Kevin Leyra, owner and President of Excel Construction in Middletown, New Jersey. After 25 years of operation, his company now thrives as one of New Jersey’s leading carpentry contractors.

On-site at the DREAM! Excel Construction team members performing a site survey and value engineering at the American Dream mega-mall project in New Jersey.

For Kevin Leyra, a husband and father of three, coaching his 14-year-old son’s ice hockey team allows him to teach important lessons centered on teamwork, honesty, respect and commitment. These principles not only shape winning attitudes for game day—they also build future leaders.

How does Kevin know this? Because similar lessons early in his life helped him to become the owner and operator of a thriving business: Excel Construction, a full-service carpentry firm based in Middletown, New Jersey. Since forming the company in 1994, Kevin has managed his staff, clients and projects with a strong focus on ethics, collaboration and teamwork.

Kevin takes his role as company President very seriously. When he’s not looking for work, bidding on contracts or overseeing personnel matters, he’s focused on building leadership qualities among his staff—particularly the younger generations. Kevin is always willing to share his knowledge with employees, and offer guidance when asked. This, in turn, makes team members feel valued.

“Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence, and making sure that impact lasts in your absence,” he says. “My father, who coached me in sports as a youth and later in business, taught me that it’s important to make everybody feel like a somebody.”

The advice and support Kevin received from his father, and also his grandfather, are what started his entrepreneurial journey.

Family Influences

Growing up, Kevin was always fascinated with two things: flying and construction. Though Kevin went to school to be a pilot, his lifelong passion for building things led him in a different direction. His interest in carpentry was piqued in early childhood under the guidance of his father, Jerry Leyra, and his grandfather, Jozef Pacyna.

One of Kevin’s earliest memories is of helping his father, who did carpentry as a hobby, renovate the family home. “I was about 6 years old at the time. Basically, my dad just let me put the screws in with a powered screw gun, and just pal around with him,” Kevin recalls.

When he was 15, Kevin began working after school with his grandfather, a carpenter who immigrated to the U.S. from Poland. Under his tutelage, Kevin’s woodworking expertise grew over the next several years. “My grandfather would say things like, ‘You cannot have a million-dollar dream with a minimum-wage work ethic,’ or ‘Don’t wish for it—WORK for it,’ ” Kevin says. For him, these philosophies drilled home the fact that hard work and perseverance will reward you, while wishful thinking gets you nowhere.

By age 21, Kevin had decided to form Excel Construction because he knew carpentry was the career that would make him happiest…and he also appreciated the lucrative future it promised. He started out working from an office in his parents’ basement, and used his life savings to purchase tools and equipment for his business. “My dad hand-built my first desk and bought me a luxury executive chair, which I still sit in every day,” Kevin adds.

His first official job was an interior office renovation for CentraState Medical Center in Freehold, New Jersey. The client, impressed by his high level of integrity and skilled craftmanship, asked him to work on additional projects.

Business continued to increase through word-of-mouth referrals, eventually earning the contractor a reputation for reliability, quality and commitment. By age 25, Kevin had signed his first million-dollar contract. To complete this project, Kevin obtained a business line of credit with the help of his father, who co-signed on the loan and used the family’s home as collateral. Obviously, the elder Leyra had faith in his son’s abilities.

“I am very grateful for my family’s support throughout my career,” Kevin says. “My father, in particular, imparted several valuable lessons. For instance, he taught me the importance of meeting face-to-face with people to develop a relationship. He often said, ‘If people like you they will listen to you, but if they trust you, they will do business with you.’ ”

Kevin’s wife, Kristine, is also a proud supporter of her husband’s accomplishments both at work and at home. These life partners, who share a passion for coaching youth sports teams (Kristine does soccer), see eye to eye when it comes to developing strong character in others. Together, they are diligently working to impart their high standards to their children—Sophia (16), Nicolas (14) and Dominick (4).

Kevin says, “The lessons I learned from my father and grandfather have shaped me into the person I am today. I am now raising and coaching my own children to be potential business leaders who can take over the company if they choose to. The future is full of exciting prospects—and I’m excited to see what’s in store.”

Diverse Capabilities and Impressive Projects

As a business owner, Kevin strives to foster a supportive, team-oriented culture where employees can thrive and deliver unbeatable services to customers.

“Our company’s tagline is ‘Experience Something Different.’ This represents our team’s shared commitment to exceed client expectations and form long-term relationships. Our key differentiator is that we conduct ourselves with unyielding integrity and honesty, performing every project as though we are building it for ourselves,” Kevin says.

These ideals have metamorphosized Excel Construction from humble beginnings into a premier contractor that works on commercial, industrial, institutional and retail projects primarily in New Jersey. Its project portfolio includes well-known brands, such as Ann Taylor, Apple, Bath & Body Works, Coach, Nike, PNC Bank and Wells Fargo as well as jobs in municipal, government, health care and other markets.

The contractor’s capabilities are extensive and diverse. In addition to pre-construction consulting and value engineering, its range of services include cold-formed structural metal framing, framing and drywall interior systems, finish carpentry and architectural millwork, and acoustical ceiling and wall systems. Also, the company’s expertise extends to building insulation and installing retail fixtures, graphics and displays.

One of the contractor’s signature projects was for IT Cosmetics, a highly successful cosmetics company based in downtown Jersey City, New Jersey. Over the course of about nine months, Excel Construction provided design, value engineering and construction services to build the retailer’s high-end, modern corporate office.

The carpentry crew has some exciting jobs underway. One of its current contracts is with The Walsh Group, a national construction management firm headquartered in Chicago. This interior fit-out is for one of Target’s prototype warehouse distribution centers in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. In addition, Excel Construction is providing interior fit-out services for general contractors working on the American Dream mega-mall project in East Rutherford, New Jersey. This brand-new entertainment and retail center, scheduled to open in fall 2019, contains over 3 million square feet of space and 450 retail, food and specialty shops.

"Our skilled workers have invested incredible effort to complete the necessary trainings and certifications required by unions. As a result, you can trust they are dependable, incredibly productive and motivated to perform each job with precision.” Kevin Leyra, Owner and President, Excel Construction

A Proud Union Partner

Excel Construction is also a signatory contractor with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America (UBC). With access to a vast pipeline of professional, safety-conscious, craft-trained workers, the company is able to complete projects faster, safer and more profitably.

“Over the years we’ve employed hundreds of trained, professional union carpenters. We’re so proud to be partnered with our local carpenter’s unions,” Kevin says.

When asked to identify some of his key employees, Kevin immediately thinks of Matt Garitta, Mark Cerbo and Eric Vida, three union carpenters who have worked with Excel Construction for years. These individuals each have over 25 years of industry experience and serve as mentors to others on his crew, including up-and-coming apprentices.

“These men are very dedicated and loyal. And, to enhance their understandings of collaborative leadership, they attend continuing education classes in Las Vegas through UBC,” Kevin says. In the highly competitive construction industry, employing union workers gives Excel Construction an advantage over open-shop contractors for several reasons.

“Our skilled workers have invested incredible effort to complete the necessary trainings and certifications required by unions. As a result, you can trust they are dependable, incredibly productive and motivated to perform each job with precision. In addition, because they have extensive safety training and are certified as drug-free, this reduces liability with insurance companies and owners,” Kevin says.

There is no shortage of people wanting to get into the construction trades, says Anthony Abrantes, area manager with Keystone Mountain Lakes Regional Council of Carpenters, a regional chapter of UBC that covers members in New Jersey and several other states in the eastern U.S.

“Everyone wants competitive wages and great benefits. The real challenge is getting the most qualified people to fill those opportunities,” Abrantes adds. “Contractors and industry partners like Kevin Leyra from Excel Construction are the economic drivers for our industry. Their commitment to using skilled labor in construction is essential to the success of our industry.”

Employees Are Invaluable Assets

The company has celebrated many accomplishments in its 25 years of operation, including surviving the Great Recession. The team also developed a unique estimating software program that enables the business to bid on projects more strategically.

“Matt and I developed a comprehensive database of our team’s past production rates. This system, which is constantly updated by Matt, helps us more accurately evaluate the production rates and costs for every task our carpenters perform. It gives us the ability to track the performance on each project and do a weekly analysis on our job costing,” Kevin explains. “Unlike some contractors who rely on indeterminable square footage pricing, we can formulate a better approximation of how much a job will cost, and whether it’s profitable enough to pursue.”

In Kevin’s mind, his biggest triumph of all is employing people who work well together as a team. This, he says, is the main reason the firm enjoys so much repeat business.

“Customers call us back because we’re high performers who are willing to do whatever it takes to meet clients’ needs. We have become a proven method,” Kevin says. “Our employees are highly talented, motivated individuals—and our most valuable assets. We’ve excelled for over a quarter of a century thanks to their loyalty and incredible dedication. Like me, they are committed to building strong structures and solid relationships with the contractors, architects, engineers, vendors and suppliers we partner with.”