Co-founder of Rescom Construction back in 1989, Joe McLaughlin retired in late December. Together with partner Tim Justice, Joe guided Rescom to become Greenville’s top tenant upfit and renovation specialist. Prior to his retirement, Joe reflected on his experiences as a business owner during Greenville’s remarkable growth. Particularly as we transition into the new year, we hope these insights will inspire other business leaders as they look for tangible ways to solidify and make significant strides in 2025.
A Conversation with Joe McLaughlin
When you look back over 35 years here at Rescom, what things have had the most impact in building a successful business?
(JM) I think the heart of our success are our founding principles, which are based on strong Christian beliefs. Beyond that, we put our employees and their families, along with our subcontractors, first.
Every time there’s a question about how should we handle a particular situation? The answer is always the same: What’s the right thing to do. If you don’t do that when you start dealing with money, it’s very easy to allow yourself to get into a gray area of justifying why you should do X, Y and Z just because it brings in more money. We just never do that. We don’t take advantage of our customer by increasing markups. We just stay at the same markup and just treat people the way we would want to be treated. That’s goes a long way in helping us earn repeat business.
Early in the company’s history, you were doing high-end residential. Then, in 1996 you and Tim made the decision to pivot to commercial tenant upfit work. How did that happen?
(JM) We were building big, beautiful homes with tall ceilings and high-end crown mold packages. When the recession hit in late 1989 and 1990, Tim and I just felt like we didn’t want to cheapen our houses. At the same time, one of our mentors knew of a guy in Miami that specialized in tenant upfits. That’s all he did … and his business was quite successful.
At that time, we were already thinking of getting into commercial construction. I said, I don’t want to be just another GC and duking it out. I want to specialize. We felt like tenant upfit work was sort of a combination of high-end residential and commercial.
Almost immediately, we won several projects, including the Fluor campus and over at Patewood. Then we were able to land the contract for the Daniel Building, which had just been fully gutted to remove all the asbestos. We ended up building out literally the entire building over a ten-year period. We’re blessed to continue to do a lot of work in that building today.
So, over time, we just became “THE” upfit contractor in town, and we’ve had that badge of honor for probably two decades now. It’s truly unique. And you can’t do both. You either build it out of the ground or you do upfit work. Those that have tried to do both, almost everyone has failed.
What are the challenges that came with Rescom’s growth?
(JM) As you grow, it’s harder to keep that family culture. You have to work harder at it to get people together and create a family atmosphere and not have pockets of people. But it’s important because there’s the “Rescom Way” and that’s what’s gotten us here.
Back when we were a smaller company, we’d see everybody every day. As we’ve grown, that’s become harder to do. But you have to focus on bringing people together and nurturing the family atmosphere.
We have the field superintendents come in every other week and we have a meal together. It’s designed to be a meeting, but many times we don’t even talk shop. It’s just a way for all of us to be in one room. It prevents the cliques, so we’re one big happy family that can call each other any time someone has a need.
Joe McLaughlin grew up in Bethlehem, PA, developed a passion for construction in high school and became the first graduate from Clemson with bachelor’s degrees in both Architecture and Construction. He joined Greenville-based U.S. Shelter Corp., where he met Tim Justice, who was working in the company’s accounting department. Their friendship and complimentary business skills would become the basis of Rescom. Joe and Tim sold the business to Tyler McKee, Randy Moore and Jimmy Giorgi in 2019. Joe stayed on an additional five years to help manage the transition. He retired in December 2024.