When Tony Elias-Calles took over a construction company from his former boss back in 1989, there were zero customers at the time.
The chief executive wanted the firm, which he renamed Consolidated Contracting, to be “a one-stop shop for all construction related needs,” from construction management to design.
“We started from scratch,” Elias-Calles told the Business Journal.
After calling former contacts in the industry, he secured residential remodel work such as house and room renovations for the company.
Consolidated’s break into commercial projects happened when Elias-Calles’ uncle was in town visiting his father in the hospital. He asked Elias-Calles if the firm could build a new factory for the furniture company he had founded. Consolidated won the job after submitting the lowest bid of $998,544, a number Elias-Calles said he won’t ever forget.
Then after almost four years of leading the general contracting firm on his own, an opportunity came up for Elias-Calles’ brother-in-law Joseph Troya to join the venture.
In 1993, Troya had quit his job at Snyder Langston and was looking to start his own company when his wife Alis, the sister of Elias-Calles, suggested the two work together during a Sunday dinner.
Troya said he had a few connections from his prior jobs that could be brought to the table, such as Hewlett-Packard. Elias-Calles agreed to become business partners on a trial basis.
About thirty years later, Consolidated counts multiple projects with the Irvine Company, Five Point Holdings, Disney and Rancho Mission Viejo among others across California. The company won a Business Journal Family-Owned Business Award earlier this month in the medium-size category at the Irvine Marriott.
“In general, 80% of our work is repeat business,” Joseph Troya, a firm principal, told the Business Journal.
“We’re 100% relationship-driven,” Elias-Calles added.
Elias-Calles’ two sons, Matthew and Shane, both joined the company in the last decade while Alis Troya works as legal counsel. The two executives’ nephew Ryan Kraemer has been a superintendent at Consolidated for several years. Even Troya’s son-in-law Eric Flores came onboard a month ago.
“Consolidated is not my legacy. Consolidated has allowed me to build a legacy with my family,” Troya said.
2024 also marked a record year at Consolidated with $96 million in 12-month revenue, up 52% from the previous year. The construction firm completed its largest project to date as well, the $50 million Kimball Highland healthcare facility in National City.
Sacrifice and Hard Work
Troya and Elias-Calles had grown up together in Cuba before both families fled the country in 1965. The two eventually found each other again as teenagers in the city of Santa Ana when Troya’s family moved to the United States after spending several years in Spain.
Neither executive imagined they would be working together.
“I thought I would like to have done it alone, but once he got there, having somebody to bounce things off of, that made a big difference,” Elias-Calles said of Troya’s partnership.
Stability and Profitability
Consolidated has worked on a variety of commercial projects including healthcare, senior and affordable housing, corporate offices, parks, recreation and sports centers, religious facilities and private education.
Elias-Calles oversees operations while Troya is charged with business development.
The two value their repeat business and have clients they have worked with for more than 20 years. For example, Consolidated has completed almost 30 parks in Orange County for Newport Beach-based Irvine Co.
“Stability and profitability,” Troya said. “They go hand in hand. If you put it on a scale, they better be equal.”
Troya and Elias-Calles noted that working with clients like Hewlett-Packard and Panasonic was instrumental in Consolidated’s early growth.
The firm is currently working on a senior housing community, the San Clemente Villas.
It currently has 67 employees.
“What you’re looking at there, you’re looking at the future of the business,” Elias-Calles said at the awards when onstage with his sons and several longtime Consolidated employees. And Troya agrees.
“I want to be a generational company,” he said.
