Leadership
“Whatever good things we build end up building us.”
- Jim Rohn
What I'm Excited About Lately
“That’s easy. The move to Integrated Project Management. We’re seeing an almost cataclysmic shift in how we’re leading projects and collaborating with partners.”
Favorite Building Material
“I love to work with wood. There are so many beautiful varieties and it can be shaped into virtually any form. In many ways it is very strong, but in others weak, so care must be taken with design and it projects a warmth that no other material can match.”
Want to Know More?
Ben Hutton
President - bhutton@huttonconstruction.com
Ben Hutton was swinging a hammer as soon as he was old enough to lift one. He learned his love of the construction business from his dad, Mark, who founded Hutton Construction in 1992. But Ben’s first professional experience was not with the family firm. He’d barely collected his Kansas State diploma with a construction management degree before he was on his way to the high country to work for a Colorado-based firm.
“Working for somebody else was how I learned the importance of collaborating. Being able to see a project from somebody else’s viewpoint,” Ben remembers.
He returned to Hutton Construction as a project manager and then led the company’s business development effort. “Going to K-State, working for a company outside the family firm, and then coming back and learning every part of the business – I’d have to say my professional life was pretty much planned out. But I really never thought of doing anything else. Not since the first woodworking projects with my dad in the hobby shop.”
He’s especially proud of an early project for the Halstead Bank. The branch building was an award winner, but more important to Ben was the experience of working with a client who recognized the importance of quality and attention to detail.
“I love it all, but if I had to pick my favorite part of my job it would be business development. To see an ambitious project from the ground up, working with the architects, the clients, the subs – we really excel at collaboration.”
He slices his time pretty thin, working with Visioneering Wichita, the American Heart Association, the Wichita Chamber, the Pregnancy Crisis Center and Youth Entrepreneurs of Kansas. Outside of business, Ben’s number one passion is church and family time with wife Erin and their three kids, Wesley, Bethany and Shepherd. “Don’t get the idea that I’m all business, but it’s my second passion after the family. We like to say a construction project is the biggest team sport in America.” Words of inspiration from the head coach – Ben took over presidency of the Hutton company in 2010.