UJAMAA Construction President Jimmy Akintonde (third from left) and Vice President Todd Pressley (fifth from left) with other team members planning construction of three Hilton-branded hotels at 123 E. Cermak in Chicago.

Students from Simeon Career Academy in Chicago visit UJAMAA Construction’s Peoples Gas building construction site as part of a construction/technology program to introduce students to the construction industry.

When Jimmy Akintonde chose UJAMAA as the name of his Chicago-based construction company, he used the Kiswahili word representing the concept of people working together.

Ujamaa means unity in supporting one another, and it also represents the need to give back to those who support you. Based on these principles, Akintonde built one of the premier construction companies in the Midwest and is one of the leading diversity contractors in Chicago. As a result, he’s making a world of difference for the communities where he builds.

“I’ve always been interested in buildings and how they got put together,” Akintonde says. “There is a certain element about working a dirt site and coming back a year later to find a building that will far outlast my lifetime. Understanding how we can use that process to improve the lives of the people who work on the job and the people who use the space when it’s done is what drives me.”

In a construction management class, his professor recommended that he get experience working for a building contractor. “He said, ‘You’ll be a better architect if you can see, feel and touch the building materials and elements you will be designing and understand how they work together,’ ” Akintonde notes.

After interning with a contractor building townhomes in the west suburbs of Chicago, Akintonde says it changed his career perspective. After he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the Illinois Institute of Technology, he went to work for Walsh Construction, one of the largest building contractors in Chicago and a company with a national presence. During his eight years there, he worked on major building, transportation, school and infrastructure projects.

In 2002, Akintonde decided to branch out on his own. “I lived in inner-city Chicago and saw the plight there. I wanted to bring good construction practices into the inner city and see if I could use those processes to affect change,” he says. Akintonde’s vision was to create a company that would provide exceptional construction services in a socially responsible manner, and so UJAMAA Construction was born.

Akintonde, the company’s President and CEO, and his team have been “rebuilding our community one block at a time” for the past 16 years.

Going the Extra Mile

“UJAMAA is one of the principles of Kwanza dating back to the early 19th century, where during the time of harvest, the entire community came together to help harvest crops and share the wealth,” Akintonde says. “We’re looking for people in our community whom we can work with, and for ways we can continue to give back.”

UJAMAA balances its construction work with social responsibility. “We go the extra mile to bring small and local businesses onto our team,” Akintonde says. “We work with trade unions and community groups to find local residents in the area who are looking for an opportunity to work on our projects. You have a much more inclusive approach when you see people on a project who represent the community where projects are built.”

Calling it “a place of second chances,” UJAMAA hires people who don’t have industry experience. The company has a strong training program and, through a partnership with the Chicago public school system, employs high school students as interns. Akintonde proudly shares that the company currently has three employees who started as high school interns, went on to college and are now working full time at the construction firm.

“We want to work with at-risk youth and give them an opportunity. Not everyone has a great jump shot, but there are other ways to make a living. Construction is a great environment and resource to help people improve their lives,” he says.

A Caring Workforce

Giving back to the community is ingrained in the company culture. UJAMAA has more than 50 employees in Chicago and in 2017 opened an office in Atlanta, where it will bring its unique brand of construction and social responsibility to the area.

“Even though we’re a medium-size company, we maintain the feel of a small business,” Akintonde says. “We understand that when you spend so much time at work, it gets better when you like the people you are around. Our people have great energy and a passion for building and improving peoples’ lives.”

Todd Pressley, UJAMAA co-principal and Vice President who heads up the new Atlanta office, says employees are carefully selected based on their experience and their buy-in to UJAMAA’s dedication to community. “We want our people to retire from their jobs. We try to create an atmosphere where people want to live, learn and prosper within our company. We instill in them a pride of ownership for a project,” he says.

Employees are encouraged to volunteer and give their time to nonprofits of their choice. The company hosts several events each year to renovate senior citizens’ homes and supports a number of vocational training programs for minority and low-income youth, giving high school students hands-on engineering and project management experience.

The company touts its safety record as one of the best in the industry. In 2017, UJAMAA worked close to 80,000 man-hours without a lost-time injury. “It’s very simple. We want everyone to go home the same way they came,” Akintonde says. “We believe in safety and are constantly talking about it with our carpenters and field teams. We do a lot of safety training.”

UJAMAA’s business approach keeps customers coming back; the company boasts a repeat business rate of up to 68 percent. “It’s an indication that we’re doing something right when we have clients who repeatedly come back to work with us. It shows the commitment of our people, the structure of our organization and the consistency of our work,” Akintonde says.

Affecting Lasting Change

Over the past 10 years, UJAMAA has had a major impact on the South Side of Chicago, where many grocery stores and retail businesses were shuttered, forcing residents to travel out of the community for fresh produce and groceries.

UJAMAA built the first Walmart Supercenter in the area—a 165,000-square-foot project—and constructed or renovated numerous grocery and retail stores, including several Walmart Express stores, ALDI food markets and Starbucks facilities.

The firm recently constructed a new Whole Foods Market store in Chicago’s Englewood community, an area of town formerly impacted by crime. “We built a retail center, and it’s thriving,” Akintonde says. “It’s an amazing place to see and very rewarding to know you are part of something that’s changed the mindset of the community.”

Another source of pride is the company’s construction of a 50,100-square-foot, state-of-the-art training center for Peoples Gas and North Shore Gas in Chicago. The site includes a mock city with a simulated natural gas delivery system to provide real-world training for natural gas workers. UJAMAA completed the project with 92 percent participation of Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) contractors, a record for giving back to the community, shares Akintonde.

UJAMAA has successfully completed numerous projects for some of the area’s leading colleges and universities, from complex auditorium renovations to classroom, laboratory and student dormitories. The company achieved 32 percent minority-owned and 5 percent women-owned contracting levels on the recent renovation of the Beattie Theater at City Colleges of Chicago.

The company is in the early stages of a design-build project for a new high school on the South Side of Chicago, the first design-build public high school for the company. “It will be a place of learning and a place of hope in a neighborhood that desperately needs to be teaching young kids to be prepared for the future. It’s fun to be part of something that will change lives for decades,” Akintonde notes.

But the company’s most exciting and highest-profile project is on the horizon. In late 2017, UJAMAA—as part of the Lakeside Alliance, a joint venture consisting of five construction firms—was selected to build the more than $300 million Obama Presidential Center. The campus in Jackson Park on Chicago’s South Side will feature a landmark museum tower, a two-story public meeting space, a public plaza and community park, and an athletic center for community sports programs.

When selecting the team that would build this campus, the top priority for the former president and First Lady Michelle Obama was to ensure they were creating opportunities for local businesses and building pathways toward meaningful jobs for minorities and other underrepresented populations in the Chicago area—a cornerstone of UJAMAA’s business approach.

“It’s been a two-year pursuit for us and is an exciting win for the UJAMAA team,” Akintonde says. “It will be the most amazing project in my lifetime.”