As a principal with FMI’s Leadership & Organizational Development practice, Michael brings his 35+ years of experience in the construction industry to bear on the challenges confronting today’s leaders. He is passionate about helping organizations and their leaders walk through transformational change – especially as it relates to the challenges of management succession.

Michael is a lifelong construction guy, having been born into a family construction business in Raleigh, N.C. Sunday afternoons were spent touring jobsites and playing on scrapers & bulldozers. Summers meant working at asphalt plants, laying pipe, and finishing concrete. He continued this industry involvement post-college, assuming various leadership roles including president & CEO. Engineering News-Record named him one of its 21st century leaders of the transportation industry.

He has been heavily involved in corporate governance, having spoken at National Association of Corporate Director events and been instrumental in the organization and launch of two independent, outside board of directors. Michael is also a past chairman of the National Asphalt Pavement Association (2000) and for more than a decade led its health and safety initiative dealing with worker exposure to asphalt fumes. During those years, he developed close working relationships with members of organized labor, regulatory agencies, and academia – in both the U.S. and Europe.

Michael earned a civil engineering degree from North Carolina State University, continuing with post-graduate studies at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. He has lectured in the graduate schools at both UNC and Northwestern University and is a 25+ year member of the Young Presidents Organization (“YPO”). As such, Michael has been fortunate to count some of the most outstanding business leaders in the world as his teachers.