50 BCBusiness october 2016
F
or the Jacob brothers,
born and raised in
Sidney, B.C., construc-
tion runs in the family.
Sons of a carpenter,
each was well into
his own career—Scott, 52, a
general contractor; Todd,
48, a developer; and Jason,
47, a general contractor
specializing in road repairs—
when the opportunity to
join forces presented itself.
Over a six-pack of Heineken
the evening after an indus-
try event in Victoria, Jason
lobbed the idea of merging
their individual expertise
into a family business. As
one six-pack turned into
three, the brothers reached
agreement.
Nine years later, and Jacob
Bros. is one of the 40 largest
construction companies in
Canada by revenue, with $96
million in revenue in 2015
and 300 employees. The rm
is a multidisciplinary general
contractor—a unique hybrid
that does both civil work,
roads and tarmacs for public
entities, and highrises and
other buildings for private cli-
ents. On the civil side they've
built microdams and substa-
tions for BC Hydro, parts of
the Evergreen Line, highways
for Parks Canada and staging
grounds for BC Ferries. On
the private side, they've built
tarmacs at the Edmonton and
Victoria airports, built the 21-
storey Hotel Blu in downtown
Vancouver and done termi-
nal and tarmac work for the
Vancouver Airport Authority
(worth over $100 million).
That diversity of proj-
ects—general contractors
often specialize in one type
of structure—is the result of
the individual expertise that
each brother brought to the
business. "While we're cut
from the same cloth, each of
us has a di™erent approach
to the same problem," says
Scott. "I think that's part of
what makes us work."
Not that such a family
a™air was inevitable. Scott, for
his part, never contemplated
anything other than construc-
tion, stating that he "always
knew that this would be it."
Todd, meanwhile, mean-
dered from architecture into
engineering before going on
to complete an
MBA and work
in residential development.
As for Jason: "I contemplated
everything other than con-
struction but it kept nding a
spot in my life," he says.
Jason's roadworks busi-
ness eventually became the
foundation upon which the
company was built. It's per-
haps appropriate, then, that it
was his pitch that brought the
brothers together. Or as Scott
puts it, "Jason must have
made a pretty impressive
case." —J.P.
Todd, Scott + Jason Jacob
Principals, Jacob bros. Construction Inc.
