customers that continually come to us year after year and do business with us.”
None of it would be possible, he added, without a dedicated, hardworking team.
“Our staff and our boots on the ground are what differentiates CBM from our competitors,” he said. “We have a lot of great contractors in Little Rock and Arkansas, but we tend to think we have some of the best in the city and the state.”
As it reaches the half-century mark, CBM Construction must navigate its share of industry challenges, among them a shrinking labor pool and higher material costs.
“We spend a lot of time value-engineering jobs and getting them on budget,” Newton said. “It’s just common practice now.”
He added that he and Gray are working to integrate new technologies into the company and teach staff members the same values they were taught by McGlothin.
“We just instill in our people to work hard and get the job done,” he said. “Clark did a good job of training us and being a mentor for us to do things like he did them, and it’s worked.”
Gray said maintaining the reputation McGlothin cultivated is something that he takes personally.
“The last thing I want to have happen is let something fail that someone that I care about built, knowing how hard they worked to build it,” he said. “I think we’re trying to go above and beyond, you know what I mean? Where Clark started it, we don’t want to be the ones to run it down. We want to be the guys that keep it up for another 50 years.”
As he watches his namesake company reach the 50-year mark, McGlothin, now retired, said he is “thankful to our lord and savior for all the blessings.”
The old Argenta Library by Clark & Sons Masonry. (Photo provided by CBM Construction)
He added that the company’s longevity has allowed it to grow a business philosophy and tradition rooted in attention to detail, speed, organization, quality and accountability.
“The implementation and consistent application of those tenants inspires confidence in customers and employees, allowing the organization to be a contributor to the economy on all levels,” he said.
Gray said he hopes the company remains true to itself so that when people need a contractor, they continue to think of CBM.
“We know who we are. We like who we are. We’re comfortable with who we are,” he said. “We’re not trying to impress anybody. We’re not trying to be the biggest. We’re trying to do a good job for our customers, do right by their money and put out buildings that we’re proud of.”
Newton added that he looks forward to another five decades of constructing buildings that, like CBM, stand the test of time.
“There’s no better feeling for a contractor than to build a project and then be able to roll by that project and say, ‘Man, I did that project,’ or my daughter can be in the car with me and be like, ‘Dad, didn’t you build that?’” he said. “There’s just a sense of pride knowing that all of us, my whole team, built something and can be proud of it.”
Feature image top: Kevin Newton, company president, and Matt Gray, vice president (Photo by Jane Colclasure)
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