Mount Pleasant Magazine July/August 2017

75 / 202

| |
MOUNT PLEASANT TOWN HALL
doing business and adapting to the ever-changing world of
construction for nearly nine decades.
“We’re a family-oriented company,” Will McKnight
pointed out. “People have been here a long time, and they
bring a lot of pride to the company. For example, Tim
Rich is the superintendent for the Mount Pleasant Town
Hall job, and he has two sons who work with him.”
“On every project, we focus on safety, teamwork,
efficiency and integrity, ensuring that our customers get
the best product in a timely manner,” he added.
McKnight’s own family has played a monumental
role in the company’s success as well. His father, Mason
McKnight Jr., joined the business in the mid-1950s. Not
long after, the company abandoned the residential market.
“Dad built three or four houses and realized he
didn’t want to stay in that business,” said McKnight, a
graduate of Georgia Tech. “They went into commercial
construction, building along the East Coast, from Virginia
to Florida.”
Later, in the 1970s, Will McKnight and his two
brothers came on board, and again, the company adapted
to the winds of change in the construction business.
“There weren’t many shopping centers being built, so
we went into the government sector with HUD housing
projects,” he said. “But when Reagan was elected president,
that business conked out, so we went into defense work, as
well as schools and municipal work.”
It certainly didn’t hurt that several military installations
were nearby, including Fort Bragg, Fort Gordon, Fort
Stewart and Warner Robins Air Force Base. McKnight
said 75 percent of the company’s work in the 1980s was
with the Department of Defense, adding that, by 2008,
the DOD work had “played out.” That’s when McKnight
Construction turned mostly to projects for schools and
municipalities. Today, 90 percent of the company’s
business is government work, McKnight said.
Will McKnight’s two siblings eventually left to start
their own construction companies, but his daughters and
their husbands now make up McKnight Construction’s
fourth generation of family members. Jane Marie Kinsey
is the vice president and chief financial officer, while her
husband, Joe Kinsey, a civil engineer, is a project manager.
Blakely Downs is in marketing, and her husband, Ryan
Downs, directs the company’s real estate holdings.
In addition to Mount Pleasant’s new Town Hall,
McKnight Construction has left its mark on the
Lowcountry with building projects at Rollings Middle
School of the Arts, Alston-Bailey Elementary School,
Alston Middle School and Sand Hill Elementary School in
Dorchester County. The company is usually working on 10
Among the projects
on McKnight
Construction
Company’s resume
is the Dorman High
School Early College
and Career Center.
Will McKnight now serves as president of the company his
grandfather founded.