Jaynes Superintendent Tim O’Rear Retires After Six Decades

On February 28th, 2025, 17 years to the day he started as a Superintendent at Jaynes, Tim O’Rear retired. After a career in construction that lasted more than six decades, including overseeing more than 50 high-profile Jaynes projects, he packed away his helmet and vest.

Tim started his career in 1973, joking that his first role in construction was “human backhoe.” Many in the industry can relate to apprenticeships and careers that humbly start on that bottom rung of a project team.

Tim has led over 100 projects to successful completion in his career. As superintendent at Jaynes, he managed over $250M in aggregate project budgets during his tenure. Just a few of the large Jaynes projects he’s overseen include Albuquerque Sunport, Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, Sandia Casino Hotel, University of New Mexico Cancer Center, Las Cruces Regional Recreation & Aquatics Center, and multiple projects for both the University of New Mexico and New Mexico State University.

Early Life and Career

Tim grew up in Jal, New Mexico. He mentions he grew up in the “pipeline economy,” with pipeline welders and fleet mechanics in the family.

After graduating high school, he drove his 1966 Plymouth Fury, with all of $200 to his name, and moved to fast-growing and job-rich Dallas, Texas, to join a plumbing company — his start in construction as a human backhoe. He became friendly with a team from a framing subcontractor and got his first promotion. Knowing that plumbing work was not where he wanted to be, he landed a job as a framer. After only a few weeks, he determined that he really enjoyed building. He says it “was a great learning experience,” and he framed homes for the next 2.5 years in Dallas and Fort Worth.

Missing New Mexico, he returned to Las Cruces and immediately landed a job with a large construction company building residential houses. He progressed further, becoming a journeyman carpenter and then a finish carpenter, working steadily until ambition struck. He earned his GB-98 General Building License and, with a friend, started his own residential building company in Eastern New Mexico.

Looking to relocate to Albuquerque, he joined a residential construction, design, and architectural firm building high-end homes. In Albuquerque, you’ll see some of these homes in the San Pedro Creek Estates area.

Tim then moved on to commercial construction in Albuquerque; Tim learned about steel framing and never went back to wood. Tim says he had never done commercial steel framing before. So, with his first concrete project down, the steel package and steel erector team showed up. Tim recounts: “I called the steel supervisor into my office, and I said I don’t know what I’m doing with steel construction. And that was the best comment I think I’ve ever made in my career. The supervisor said, don’t worry about it, I’ll show you. It was a short 7-month project, and after that project was completed, I vowed never to do another wood building in my life.”

Finding Jaynes Corporation

Tim applied for a Superintendent role at Jaynes in 2008, interviewing with current Jaynes Executive Vice President, Krishna Reddy, then on to General Superintendent, Charlie Apodaca. Tim filled out the necessary HR paperwork on a Monday, and before lunch, was handed a set of plans and drove to his first project as a Jaynes Superintendent: Owner Indian Pueblo Cultural Center’s (IPCC) Restaurant. He jokes that “… I got handed a project that was, I’m not going to say destined to fail, but was assumed by everyone that it wasn’t going very well and really needed some attention.” Tim says that “correcting” the project took 14-hour days and six and sometimes even seven days a week of his attention.

The IPCC project had a very public deadline looming over it. The IPCC is owned by the 19 Pueblos of New Mexico, so Tim’s project had 19 Owners who scheduled a very high-profile groundbreaking with New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson as the keynote speaker.

Spoiler alert: Tim managed the project to successful completion, with the stucco subcontracting company working overnight and right up until Bill Richardson’s keynote speech to complete the job.

Tim jokes, “ … I always say it’s bad when you have to work late overnight to meet a deadline for a prominent ribbon cutting, but it’s even worse when you are finishing through the ribbon cutting.” The result of that project was that all 19 Owners were happy that day.

Jaynes Career

With over 50 projects as a Superintendent at Jaynes, Tim says he collected a few lessons. One is that it takes a multitude of people to make a company like Jaynes work well. He believes that

“ … the project team that collaborates is the driving force in every project. The Superintendent. The Project Engineer. The Project Manager. Laborers. Carpenters. When it goes well, it’s the A-Team. At Jaynes, I felt it was the first company in my career where the importance of teamwork and group effort became evident to me. The Superintendent role is always stressful, but there’s so much less stress when a team collaborates and communicates well. That’s what I always aimed for.”

The Jaynes Way

Another lesson learned is that there’s no such thing as the perfect project plan. Tim mentions that so many players are involved in any project that anticipating every potential issue is impossible. He relates a story about future and current Jaynes CEO, Shad James. On a large project, the steel supplier informs Tim at the last minute that the steel needed will be 6-8 weeks late. Not days. Weeks.

Tim mentions that “… Shad was transitioning into his new role as Project Management Director. He visits my project, and I mention my anxiety about it, about the steel supplier, keeping the project team in place, the budget. Everything. Shad just looked at me towards the end of our meeting and said he has no doubt that it’ll get done. I’m not sure he believed that, but I almost believed him at that moment. Well, it got done, and everybody was happy. On time, on budget, and all that. But it cemented my belief that good teams communicate and strategize in a transparent way to recover from mishaps and challenges to get the job done.”

Tim also saw the “Grass Is Greener” syndrome during his time at Jaynes. Tim mentions he saw many people leave Jaynes only to come back later. Tim says, “I always took that personally because I was such a strong believer that Jaynes was the kind of company where you could happily work your entire professional lifetime. I think it took leaving for those people to realize how good the Jaynes culture, The Jaynes Way, was and that it was a mistake leaving.”

As part of a 100% employee-owned company, Tim felt he was vested in Jaynes’s success, making him work harder during his career. He mentions that he and most of his teams worked with the belief that they “owned” the project. The project’s success was the team’s success, the Owner’s success, and their financial success. He says he always felt “ … ownership meant this is ‘my project.’ This is all mine. And if you’re willing to put forth the effort and be invested in Jaynes’ success, it’s the only way to think about it and act on it. I always acted as a Jaynes owner when on a project. And Jaynes empowered me to behave that way.”

As a Superintendent, Tim led by example and passed on The Jaynes Way. He mentions that “ … mentorship is common in construction, but it was much more evident daily on the Jaynes project site. There’s just a lot of wonderful people at Jaynes, and employee ownership means people on the job take it personally. They’re gonna do whatever it takes to get you through a bad time and to succeed, to learn, and to grow. The people at Jaynes are always going to be there for you. And as a rule, it seemed they were always there for me.”

He says, “You have the resources, and you’re empowered at Jaynes…I always told my teams not to be afraid to ask for help. You’ll never get looked down on for asking for help. But you may get in trouble because you don’t ask.”

He mentions his many mentors and worries he will miss any important ones. However, he lists Ed Sims, Ed Marihugh, Greg Krause, Krishna Reddy, and Shad James as trusted advisors.

Tim mentions that The Jaynes Way is defined by the people you work with at Jaynes and that treating you like family is part of the company’s DNA. He says, “Jaynes always felt like a family to me over my 17 years at Jaynes.”

Colleague Tributes

• Tim has always been a man of willingness and gratitude – no matter what I asked of him – or where it meant he had to go and build a project, he said, “If that’s what you need from me, I will be there. The last few years, it has been apparent his engagement with building the future superintendents has been probably the most defining contribution to Jaynes – they don’t make a whole lotta guys like Tim anymore! From Jaynes Executive Vice President Greg Krause.
• I have had the pleasure of working with Tim over the last 17 years. He has always done what’s best for our projects and our company – whether it’s being a Superintendent, or filling in for someone, or even helping with close-outs and working on punch lists. I have  admired his can-do attitude and positive demeanor. Thank you, Tim, for everything you’ve done for us and for being who you are!” From Jaynes EVP Project Development Krishna Reddy.
• Tim had a remarkable career in construction. After 52 years in construction and 17 at Jaynes, Tim has consistently delivered excellence, passion for construction, teamwork, and leadership. Tim symbolizes The Jaynes Way: his expertise, problem-solving skills, mentorship, and willingness to work wherever we need him have earned him the respect of everyone who’s worked with him. His legacy at Jaynes will live on in the superintendents he has mentored and the subcontractor relationships he has forged throughout the years. I wish happiness and peace for Tim and his wife in retirement.  We will miss them. From Jaynes President & CEO Shad James.