Mark Wight’s first job at Wight & Company was during high school. He worked as a rod man on a surveying crew, and then left for college and law school. Wight was practicing law in Seattle and speculating in real estate when his father got sick. He said his father asked him to come back for a while to help with the company. Wight agreed to come back for six months—fast forward 27 years later and Wight still hasn’t left.
“I think this is the best industry there is,” said Wight, Chairman & CEO of Wight & Company. “When you consider the people you’re able to work with, I don’t know that there’s any industry that’s better. I don’t think that this industry necessarily has the best business model, but it certainly attracts the best people.”
“They are creative and motivated,” Wight added. “They’re hard-working and they’re fun. And coming from the legal field, which is fault-oriented and hind-sighted, it’s remarkably refreshing. Lawyers are busy finding fault. In this industry, generally speaking, fault is irrelevant. You have to stand in the present and anticipate the best course forward. So fault is history, by definition. It’s a past tense word. And in this business, history doesn’t matter.”
Wight & Company is the greatest place to work, greatest firm on the planet, and the planet’s greatest firm—at least that’s how Wight would describe his company.
“If you take world class talent, very gifted people who share common values and similar character, that’s what you get,” he said. “Wight & Company is filled with people who are very interested in helping other people through our work. Why do what we do what we do? You could say we do it because we love it, because it comes down to helping people.”
Wight & Co. is celebrating 75 wonderful years in the business—a feat that many companies do not accomplish. Wight says celebrating 75 years is nice, but it doesn’t help you win the next job.
“Outworking the competition helps you win the next job,” he said. “Having been around this long has little to do with your success next year and the year after that. But the opportunity to pause for a moment to recognize the fact that we’ve been around for 75 years and not many firms have, that’s a nice thing.”
Over time, the company’s imprint has changed. Wight noted that his grandfather had his legacy, so did his father, and he will probably have one as well.
“My grandfather’s legacy, beyond his time serving as a colonel during World War II, would be Oak Brook,” Wight said. “He was the land planner and civil engineer when the plan for Oak Brook was conceived. In his time, the company was rooted in land planning, transportation and land surveying. My father’s legacy was bringing architecture to an engineering company. In my case, I would say my imprint has been in bringing construction to the firm and creating a new integrated delivery model. The Design & Delivery model that we’ve pioneered remains pretty unique. It’s a highly functioning process and a great way to deliver a building. It’s interesting to think about Wight’s evolution over time. Today we’re probably known more for our architecture than for our transportation and engineering expertise.”
World class design and a very innovative delivery model are what set Wight & Company apart from the rest.
“We’ve been delivering projects this way for about 25 years,” Wight said. “This unique model comes from my opinion that design/bid/build is a fundamentally flawed delivery model. The incentives of the parties in design/bid/build are not aligned. They are in an unhealthy conflict. This leads to defensive architecture.”
“It leads to the design community becoming divorced from the construction process and from the builders who are doing the work,” he continued. “What we do at Wight & Company is integrate the designers and the builders together under one roof. They talk to each other and partner with each other from the very beginning all the way through to the end of the project. When you have designers and builders working together, you get a dramatically better product. The product is faster, less expensive, and of higher quality.”
Wight noted that his company has recently had quite a bit of success.
“Most recent is the Knoch Knolls Nature Center in Naperville, which is targeting LEED Platinum certification,” he said. “We’re working on the South Campus expansion at the University of Illinois-Chicago, acting as master planner and designer. We have some very exciting work in Kuwait, where Wight & Company is the sustainability consultant to Kuwait Oil Company. We are also helping them to rethink and redesign a company town that was built by the British in the 1940s before Kuwait nationalized its oil fields. We also won the public design competition for New Trier High School’s Winnetka campus. And we were selected by Will County for a possible new courthouse.”
So how does Wight find the balance between work and the things that keep him sane? When you literally love and enjoy your job and peers—like Wight does— “finding” a balance isn’t necessary because the balance that you already have is natural.
“I love to work. I love my job. And I love the people I work with,” he said. “Every year, we have a big crop of summer interns. Every year, I meet with them for a couple of hours. Before those meetings, I ask them to send me questions in advance. One of the questions I always get is ‘What are the keys to success?’ So I tell them a couple of things. The first key to success is luck. When luck occurs, you succeed by making the most of it. You cannot underestimate the importance of luck in success. The second key to success is having the ability to convince the right people to invest their career and their family’s future in your business and in your leadership. And the third key, in my case at least, is OCD. I admit to having a bit of OCD and that contributes to me working too hard some of the time.”
Wight is a food enthusiast, so when he isn’t working he can likely be found at his pastry shop (Yes, he owns it!) by Millennium Park named Toni Patisserie & Café. “There’s also a Toni Patisserie & Café in Hinsdale. I worked in restaurants when I was young and have been passionate about food and wine ever since.”
He also enjoys a wide spectrum of music, and has always been a huge Beatles fan! “And I’ve been a season ticketholder at The Lyric Opera throughout my entire career. As for movies, I like independent and offbeat films. I just saw The Homesman with Tommy Lee Jones, which I loved. I also enjoyed The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete.”
Wight said he’s pretty much content with his life, so there really isn’t one thing he’d like to do in his lifetime—as he has accomplished many feats! “I’ve done a lot of things, like jumping out of airplanes. There isn’t one specific adventure – like climbing Mount Everest – that I feel I still need to do.”
One thing Wight is very proud of is making a difference at The Glenwood Academy at 187th & Halsted.
“I’m chair of the board of trustees,” he said. “Glenwood Academy is a residential school for at- risk children who come from some of the most stressed family situations that you can imagine. These are good kids who can’t go home, for whatever reason. Glenwood Academy is a beacon for the power of residential education. Glenwood is an extraordinary place. It takes these kids out of neighborhoods where there is no hope and gives them an education and a future. It’s one of the great gems in the city of Chicago. It’s a real model for the kind of boarding school that can break the cycle of inner city poverty and despair.”
One thing that’s interesting about Wight? “I like to keep a low profile. Generally speaking, I don’t do these interviews because I don’t like to draw attention to myself. Because it’s not about the CEO. It’s about the people who work in the business with you. There are a lot of people who have made Wight a great company.”
