In the late 1800s, three McNaulty brothers arrived in this country. One was a carpenter, another a bricklayer, and the third was a plasterer. They each started a business. The one who was successful was the plasterer. In 1888 Thomas J. McNaulty started the McNaulty Bros. Company in Chicago.
In the early days the founder would transport
labor and material to the job site on
his horse and wagon each morning. If it
was a small job, he would return home in
the evening with his horse and wagon. If
it was a multi-day job, he would leave the
wagon and ride home on his horse.
His son, Joseph D. McNulty, became
the company’s second president and was
one of the original founders of the Contracting
Plasterers International Association,
which, after various mergers,
became what’s known today as the Association
of the Wall and Ceiling Industries International. The third generation,
Joseph Monroe McNulty, took
over the McNulty Bros. Company in
the mid-1960s.
He was the final generation for the
McNulty family, But another family,
which had grown up through the company,
seamlessly took over. Peter J. Feldner
started with the company as a plasterer
and stayed with the company more
than 50 years, retiring as its superintendent.
His son, Joseph A. Feldner, started
as a plaster apprentice in 1947, and it
is the only company he’s ever worked
for. Feldner acquired the company in
1985. Today he is still active as president/
CEO and has no intention of retiring.
Joseph’s son, Duane, represents the
third generation of the Feldner family to
help run the company. He also grew up
in the business and today is an executive
vice president. Since Joseph D. McNulty
was one of the founding fathers of the
AWCI forerunner in 1918 and the company
is a lifelong member, it’s not surprising
that both Feldners are enthusiastic
about the organization.
Duane, who participates on AWCI’s
Education Committee, says, “What I
value is that I can’t go to a competitor
across town to discuss problems, but
through AWCI, I can participate on a
committee with someone across the
country, and I can share my concerns
and learn something new.”
Joseph, who has won AWCI’s Pinnacle
Award and various other awards, says,
“Since 1967 I’ve served on every AWCI
committee that’s existed and been on the
board of directors the longest of anyone.
There’s so much love and dedication in
that organization, and I’m so proud that
it’s been so much of my life.”
McNulty Brothers Company has grown
from his humble horse and wagon
beginning. It now has about 250
employees, which includes management
and a dedicated multi-generation field
staff. It has expanded from just plastering
to encompass complete interior systems,
acoustics, ceilings, standard and
custom drywall, ceramic and marble setting,
ornamental and veneer plaster systems,
frames, doors, hardware, mill-work,
finish taping, exterior insulation
and Portland cement finish systems,
decorative interior finishes, and construction
management, as well as demolition,
material sales and heavy gauge
steel stud curtain wall framing.
Leaving Their Mark on America
The company history is studded with
important projects in Chicago. These
include Orchestra Hall and Marshal
Field’s State Street Store in 1904 and the
Palmer House circa 1925.
The Merchandise Mart in Chicago in
1929, the U.S. Senate Office Building
and the original Pentagon, Washington
D.C., in 1942, reconstruction of the
roof the United States Capital, Washington,
D.C., in 1950, St. Peter’s
Church, Madison Avenue in downtown
Chicago in 1953, and the Detroit Marriott
Renaissance Center.
But that’s the past. The company has
continued nonstop into the present. A
random selection of recent projects
includes the Ada Rice Wing of The Art
Institute of Chicago, the Wrigley Building since 1924, One prudential Plaza
since 1954 and Two Prudential Plaza
and the United States Gypsum Compa-ny
headquarters building. A few of the
company’s extensive list of tenant development
projects include Sears Tower,
Smurfit-Stone Container, Bosch Tools,
the Quaker Oats expansion, the Juno
Lighting showroom and the NBC Tower.
McNulty Brothers also specializes in religious
affiliation buildings. Examples
include Old Saint Patrick’s Church and
School, St. Raymond’s Cathedral in Joliet,
Ill., and The Church in Chicago. To
zero in with a little more detail on one
important project, McNulty was
responsible for the plastering and dry-walling
of Chicago’s Harold Washington
Public Library Center, which opened
Oct. 7, 1991. This is the world’s largest
open-stack public library and holds the
world’s largest children’s library within
it. It takes up an entire Chicago block.
When the library was first conceived it
was billed as the “100 Year Structure,”
so it was appropriate that the McNulty
firm started working on it. At that time,
McNulty Bros. was nearing its own
100th anniversary in business. The
intent was to make everything about the
design, construction and use of materi-als
a reflection of the best of an earlier
age’s high style and architectural durability.
The workmanship by the crews began
right up front. Instead of the job being
priced on square footages, the estimators
counted each piece of blue board, each
corner bead and each piece of GRG to
calculate their bid. The quantities of
materials and manpower to put it in
place would make one’s head swim.
More than 1.5 million square feet of
plaster reinforced gypsum shapes were
applied to the total job.
The talents of the foremen, crews and
superintendent were tested for their performance
under tight deadlines and
small material staging areas on the site.
These handicaps required their crews to
bench the plaster ornamentation off-site.
But the toughest part of the whole
job was really the coordination necessary
between the various trades. And, natu-rally, the building’s completion schedule
was always being revised.
Hail to the Unions
There was six month’s worth of planning
before the McNulty crews even set foot
on the job site. Much of that intensive
planning by McNulty Brothers was
focused in the area of training their
young crew to work the old-fashioned
way with plaster in large quantities. “The
average job today uses drywall or veneer
plaster (a 1/4” plastering method known
as ‘skinny plaster,”’ Duane says. “But we
applied three-coat plaster, which consists
of a metal stud frame, a layer of lath and
a topping of conventional plaster.” At
any one time McNulty had 40 to 45
plasterers on the library job, or up to 170
people during the peak periods.
“You can’t beat the tradition of a trades-person
who appreciates what he or she
creates with his or her hands,” he says.
For this reason Duane emphasizes that
the 100-plus year success of McNulty
Bros. Company is due as much to the
workers in the field as the managers and
officers in the office.
It’s also for this reason that the company
has always been a strong supporter of
unions. “I’ve carried my plasterer’s card
for 57 years,” says Joseph. “We enjoy a
rapport with unions that is second to
none. I’ve been personally involved in
apprentice training, labor management,
labor contract negotiations and arbitration
committees. We have the respect
of the union and go in an discuss anything
with them. I thoroughly enjoy a
welcome walk into the District Councils
of all the Chicago unions and wouldn’t
trade that welcome for anything.”
Too many contractors, Joe says, look at
unions from an adversarial point of view,
and “expend a lot of energy figuring out
how to beat the system. We’ve flipped
Hail to the Unions that coin over. We’ve made the system a
part of our business. We look to the
union to provide well-trained mechanics
so that we are able to send them to any
of our jobs to perform all of our work
scopes.” Because of this, he says his company
is not plagued by the labor short-ages
that affect much of the country. “I
sit on the committee overseeing the education
of 4,000 carpenter apprentices
and 4,000 carpenters’ ‘upgrading their
skills programs’ from 10 Northern Illinois
counties each year. Each fall, I
proudly attend the graduation of 800
carpenter apprentices’ step to full-fledged
carpenter journeymen,” he says. And
Duane is one of two judges for the State
of Illinois Carpentry Apprenticeship
Contest held each summer for the Carpenter’s
Interior Systems Program.
Managed Construction
Do things get easier the older you get?
“It’s three times as hard to make a profit today than it was three years ago,” Joe
replies. So he has expanded to deal with
the current situation—”construction
management.”
Feldner explains: “Typically, once we
have the drawings and are awarded the
work, we start layout of the walls and
perform the metal stud framing. The
electricians, plumbers and sheet-metal
works, etc., follow with their work. The
general contractors look to us to close up
the walls as quickly as possible and push
the job’s completion.
“So many fast scopes of work need careful
coordination. It is not unusual to
receive a phone call today asking us to
stock and start a job tomorrow morn-
ing. If the job or other trades are not
ready for us, we all spin our wheels. . . .
Some of our long-time customers have
asked us to join them in the construc-tion
management of their sites.”
In short, construction management
means that McNulty, with the owner,
will coordinate the different trades so
that they all get in and out of the job as
quickly and as efficiently as possible,
while saving the partnered owner valu-able
time and money.
Is he taking over the role of the general
contractor? “No,” Joseph replies. “We are
careful not to bite the general contractor’s
hand that feeds us. With our coordinating
role, we work with the owner to complete the job performed in a workman
way while cutting out lost costs.”
Some of the company’s construction
management customers include five
Lord &Taylor retail stores, the Chicago
and Northeast Illinois District Council
of Carpenter’s offices and meeting hall,
Chicago Archdiocese schools and
churches and corporate offices that any-one
who has ever been to Chicago
would recognize.
With such diverse offerings of products,
talent services, and continuing multi-generation-
dedicated work crews, there’s
no doubt that McNulty Bros. Company
will be shaping America’s skylines for
the next 100 years and beyond.
