Connect with Michael & Bob

The Climb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-climb-podcast/
Bob Wierema: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-wierema/
Michael Moore: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelpmoore/

Connect with Molly

Website: https://mcshane-construction.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/molly-mcshane-4316454/

[00:00:00] Molly McShane: [00:00:00] But what if you viewed it, you know, in a broader context of it is our responsibility to this industry and our communities to open up the doors and give somebody the chance, not only to learn the industry, but frankly put it on your resume that you had an internship with us. Cause that's valuable. And if you can give back in that context of let's, let's provide real opportunities to people who don't have a dad or an uncle in the business.

[00:00:31] You can start to make little baby steps, but it's a lot of baby steps. We got to take 

[00:00:37] Bob Wierema: [00:00:37] on this episode of the climb. Michael and I had the opportunity to sit down with Molly McShane, the COO of the McShane companies, a real estate and construction company based in Rosemont, Illinois. It's a family owned business and Molly is going to share her experience of.

[00:00:57] Rising through the ranks and not [00:01:00] only a family held business, but also being a woman in a primarily male dominated industry, Molly realized early on in her career that things don't happen on accident. And it's definitely not a straight line to the top. You'll definitely enjoy this episode of the podcast.

[00:01:17] Thanks for joining us.

[00:01:28] Molly. Welcome. Thank you for taking the time to join Michael and myself today. Appreciate you spending some time. 

[00:01:35] Molly McShane: [00:01:35] Thank you very much for having me. I'm excited. 

[00:01:38] Bob Wierema: [00:01:38] Course. Well, I think a great way to kick it off would be if you could just give us a quick little background on you and let all the listeners know, we know a little bit about yourself and you know where you were and where you're sitting today.

[00:01:50] Molly McShane: [00:01:50] Sure you got it. Maybe I'll start with where I sit today. And that is as chief operating officer of the McShane companies, the McShane companies are [00:02:00] comprised of three different companies, McShane, construction, and cadence, McShane construction are both general contractors. And Connor commercial is our development arm.

[00:02:10] So, I got to this place and probably not a straight line. I think there was perhaps more, more applicable to the real estate industry, but a lot of us get there and kind of a funny path, which applies to me as well. So I started off, I went to Boston college for my undergraduate. And when I was there, I majored in marketing and thinking at that time, advertising sounds really fun.

[00:02:37] You know, they are, it's a, it's a fun vibe. Really cool. I think that's what I'm going to go into. So I did right upon graduating, I went into marketing and advertising and after about, maybe I'll call it a year and a half of that. I very quickly realized it. Wasn't what I was meant to do in my career. You know, I found myself working really [00:03:00] long hours, getting paid just above minimum wage.

[00:03:03] It felt like, and you know, really not making the impact that I wanted to make in the world. So I started some soul searching and moved back to Chicago. I had been living in California prior to that and started thinking about what am I going to do with my career? And I was talking to my dad about it. He said, well, you know, construction and real estate.

[00:03:27] Those are, those are really good industry place to work. Why don't you come work here? 

[00:03:32] Bob Wierema: [00:03:32] And I know your, I know your dad well enough to know that. He's a very convincing person too. 

[00:03:36] Michael Moore: [00:03:36] So yeah, 

[00:03:38] Molly McShane: [00:03:38] that is true. That is true. You know, when I told him, when I said, you know, I don't really have my degrees in marketing, I'm not sure I have the experience for this and you can figure it out.

[00:03:51] So anyway, I did decide to kind of roll the dice and join. So I joined the McShane construction first. I really felt strongly, like I [00:04:00] wanted to know the foundations of the business and understand that at a level that I really didn't at that point in time. So I spent four or five years in the trailers on the job sites, doing project management.

[00:04:13] So I did, you know, everything from senior housing to medical office to, you know, big factories. So kind of got a good perspective of the different types of products that we built at the same time. I went back to graduate school to get my MBA. So I went to Kellogg at Northwestern and I got my MBA with a real estate and finance concentration.

[00:04:39] Okay. Once I got that, I transitioned over to our development company. and there, I spent lots of years doing different product types that we developed medical office apartments, industrial, and got a wide perspective from the development side as well. So with those two things, plus my experience [00:05:00] being on our board of directors for many years, I've now transitioned into leadership of the group of companies.

[00:05:06] So, you know, cadence, Nick, Shane, and Connor, and that's where I am today. 

[00:05:13] Bob Wierema: [00:05:13] So when you came out, you got right into that project management piece. What were some of the struggles you had in that world? I know that's a challenging space to jump right into. And maybe even, what did you enjoy most about being in, in that part of the game?

[00:05:28] Molly McShane: [00:05:28] You know, it was a different environment than I was used to, you know, sitting in a trailer all day, kind of walking around, getting your boots dirty was not an environment I had worked in before. And so I think that finding the right mixture of how to act in that environment, because it's not being professional on a job site kind of has a different tone to it than being professional in an office environment.

[00:05:56] So I think navigating that. that part of it while [00:06:00] being the boss's daughter was a little tricky. What it, what it boiled down to for me was really the personal relationships that you develop over time. I think when you're, when you're on a trailer with somebody all day, every day, you get to know each other pretty quickly and those relationships and, you know, having.

[00:06:19] Mentors within that context opening up within that context really helped me to understand the business better and learn at a pretty quick pace with those one on one relationships. So that's really what I valued the most, not just internally, but you know, the relationships that we would have with our clients in those settings is really, you go out to lunch together and you have a lot of fun together, and it's a little bit more casual.

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