by David Ball
Staff Writer
Walking in to the Stockton Road offices of W.W. Gay Mechanical Contractors is like walking into a shrine of professional achievement and philanthropy.
Hundreds and hundreds of awards, plaques, framed articles, gifts and souvenirs fill up the reception area and spill out onto the walls lining the office halls. Some are gator heads and other University of Florida memorabilia, but most are lasting testaments to the remarkable 61-plus-year career of company founder Bill Gay.
Saturday, Gay, now 81, earned his latest and one of his most prestigious awards - The Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award in the category of real estate, hospitality and construction. The national award recognizes leaders and visionaries in 10 categories who demonstrate innovation, financial success and personal commitment to creating a world-class business.
The award would be a fitting cap to a long and illustrious career, but Gay said he isn’t near ready to hang up his hat as CEO. His most pressing concern, instead, is where to put the heavy trophy.
“I haven’t figured that our yet. This is where it’ll be for now,” said Gay sitting next to the trophy on a desk in his office. Almost every wall and desk surface in the room is covered with some type of award.
“I intend to keep going if I can keep my mind,” he chuckled. “We just bought a new crane, it’s our first track crane. No, we got a hungry elephant to feed, and the employees need it to grow.”
The employees are always at the front of Gay’s mind, said company President David Boree, who started his career as a W.W. Gay truck driver while still in high school in 1975.
“It seems like the average turnover for most businesses is a couple years,” said Boree. “But when we hire somebody, they don’t leave. They stay 25 or 30 years.”
Gay said the first man he ever hired still works for him. He’s 80 years old and works three days a week.
“Mr. Gay is a great boss and the employees enjoy the family atmosphere,” said Boree. “The mentoring Mr. Gay gives you as an employee is really something. He teaches you good values, both in business and in life.”
Gay forged much of those values after serving in the Merchant Marines during World War II. There was no G.I. Bill back then, so Gay had to pay is own way through college, which Gay said turned out to be a blessing.
Gay had to find work, and he found it with Henley & Beckwith on the construction of a gymnasium at the University of Florida. The company mentored Gay, who graduated as a plumber apprentice in 1949 at the same time he received his engineering degree from Florida.
He continued with the company and eventually moved into the office as an administrator in Jacksonville. In the early 1960s, Gay approached his employers with a desire to form his own company. Beckwith supported Gay’s decision and even offered him a recent commercial contract to start.
Gay officially founded W.W. Gay in 1962 with three partners who helped co-sign the $200,000 line of credit. Within a year, Gay had 15 employees, and after two years Gay bought back the company’s stock while delivering his partners a 100 percent profit on their investment.
Today, Gay employees nearly 1,000 with offices in St. Augustine, Gainesville, Orlando and Little Rock, Ark. W.W. Gay reportedly ranks in the top 10 in revenue among mechanical contractors in the country.
The company serves large commercial and industrial clients, such as hospitals, with a full carpentry staff and specialists in areas of heating and cooling, refrigeration, welding, computerized fabrication, controls and automation, plumbing and piping, petroleum storage and underground utilities.
The company also operates its own supply house and has one of the top plumbing, a/c and mechanical testing and instructional facilities in the country.
While growing his own company, Gay found time to start 24 other businesses, even competitors, and allow others to buy them outright when they become profitable. Some notable names include North Florida Plumbing, First Coast Supply and Atlantic Insulation.
“I saw the opportunity for them to grow, and I took it,” said Gay. “I had three friends help me start this company, and I like to be able to do the same for other people.”
Even more important to Gay, he’s still found time to devote to countless community groups and services. It was this community service, Boree said, that seemed to make Gay the right choice for the Entrepreneur of the Year award.
“I talked to one of the judges, and one of the major differences was Mr. Gay’s philanthropy,” said Boree. “I think that set him apart from his competition.”
That competition included major business leaders: William Bayless, Jr., president and CEO of Austin-based American Campus Communities, one of the nation’s largest developers, owners and managers of high-quality student housing; Allen Tate, founder and CEO of Allen Tate Company, one of the leading real estate companies in the Carolinas; and Richard Fain, chairman and CEO of Royal Caribbean Cruises in Miami.
Gay’s name adorns the award, but like many others, he doesn’t view it as a personal achievement. It’s for the same reason he is as passionate as ever about growing his businesses into the future.
“I had good people. They deserve this award, not me,” he said. “I love this city, and my employees are the best in the business. We have a team here, a family. And that’s why I won this award.”