Honoring Our Veterans

On Veterans’ Day, we honor the brave men and women who protect our nation and our freedoms. The Chicago Community Builders Collective (CCBC) salutes all who have served in the United States Armed Forces, including the veterans working on the Bally’s Chicago Casino project.   

CCBC recently caught up with three of them, all U.S. Marines (once a Marine, always a Marine — Oorah!), about lessons learned from their time in the service, their role on the Bally’s project and more. Interestingly, they all had one more thing in common — their decision to go into construction was influenced by their military experience.

Keith Lopez Juarez | Labor Foreman, CCBC, Next 150 Construction 

Phil Schwartz | Project Executive, CCBC, UJAAMA Construction

Steven Gaytan | CEO, Veteran Transportation Services 

Where did you serve and for how long?

Phil: I was stationed in a lot of different places: K-Bay Marine Corps Air Station in Hawaii, Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and 29 Palms and Camp Pendleton in California. We also did a bunch of work over at Camp Atterbury, a National Guard training base in Indiana. As a reservist, it was typically two weeks in the summer and one weekend out of the month for eight years.  

Keith: I twice served in the Marine Corps on a four-year contract for active duty. I was stationed in Camp Pendleton, California. That's where my brother was, too. They called us the “Hollywood Marines”, because it's on the West Coast.   

Steven: I was stationed out of San Diego, California. I joined right after September 11, 2001. I left for Marine boot camp on October 2nd and served 10 years. 

Did you serve in any armed conflicts?

Phil: Personally, I bounced around a lot but was never activated. I left the service right about the same time as Desert Shield, as a lot of my fellow Marines were going to Iraq and Iran and Kuwait. I was a combat engineer.  

Keith: I was deployed twice to Afghanistan. The first time was six months and the second was eight months. 

Steven: I spent several deployments in Iraq. Then for my last three and a half years, I was a drill instructor in San Diego. 

How would you say your military experience influenced your path to construction?

Phil: Part of being a combat engineer was building bridges and working in construction mode for the military. That started the process that led me to earn a degree in construction. Overall, I think the discipline and character building in the Marine Corps has helped me in my career, too. I don't get rattled easily. I have a calm demeanor, no matter what the situation is. That's probably one of my better traits.  

Keith: Leaving the Marine Corps, I was looking for something to keep me engaged with people and anything that would be similar to military life with a lot of structure, a lot of organization and a lot of planning ahead. That's how it was in the military: staying in constant contact and always wanting to be ready for the next step. I think that's really helped me on the construction side, where proper planning goes a long way. Construction was one of those pathways where I saw both brotherhood and work that was always active, always changing.  

Steven: From a military perspective, time management and the ability to go right into problem-solving have given me what it takes to be an entrepreneur. And like the military, construction is a tight-knit community. We’re family. You roll your sleeves up, and you get to work, even as you move up in a company. I love that about the construction world. I wanted to help other owner-operators in disenfranchised communities and to advocate for people who can’t do it for themselves, similar to how I trained people willing to join the United States Marine Corps and transitioned them in.

What’s your role on the Bally’s Chicago Casino project?

Phil: I'm a project executive. I oversaw the demolition, the foundations, the caissons, the sheeting and the piles. I’m managing the concrete and steel currently — all the enclosure packages, with precast and curtain wall. I also oversee the roofing, the metal panels, the cold form metal framing, the air barrier and the sheathing that encapsulates the casino, along with the metal panels and finishes that go on top of it. I'm also managing the finishes throughout the entire hotel. So, I've got a couple of things going on!  

Keith: I'm a laborers’ foreman. My day-to-day is coordinating with subcontractors and superintendents, or even something as minimal as getting the Port-O-Johns cleaned, pumping water and air, ordering supplies and being in the loop for what is coming up next. It’s a big area, requiring a lot of people and a lot of coordination. I’m learning about how to communicate with more people and how the field and the office sides come together on a big project like this. It’s rewarding. 

Steven: My company, Veteran Transportation Services, does dump trucks and flatbeds. We also just started doing articulated trucking, which are the big yellow looking trucks. We work for a couple of contractors on the project — MGM, Meade and Lyndon Steel — and send about 25 trucks to the job site a day, but our team extends much beyond that. 

Steven, what sets your business apart?

Steven: I help other owner-operators in disenfranchised communities. I teach them, like I taught young men and women willing to join the United States Marine Corps as a drill instructor. If each of us can give someone else an opportunity, then that's how we advance as a community and all be better off. It warms my heart to see someone in their 50s supporting an entire family and able to buy their first home. That's been my goal and that separates Veteran Transportation Services from everyone else.   

What advice would you give a veteran considering a construction career?

Phil: There are a lot of similarities to be found. In the military, there is order and an organized hierarchy. Construction has the same type of hierarchy. In the military, there's a brotherhood. There's a brotherhood in construction, too. I’ve found that the construction industry can feel like such a small community, even though it's technically large, in Chicago. It’s just like how the military is a large organization, but it's a small community when you dial it down to battalions and squads.  

Keith: I’d tell them it's a great opportunity to move from a structured life to a different mentality. If they find that this isn't something for them, then it's not a big change. There are similarities that will have a big impact on you. It's a little bit easier to transition in the construction sector just because of the similarities.  

What's the most rewarding part about being on the Bally's Chicago Casino project? 

Phil: It is one of the only large projects that's going on in the construction industry in Chicago right now where it gives you a sense of pride and fulfillment. At the end of the day, you can always go back and look at the project and say, ‘I was a part of that.’ And it's a great group of people.  

Steven: I was taught when I was young that when you expand your Rolodex, you break through barriers of color. When you become an extension of those communities, we easily break through those barriers. That’s why I think it’s very special what Bally’s is doing, including being very inclusive of the neighborhoods that it serves.