In this episode of The Boulos Beat, guest host Caitlin Burke sits down with John Stebbins, CEO of ProCon. John shares his path from working in his family’s business to leading New Hampshire’s largest general contractor. Caitlin and John explore his experience developing more than 20 hotels and commercial properties, including major projects such as the Row Hotel at Assembly Row and Liberty Lane in Hampton, New Hampshire. John highlights the importance of vertical integration, collaboration, and community engagement, particularly in housing development. He also addresses key challenges facing the construction industry, including labor shortages and the ongoing shift toward modular construction. Throughout the conversation, his strong commitment to family, colleagues, and community is clear.
In this episode of The Boulos Beat, guest host Caitlin Burke sits down with John Stebbins, CEO of ProCon. John shares his path from working in his family’s business to leading New Hampshire’s largest general contractor.
Caitlin and John explore his experience developing more than 20 hotels and commercial properties, including major projects such as the Row Hotel at Assembly Row and Liberty Lane in Hampton, New Hampshire.
John highlights the importance of vertical integration, collaboration, and community engagement, particularly in housing development. He also addresses key challenges facing the construction industry, including labor shortages and the ongoing shift toward modular construction. Throughout the conversation, his strong commitment to family, colleagues, and community is clear.
MSD 25-0295 Boulos Beat - 2025 #7 JOHN STEBBINS
Thu, Dec 04, 2025 12:41PM • 41:35
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
ProCon, John Stebbins, commercial real estate, New Hampshire, general contractor, architecture, construction management, Boys and Girls Club, housing development, modular construction, labor market, vertical integration, project management, community involvement, business leadership.
SPEAKERS
Caitlin Burke, John Stebbins
Caitlin Burke 00:00
I'd like to welcome our listeners to The Boulos Beat Podcast. I'm Caitlin Burke, guest hosting for Greg Boulos. The Boulos company is northern New England's largest commercial real estate services firm with offices in Portland, Maine as well as Manchester and Portsmouth New Hampshire. We've been selling and leasing real estate in Maine and New Hampshire since 1975 This podcast is designed to provide insight into Maine and New Hampshire's leaders and movers and shakers. And speaking of its leaders, I'd like to welcome John Stebbins to The Boulos Beat. John is the CEO of ProCon, New Hampshire's largest general contractor and fully integrated architecture engineering and construction management firm. He is the fourth generation leader of the family company that has been in New Hampshire for over 90 years. John also has worked for over a decade on a multitude of commercial real estate projects, a partner at both Tidemark and x s s hotels. He has been responsible for permitting, designing, constructing and opening over 20 hotels, Class A, office buildings, multifamily housing and industrial properties in New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Maine. He currently serves on the board of directors at the Manchester, New Hampshire Boys and Girls Club, and was recently named by business New Hampshire magazine as the 2025 Business Leader of the Year. John received his BA from Georgetown University and his Master of Architecture from Virginia Tech. He and his wife Bridget live in Portsmouth, New Hampshire with their four children.
John Stebbins 01:38
Welcome, John. Thanks for having me. Caitlin, thank you for coming.
Caitlin Burke 01:42
So we usually start from the beginning. So a couple questions about just your upbringing, and this is a family business. Did you always know you wanted to get into the family business? And can you talk about sort of how you got to where your role is today?
John Stebbins 01:57
Sure, yeah, I didn't always know that I wanted to be in the family business. I always enjoyed being around my grandfather and my and my dad at the business. In fact, some of my fondest memories were when I was quite little my my grandfather would take me every Wednesday in the summertime to a job site, and I got to ride around on the heavy equipment. Go, go, go, go, hang around with him. That was, that was quite special. And then when I was in high school, my first jobs were always at ProCon, pushing a broom or painting tar on the side of a building. And and and then when I got to college, I did some other internships using air quotes, internships there, in the architecture department, in estimating department. I really enjoyed working with at at the company, and it was a good opportunity to work and be with my dad, cool, but I I don't know that I ever thought at that point in my life that I would come back and and work there. It wasn't until after architecture school, I was planning to be an architect and live in in DC, okay, and my dad called me sort of out of the blue.
03:24
How old were you at this point? I
John Stebbins 03:27
was 2024,
03:32
okay, yeah. Graduated
John Stebbins 03:34
GEORGE Yeah. Well, graduated Georgetown finished, finished architecture school. Bridget and I were living in Alexandria, okay, Virginia. I was working in an architecture firm down there, okay? And it was 2011 and he said that we're just coming out of the Great Recession, yep, his hotel development company excess s, s and actually it was s and s hotels at the time. Okay. Was, was just start, starting to ramp back up. It had, there was nothing going on during the pause. Yes, basically on pause. And he had hired, he had hired the previous year. Now my business partner, Evan Tormey, Oh, interesting to be project manager and owners. Project manager and and Evan had quickly become too busy to handle all the work themselves, so he asked me to come to work as well. So that's how I came back into
Caitlin Burke 04:36
was that an easy decision at the time, or
John Stebbins 04:39
it was easier for me than it was for Bridget I bet.
Caitlin Burke 04:41
Yeah, and you guys moved. You lived in Boston initially,
John Stebbins 04:46
that's right, yeah, I couldn't get her to move to New Hampshire, quite a way.
Caitlin Burke 04:49
Well, when you don't know New Hampshire, it's, it's quite the undertaking. That's true, yeah, yeah. Especially Cal Hampshire, yeah, it has quite the reputation. At. Uh, if
John Stebbins 05:01
now, now we love living here. Yeah, she loves living here. I've always loved living here.
Caitlin Burke 05:06
That's cool. Okay, so you, so it sounds like your initial role was with x s, why can't I say this x s, s, hotels. It's a tough, um, did you also initially take on a role at ProCon, or was that?
John Stebbins 05:22
No, I did not. Hadn't really, didn't have any role at ProCon until my dad passed away. Oh, wow, I didn't realize that I worked intimately with everyone at ProCon because our hotel projects were designed and built by the ProCon team. So and our offices were, were in excesses. Offices shared offices with, with, with ProCon. Okay? So I saw everybody there every day, and I my dad at the at the time, was CEO of ProCon, and I worked with him every day. So I I knew a lot about the business. I knew a lot of the people in the in the company and but no, I wasn't, I wasn't a procon employee.
Caitlin Burke 06:09
Wow. Okay, and your sister, Jen, was she was working with your dad at the time.
John Stebbins 06:13
She was working with my dad, but also on the hotel development side at XSS, yeah, as well. Yeah. She was working on financing all of our projects. Okay, wow.
Caitlin Burke 06:24
So I do want to talk a little bit that about that, because your dad had such a big reputation in the state of New Hampshire in such a good way. I wanted to read one quote that I thought I never had the pleasure of meeting him from, but from what I heard, kind of embodied what he was all about. So I quote, Mark led with kindness, confidence, resilience, optimism and gratitude. Mark radiated optimism. Took sincere interest in everyone he met, and always expressed gratitude for all aspects of life. End. Quote, I think you and your sister Jen do a great job of embodying these qualities. How did he instill them in you both growing up? And how do you think about that day to day when you're running these companies?
John Stebbins 07:10
Yeah, we were really lucky to have him as a dad. We what I was lucky to spend just 38 years of my life with him and and got to work intimately with them for 11 of those years. That's cool. Of my formal business life. And Jen was was there for eight to eight of those as well. So yeah, I give a lot of credit to my mom and my dad. I think they're, they're great parents.
Caitlin Burke 07:46
So yeah, I don't, yeah, no, that's fair. It kind of leads me to my next question, you work with a lot of close friends and family. This is something I've noticed in the real estate world is not unique just to your family. It seems like it might be one of the secret keys to success. For a lot of real estate developers and business leaders, you guys really have integrated your personal and work relationships. Do you agree with my theory it's one of the, you know, secrets to success, and what are the challenges of that dynamic?
John Stebbins 08:20
Yeah, I do agree that it's one of the secret success. Secrets of Success, I think, you know, working with your friends and family, those are the people that you can trust and rely on and and that is really important in business, being able to being able to trust your partners and rely on your partners.
Caitlin Burke 08:42
It's also a motivating factor. I always think, totally obviously, as a broker, we're motivated by making money, but I'm also motivated to know that you care about me. You might know about my family. It's a different level of, you know, commitment than just, yeah, income producing.
John Stebbins 08:57
That's exactly right. It's it's a tighter team, yeah, right, a better team. That's cool. There are challenges, though, yeah? So yeah, the disagreements can be a little bit more heated. Yeah.
Caitlin Burke 09:10
They might bring something up from childhood
John Stebbins 09:13
or suffer to break up with your family too, right? Yeah, I hear that
Caitlin Burke 09:19
is there a project or moment in your career that you feel like was a personal turning point. Obviously, the tragic loss of your dad is one of them, but something that you feel like took your career to the next level, whether it's development or managing the ProCon business,
John Stebbins 09:38
one of the largest Yes, I would say we had the really great opportunity to partner with national development, okay, on three projects in Boston, and working on those projects the AC at at inkblock. In the AC hotel at Cleveland circle and the residents in in in Roxbury, working in Boston, is this is very different than New Hampshire, right? It's a lot more complicated.
Caitlin Burke 10:13
How did those opportunities come about?
John Stebbins 10:16
Well, so my my dad and and his business partner, Leo made a great, great connections at at national development. They approached mark and Leo about partnering on on the hotels. They they wanted hotels in both of those locations, so they brought them in as business partners. We designed all three of them, but, but and helped develop them. And, and our hotel affiliate, Colin, managed all three properties, but Cranshaw built them. Okay, cranshaws is national developments, Construction Company, okay, construction arm, similar to XSS, having pro con national development had, has Crenshaw got it and and we used Cranshaw there because all three projects had had to be signatory projects to the carpenters. So union, union construction projects. And it's just it was very different, a lot, lot there's a lot, lot tighter projects and lot more complicated working in Boston was just sort of was a different level of of complication. So, okay, what year was fun? Wow, that was 2001 of them was 2018
Caitlin Burke 11:39
2019 Okay, yeah, since then, has that led you to other opportunities in Boston?
John Stebbins 11:46
Or, yeah, those were our last projects in Boston. Okay, yeah, it the dynamics of hotels have shifted out a little bit after that, and so we we have developed around the city, but not in the city since then. Yeah, interesting.
Caitlin Burke 12:08
Okay, pivoting back to pro con a little bit. It's obviously, as a company, dominated the construction market in New England for quite some time now.
John Stebbins 12:16
Geez, I don't know dominated New
Caitlin Burke 12:20
Hampshire for sure. What do you think sets program ProCon apart in this industry and makes it so successful?
John Stebbins 12:28
Well, our real our differentiator is our vertical integration
Caitlin Burke 12:32
and being able to do that design and construction.
John Stebbins 12:35
Yeah, yeah. And we really have, if you were to take pro cons design department out of the business. It would be the largest design company in New Hampshire. Oh, interesting. Okay, I feel like that's not talked about enough. Yeah. I don't think any really, many people know that. Yeah. So it's we have, we have 45 design employees, and that's from interior designers to structural engineers to mechanical and plumbing engineers, and then architects and draft people.
Caitlin Burke 13:07
So when you're pitching a project, you're pitching the entire thing, soup to nuts. Soup to nuts, yep, so there's got to be the competitive advantage to kind of, you know, lump all of that, those costs and expenses, into one management fee.
John Stebbins 13:22
That's right, our value proposition is making the process of building a building, getting it designed, getting it built, getting it permitted, as easy as possible for the owners. You guys are one point of contact. One point of contact. Yeah, this is sort of a terrible term, but it's like one throat to choke, right? It's one finger to point. Yeah, one person to point the finger. In this
Caitlin Burke 13:44
industry, they're not calling you and saying, Great job today.
John Stebbins 13:48
Well, sometimes, sometimes they do. They usually do after the project's completed, right? Not during it. We try to make it as easy as possible, but it is really tough to get buildings designed and constructed. It's not an easy thing.
Caitlin Burke 14:04
It feels like it's getting, from my perspective, increasingly harder.
John Stebbins 14:08
I think you're absolutely right. It's harder to get the projects to work financially and and it's harder to get them getting get them built from a finding qualified labor perspective, from a sourcing of materials perspective, and then a permitting perspective and a cost perspective. So yeah, like these, these tariffs are not making things easier. It seems like every time we get over one challenge is that there's a whole nother set of challenges to overcome, right? Yeah, but that's one of the great things about about pro con, is we control so much of the process, from picking picking the materials to purchasing materials to installing everything, we can be a lot more flexible than other countries companies,
Caitlin Burke 14:59
and it's probably. A larger scale than some of your competitors.
John Stebbins 15:02
Yes, yeah. The
Caitlin Burke 15:05
construction world is changing so fast, you know, shifting community expectations, the permitting piece, new technology. What trends do you think were, you know, on the cusp of or that are going to shape the next decade of development?
John Stebbins 15:23
Yeah, I think one of the the, and I alluded to earlier, one of the biggest challenges we have are the labor market in construction, and there's lots of people working on ways to to to overcome that there's a big movement to prefabricate and and modular and go modular, whether it's modular walls or modular bathrooms or in modular units.
Caitlin Burke 16:00
And in case a listener doesn't know what that means, you're basically creating an entire wall in a warehouse and then shipping it a factory factory and bringing it to the site fully assembled.
John Stebbins 16:10
That's right, yeah. In in many cases, we've, we've, right now, wood structural walls are almost all prefabricated in a factory and then brought to the site and assembled, rather than what we would call stick framed a two by four, bring, brought to the site, cut to cut to size, and then nailed together and and you then there's also exterior Wall panels where there's the structural component, and the air vapor barrier and the exterior skin and windows all put together and assembled in a factory brought to a site and just put on the structural frame. Wow. And that's really that can be cost effective and and really help with site logistics in on a tight site. So we've done that on a few buildings, and then we've explored going full modular, where you're building perhaps a full hotel room in a factory with all the finishes and sometimes even the exterior, and then building like Lego blocks on a building that that is not that technology, that process, is not quite at the point where it's cost effective, but I think it's going to get there.
Caitlin Burke 17:35
And is it cost effective? Because in the factory setting, there's less manpower, yes,
John Stebbins 17:43
well, it's a controlled environment, right? Yep, there's there. It's a it's a cleaner environment. It's a controlled environment. You can, you can move faster from, we'll call it station to station, and not dealing with weather, not dealing with it, with weather, right? Yeah. And if you you've been to construction sites, obviously they can be quite dirty, yeah, and they're cold often, and they're hot often, and they're wet often. So even just
Caitlin Burke 18:15
from a recruitment standpoint, you probably have people that want
John Stebbins 18:18
exactly right, interesting, yeah. So you can have a lot more productivity in in a warehouse where you have 68 degree temperature and it's nice and dry and but there it's, it is right now more expensive because there's pretty considerable transportation costs.
Caitlin Burke 18:35
Yeah, interesting. I
John Stebbins 18:39
think we'll get there, though. Okay, so that's the, I think,
Caitlin Burke 18:42
I think, yeah, okay, are there a lot of these factories local in New Hampshire? Is it?
John Stebbins 18:47
Yeah, there's a few of them. Okay, there's one in Maine. There's one in Claremont, New Hampshire, okay, Lavalley building systems has, has one. They've had it for a number of years. And there's a there's a few in Massachusetts. So interesting
Caitlin Burke 19:04
on the topic of labor is, do you think that has anything to do with the state of New Hampshire as a whole? Like, do we need more younger kids looking into the trades? I feel like we talk about this a lot, but is there anything you are doing or your company to incentivize people to stay in the state and work for you guys.
John Stebbins 19:22
Yeah, we've been a very big advocate and sponsor of the bring back back the trades initiative. Yep, that was a, that was an awesome event last year's last November, there was, think it was 5000 attendees in Concord, and who's the Dirty Jobs guy? Oh, I don't know. Yeah, anyway, he came and, oh, that's cool. It was super cool. There's been a big push to get young people into the training. Trades, and I think it's actually turning a corner. Oh, good. The value proposition of going to a trade school where the you know the time to get through the training is eight maybe 12 weeks, versus four years, and the company will pay for your trade school versus coming out of school with $100,000 or more in debt, right? And immediately making 6070, $80,000 a year without debt. Yeah, without debt, yep. And then, and there's a, there's a, there's a real ladder for growth in in the trades as well. And there's plenty of electricians and plumbers and carpenters who have started their own small business and built that up. And then and now private equity is really, has really pushed into the trades. So if you can build your build your business into a decent size there's a really nice exit strategy. You can get very wealthy.
Caitlin Burke 21:07
So cool. I feel like people need to talk about that more.
John Stebbins 21:10
Yeah, so there's a lot of there's a lot of young kids, young young adults entering the trades. I don't know that. I the labor market, the skilled labor market, still is not where we need it to be, right? Those young people have not been yet. The process hasn't ramped up, but yet, far enough years into the exactly right? Enough years into it. Yeah, but that's good to hear it's getting better. It's it'll get there some trades, though, young people still don't want to get into like masonry. That is interesting. Why do you think that is it's just, it's a, it's a tough trade. Yeah, right. I mean lifting, lifting blocks all day long is not fun, yeah?
Caitlin Burke 21:56
But you've given them a runway, they can commit 15 years to it and sell their business. Yeah, exactly right. Design, build requires a ton of collaboration across disciplines. How do you foster that culture of teamwork? It's It can't be easy. What are some of the things you do?
John Stebbins 22:16
Yeah, that's one of our core values at ProCon collaboration. And we just push it all day long. Our motto is the answer is just down the hall. Okay, so it's very important that our employees are in the office working. Obviously our field employees are not in the office. They're out working on the job sites, but our project managers and architects and engineers and estimators and pre construction team, they're all in the office. And I encourage everybody in our management team, encourages everybody, if they have a question or a problem, to get off there, you know what? Yeah, go down the hall and ask, it's easier to ask those questions in person. It is, yeah, it's way easier to ask them in person. That that in person collaboration is so much more effective than on the phone and 1000 times more more effective than over a screen, yeah, over computer, yeah. And the natural, the natural interactions that happen in the hallway are the like water cooler interactions are incredibly valuable as well.
Caitlin Burke 23:30
Your family and all three of your companies have a large charitable reputation in Hampshire. It seems like you are loyal to a few causes in particular. Can you share with us, maybe some of the most important ones and and again, how did that come to be such a core element of what you do?
John Stebbins 23:48
Yeah, we have really focused on children and families
Caitlin Burke 23:55
that did that stem from your dad, your grandfather, both or
John Stebbins 23:59
Yeah, I Well, I think it started with my grandfather. He instilled that in my dad, and my mom and my dad have done a great job carrying on the tradition, instilling it in my sisters and I, we try to keep it going. I'm on the board of the Boys and Girls club Manchester, I think that's a great organization. I'm very proud of our CEO, Diane, who is named the Boys and Girls Club of America Executive of the Year, which is pretty awesome.
Caitlin Burke 24:35
So especially because Manchester just volume wise, can't be as large of a club as Yes,
John Stebbins 24:42
Boston, right, New York, right, yeah. So, so she's the number one executive in the country this past year, which is awesome, that that club is, is incredible. They've done such a great job. Jen is on the board of waypoint, and that's a that's a great. Clarity that the great organization that deals with it's, it was formerly Child and Family Services of New Hampshire, but they deal with youth homelessness, a lot of youth education, a lot of Family Services. And I think that cause hits so close to home, because we have young kids, and we're very, very fortunate to be brought up in the situation that we are brought in. I mean, our kids are more fortunate, I think, right, but there's so many people out there that are not right, so I think it's important to get back that's cool
Caitlin Burke 25:45
on the development side, what's your favorite project, or project you most proud of? Maybe you answered that with the three hotels in Boston we touched on. But is there anything else, and what makes it special to you?
John Stebbins 25:58
So I wouldn't say those are my favorite, projects, okay, the favorite, my favorite one that I've done to date was been the the row hotel at assembly row. Cool. That one was, was a really cool project. It was, was one that pro con designed and built XSS was a partner with federal Realty, okay, and we built a it was a 13 story building with a two, two level underground parking garage and in a retail space in the first floor. Retail level on the first floor, it had 158 key hotel, boutique hotel and 121 high end condos. Oh, wow, yeah, it was $100 million construction projects, which was the largest one the pro con had ever done at the time. Nice, what you're really, really fun project. You remember the year again? Yeah, I think that. I think that opened in 19 Okay, and so two years before the pandemic, and I remember the mat slab. So are you familiar with what mat slab is? No educate. It's a structural system. So a mat slab is a thick the thickened slab that goes underneath the building, the the structural Foundation was a was a five foot thick concrete slab with tons and tons of rebar in it that went across the whole, the whole floor of the building and underneath the garage.
Caitlin Burke 27:34
Why is that? Because of the ground, the
John Stebbins 27:37
because of the soil characteristics who needed, needed, needed the whole, the whole slab to be structural and and we poured a we had three, three placement days for the concrete. Each day had 800 concrete trucks. Oh, my God, it was so cool.
Caitlin Burke 27:55
How does that even fit in that proximity?
John Stebbins 27:58
Oh, we had, like the logistics to get all the all the concrete trucks into Somerville. Was, was, was pretty amazing. And and the pump truck arms is going all over the building. Was, was super cool. But the concrete crazy statistics, the concrete in that mat slab won't cure fully for 100 years.
Caitlin Burke 28:18
Wow, wow. So, I mean, that's just so beyond the way my How do you design around that? Is it going to move over time?
John Stebbins 28:31
Like, no, it's, it's, um, it's not going to move. Okay. Hopefully not, yeah.
Caitlin Burke 28:38
Well, when you say 100 years to my mind,
John Stebbins 28:40
so it's not not, it's not felt fully cured. Yeah, it's all it's it's hard and but concrete cures at a different rate. But because it's there's it that it's so thick the inner, the inner part of it won't care, and the inner part is the least important structurally, you know, the top layers most, the top and bottom are them are the most important, and those are fully cured. So interesting. Wow, yeah. And I'm not a structural engineer, so don't ask me how it works.
Caitlin Burke 29:10
It's clearly above my pay grade. What would be your dream next project? What are you guys out there looking for?
John Stebbins 29:21
Oh, well, so the project that I'm most excited about right now is, is Liberty lane. Okay? We have tell everyone where that is, yeah, Hampton, New Hampshire,
Caitlin Burke 29:31
okay, right where 101, and 95 meet. So right after you pass that first liquor store.
John Stebbins 29:36
Exactly right. Exactly right. It was a, it was a office building that was built in the late 70s, and we acquired it just before the pandemic. Actually, I think it was during the pandemic, and we're converting it into a residential complex. The existing Office Building is going to be the amenity space. Yeah, and 30 units. And then we're building three new construction buildings around it. You'll have a total of 250 to 54 units,
Caitlin Burke 30:09
and those will be rental units at the end, or owner,
John Stebbins 30:13
yeah, market rate apartments, okay? And it's, I think it's a, it's a really cool project, because it is. It's at a great intersection, like you said, Of Transportation able to get to Boston, Portsmouth, Manchester, at the beach in Hampton, and supplying, it's so many new units to the market, such a big project, it's putting a real dent in the housing supply in the area and, and, and it's one of the few successful office conversion projects.
Caitlin Burke 30:49
Next is the kind of word on the street, is it? That's not as easy as you know, it's really so what made this building work for that conversion?
John Stebbins 30:59
That's a great question. Most office buildings are too deep to make residential work, and this one, for whatever reason they it was, is a pretty shallow floor plate. Okay, so you the a normal, a normal residential building wants to have between 60 and 70 feet depth. If you have more than that, you can't get natural light to the back of your unit. These little tunnel units exactly right. You have a bunch of wasted space in the middle of the building. And this building is 55 feet wide, so actually it's a little little less wide than than you ideal, but we have worked out, so
Caitlin Burke 31:38
that's cool, and it's already sitting in a setting that really appeals
John Stebbins 31:43
to gorgeous setting. Yeah, some really nice natural man made ponds. There's a there's an island out in the middle of the pond that the complex is right next to the already that has a bridge going out to, actually, the old office building had a, had a Japanese Zen garden out, oh, wow, out on the on the island. So it's really cool setting,
Caitlin Burke 32:05
yeah, and you're in, it's hidden away to be that close to the highway, but not really feel like you're that close to the highway. Yeah. It feels like a really natural setting. Cool. What's the timeline
John Stebbins 32:13
for that? We are hoping to get the first building open in December, January, next year. Cool, yeah, and then the final units will complete in the summertime. So summertime of me, seven, seven. Yeah, thank you. Cool.
Caitlin Burke 32:33
How does it compare working in these three different states, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, what are the some of the unique factors to consider, state by state. You talked about Boston being kind of its own animal, but what's the easiest of the three states to be to do business in? Ooh, probably it depends. Municipality to municipality.
John Stebbins 32:52
You know that is that's the biggest factor, municipality, municipality. I find New Hampshire to be the the easiest to work in. And part of that is because that's where I live and that's where I have the most connections, sure, so
Caitlin Burke 33:08
it plays a huge part. And it does really forget about that. It does, but does
John Stebbins 33:13
play a huge part. So having access to the right individuals to get things moving, moving through is, is huge, right? Just knowing the right
Caitlin Burke 33:24
people, yeah, even knowing, like you said, knowing the right person to start the conversation with, so that you're not getting a no immediately, exactly right? I mean, that trickles all the way down to, like, when we're representing tenants, you know, like, you got to hire the right architect or the right attorney. Sometimes, if you're working at the Peace trade port, you know someone that understands locally what's going on is, is so important,
John Stebbins 33:47
so important. Yeah, so important. So yeah, I would say New Hampshire, although we have some great projects in Maine, and I'm really enjoyed working there, and I've had some great projects in Massachusetts. And again, like you say, it's municipality by the municipality. There's some really awesome municipalities to work work in, in Massachusetts and Maine, and some in New Hampshire that could use a little help. We won't name names.
Caitlin Burke 34:18
What keeps you up at night? Like, what are the some of the challenges in your industry? Is it managing people? Is it economic factors? You know, talk to us
John Stebbins 34:28
about that. Yeah, there's always the worry about the next recession. Yeah, right. And with 170 employees, i by, yeah. Back to the people worried, worried about that, right? Keeping, we call it feeding the machine. Yeah, you got to always feed the machine and it's hungry, yep. So I worry about that. I think we're very well positioned, but it's, it's a challenge. You. Always have to be beating the drum to go finding new work and new projects and making sure that you are always innovating, right? Yeah, that's it's always just really important to business. It's you always have to be working on being more efficient and coming up with the next best thing and making sure your projects are as tight as possible. So, yeah, never, never be satisfied with the status quo.
Caitlin Burke 35:24
Yeah, no, it's true. That leads me to my next question. You're you wear a few very big hats. So how do you balance your roles day to day? How much overlap is there day to day? I'm assuming not one day is the same. And how do you manage your time effectively. You're running three companies essentially,
John Stebbins 35:44
you know? I so I really only run one, okay, the one I'm in charge of is procom, but I have some great I have a great team there, and then with XSS, I have some awesome partners and I touch those businesses, but I'm fortunate to have others that really carry the load there. Okay? And, and, you know, my work is pretty fun, so I enjoy it. I enjoy what I do every every day is a different challenge, and every day is, is? It's all about interacting with the people, right? So if you enjoy working with the people that you're that you're with, it's you're motivated. You're motivated
Caitlin Burke 36:28
keep going, yeah. And then you have people like me dragging you up here to do a podcast. This is fun, too. So a lot of time management. I was gonna say when I wrote out my notes. The the other reason why you do it all is your wife, Bridget, she's,
John Stebbins 36:41
yes, she's a rock star. Yeah, I do have to give thanks to her.
Caitlin Burke 36:45
She's, she's pretty awesome. I need a Bridget, in my life,
John Stebbins 36:48
you have a Trevor. He's pretty good.
Caitlin Burke 36:51
What do you like to do outside of work? And what do you like most about living in Portsmouth?
John Stebbins 36:56
Oh, well, I love my friends. Yep, of which you and Trevor are one of them. And we
Caitlin Burke 37:03
have a pretty good crew, I feel like, very good crew. The one of the amazing things about Portsmouth is everybody has, like, really chosen to live there, and so you have this common like interests. Everyone likes to be active. Everyone appreciates living near the ocean.
John Stebbins 37:18
Yeah, the seacoast is a really special place to live, yeah, and it allows you the opportunity to get involved with a number of activities, whether it's, you know, fishing and boating or surfing, going to the beach, or in the wintertime, going skiing, snowboarding, and, you know, hiking. In the summer, you can get to the lake, get up, up to the coast of Maine. Yeah. I like to spend my time in the summertime on the on a boat and and I think recently, the only thing I've been doing is taking my kids to sporting events. But that's pretty fun too. So that'll happen when you have four children, yeah, yeah. A lot of time at the hockey rink in the soccer field this fall.
Caitlin Burke 37:59
So yeah, well, you guys sneak in plenty of fun too. Try to when you think about the legacy that you like to leave through your work, whether it's at pro con or some of your development endeavors, what do you hope people will say about the impact you've had on New England and its communities?
John Stebbins 38:22
That's a really, that's a heavy question, heavy, sorry, yeah, save the best for last year. Yeah, I haven't given legacy much thought. I think one of the things that we're really trying to we have put a large emphasis into housing development, yeah, and that's both at Tidemark and and ProCon. It is a, it's a major need in, I think, in all three states that we work in New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Maine, across the country, at this point, across the country, yeah, if we can put a dent in that, in in our community, I think that's really helpful. I think right now we're, we're building quite a few housing units, and that feels good, yep, so that, that would be a nice legacy. It's fun going to going by a building and with my kids and saying, I built that. Yeah, right. I had had a piece in building that, and that's one of the greatest parts about about my job. And I think our job, yeah, in the real estate industry, right? Yeah, it's tangible. It's tangible, yeah, and, and those buildings last a long time. Yeah, right.
Caitlin Burke 39:42
So sometimes you get to, at least in my world, you get to sell a building twice, or put three different tenants in over a time period. And that's fun, too, and to meet all of these different business owners and see what they do. And, yeah, sure, you feel that way too. You're invested in your tenants that are in your space.
John Stebbins 39:58
And yeah, and that's, that's a really great. Great point. Caitlin, I think that another, another fun part about my job is it's not just real estate people that I'm dealing with. It's business owners, whether it's manufacturers. We have a great client in Milford, New Hampshire, called hitchner manufacturing. And they build, they fabricate piece and parts for airplanes and and cars, digits and widgets. Don't tell me what what they are. I don't want me making me tell you what they are, but it is such a cool process and such a nice family, and they have an incredible business. And it's just really fun meeting people like that and seeing how this state, the area supports businesses like that and how they give back to the community as well, and they're supporting communities as well.
Caitlin Burke 40:51
Yeah, I'm always inspired by these different business endeavors that people take on, yeah,
John Stebbins 40:56
to have this incredible business in little Milford, New Hampshire, that has 900 employees. What? That's crazy, right? That's cool,
Caitlin Burke 41:05
John, thank you for being our guest today on The Boulos Beat a Boulos Company podcast. I really appreciate you taking the time and driving up here to chat with me. You can learn more about John, about ProCon, XSS hotels and Tidemark on their websites. And if you'd like to learn more about the Boulos company, please be sure to visit us@Boulos.com you can also find the Boulos company on Facebook, LinkedIn and at the Boulos CO on Instagram. You.