JOSEPH VIG:
 
Joseph Vig




 
 
 
 
 
President and CEO of J.S. Vig Construction Co. in Taylor. Drawing upon his extensive real estate and field experience, Vig has grown the company into a full-service, award-winning general contracting and construction management organization and one of the Midwest’s most active and experienced providers of construction services. The company is a member of the U.S. Green Building Council and launched Project Green, a green building program designed to expand the company’s sustainable construction practice and educate property owners, developers, and the public about the benefits and costs associated with green building. Project Green includes the plan to have each of its project management and executive staff LEED accredited by fall 2009 and represents a formalization of J.S. Vig’s experience in sustainable construction. Nearly all of the company’s current projects incorporate green building principles, including a large development in Austin, Texas, that complies with the basic components of Austin’s Green Building Program. J.S. Vig has also served as construction manager for the new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s state-of-the-art Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Pittsfield Township, a facility dedicated to studying and improving the Great Lakes ecosystem. Vig is past president of the Southern Wayne County Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Taylor Rotary and the Association of General Contractors. He received his bachelor’s degree, with honors, in finance and real estate from the University of Michigan.


WHERE BORN: “Southfield.”

MOST INFLUENTIAL PERSONS: “My father, who passed away in 1997, was clearly the most influential for a lot of different reasons. The most significant is that he was a man of integrity. He came from absolutely nothing; his dad was a coal miner in Pennsylvania. And yet, he was able to educate himself and worked himself through the skilled trades and earned his civil engineering degree at night school. He had extremely high integrity in the way he ran his company and worked with people.”

LAST BOOK READ: “To be candid, unrelated to my business, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families by Stephen Covey. It’s a passion of ours on a personal level; my wife and I do family meetings.”

WORDS THAT DESCRIBE ME: “Inquisitive, enthusiastic, high integrity.”

WHERE MY FIELD/INDUSTRY IS HEADED: “Overall, the industry is headed to practical sustainability initiatives. Most new projects going forward will have a sustainable overlay. The specific focus in our industry is in energy efficiency, water efficiency, and the indoor environmental quality. A lot of this is being developed through LEED, a benchmark standard. We’ve opened an education center and showroom in Ann Arbor. The purpose is to educate owners who will be constructing new or renovating with practical strategies that make financial sense. We now have the Project Green team that does consulting work on existing buildings, audits, and offers a series of suggestions on how you can ‘green up’ existing projects to have an immediate payback.”

FAVORITE TECHNOLOGICAL GADGET: “I’m not a super high tech guy but I’m most reliant on my laptop. I have three young kids, so I do a lot of work off-hours and I have a virtual office on my laptop.”

FAVORITE PLACE: “Probably at home with my kids, just hanging out.”

FAVORITE HOBBIES: “Golf and coaching hockey.”

FAVORITE FOOD: “Coney dogs.”

MY HIDDEN TALENT: “I don’t’ know if talent is the right word, but making people feel good by treating them with respect. It’s a leadership style that focuses on achieving positive results by treating people with respect and wanting them to realize a positive outcome for themselves.”

HOW I WANT TO BE REMEMBERED: “As a great dad and a good person.”

Grant Thornton Website At the annual awards reception in April 2014, one Leader & Innovator from the previous 12 months will be selected as the Grant Thornton Leader & Innovator of the Year.