McCarthy, a high-profile general contractor, currently holds $200 million in contracts in Texas. "We would like to double that in a five to 10-year timeframe," Peck says. "We will not grow overnight. We want to grow smart and get to that level over time."

According to Peck, Katovsich had started the Dallas office and helped to "get our feet on the ground." Now, says Peck, McWay is tasked with "helping us grow." The Texas Division consists of a staff of 70 salaried and several hundred skill labor employees.

McWay has been with McCarthy since 1981, working a variety of key management positions. He has been involved in projects for Nortel Networks, Cisco Systems, Texas Instruments, University of Texas System, Port of Houston and TexDOT. He had managed the Austin office, which has been rolled into the Dallas operation, and most recently had been senior vice president of operations for the Texas Division. That role, says Peck, is waiting to be filled.

McCarthy intends to focus on its core markets of health care, commercial, institutional and civil markets in Texas. As for Austin, Peck says there are some contracts in the pipeline that should come to fruition later in the year. In Dallas-Ft. Worth, McCarthy is hard at work on the People Mover system at the DFW International Airport and a 2,500-space parking garage at Children's Medical Center. The St. Louis-based firm is ranked as the nation's oldest privately held construction company and the 18th-largest domestic general contractor. There are nine divisional offices in the operation.