Headquartered in Rockville, Maryland, this remarkable plaudit-gathering company, Telligent Masonry—whose very name evokes the impression of working with inspiration, serves the construction industry from Pennsylvania to Florida, including the Washington, DC area where it began.
The company installs brick, concrete masonry units (CMU), cast stone, precast, granite, and stone veneer work for hotels, public and private institutions, historic landmarks, government facilities, condominiums, mixed-use structures, libraries, apartment complexes, resorts, and retail establishments.
Established in 1957 by Gus Pappas, Telligent Masonry has an illustrious history, having completed dozens of outstanding, award-winning masonry projects over the years, including the Miami International Airport, Walt Disney World, and Andrews Air Force Base.
Construction in Focus last featured Telligent Masonry in 2021, with the company having come through the worst challenges of the pandemic and still dealing with intense COVID-19 health and safety protocols, material shortages, and supply chain issues. To discuss what’s been happening since, we spoke with company President Chris Pappas, who took over the reins from his father in the 1990s; Safety Director Ulises Gomez; and Tina Cron, Human Resources and Payroll Manager.
While there have been many exciting new projects for the firm, some things remain the same, Pappas says, referring to the company as relationship-based and employee-based, with most of its work performed for repeat customers. Unlike many competitors, the company does not subcontract and instead is proud of its staff of 600, which Pappas claims is the company’s great strength.
Like his father, he believes in investing in his company and “leading by example,” which has earned him respect from the industry and his clients.
Says Cron, “We take the time to invest in our employees, which has created a brilliant family relationship. Many of our foremen and superintendents started as bricklayers or in other types of labor, and we have taken the time to invest in their training.”
The success of this business model is reflected in Telligent Masonry’s stellar performance and the awards the company has steadily continued to win—42 to be exact—for safety, for the superior quality installation work it has executed, and for the detailed preconstruction work it does, including meticulous estimating, planning, and project management, where nothing is left to chance.
Cron shared with us the stories of several multi-award-winning projects, including the Braddock Gateway in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, on which Telligent Masonry worked with owner and contractor, Carmel Partners. Telligent won the 2022 Associated Builders & Contractors (ABC) Metro-Washington Excellence in Construction Award and the 2022 Mid-Atlantic Masonry Association (MAMA) Craftsmanship Award.
To maintain harmony with the existing built environment, the project combined traditional brick with an art deco style to create a contemporary look for the four-building, mixed-use complex, spread over 5.5 acres. It comprises 670,000 pieces of oversized brick; 125,000 pieces of CMU and 8,400 pieces of architectural CMU that adorn the courtyards; 11,100 units of cast stone; and 12,000 linear feet of flashing.
Each building has unique design features such as protruding narrow brick columns along recessed panels, rooftops of varying levels, and different colored bricks and mortar, which gives each building a distinctive look while creating distinct challenges for masons. For example, one building featured two different brick-and-mortar colors, khaki and black, creating a narrow, striped pattern requiring meticulous tool cleaning from the masons to prevent unsightly, discolored mortar.
An even greater test involved having to work in a limited space wedged between existing buildings, train tracks, and a main road pulsing with traffic. This resulted in a logistical challenge in positioning Fraco, Telligent’s gas-powered mast climber system with an elevating platform for masons to work from, in a tight space. For areas so confined that Fraco simply couldn’t be placed, manually erected tube scaffolding was used, with separate certified Telligent crews working on each of them.
Although the project tested the limits of masonry construction, it turned out to be a typically safe, on-budget, and on-time project for Telligent Masonry and Carmel Partners. That it won prestigious awards as well was a bonus.
In a different vein, the 2023 MAMA Craftsmanship Award for an educational facility was awarded to Telligent for its work on the Georgetown Preparatory School Dormitory and Stadium, two separate buildings separated by a turf football field. Because of their location on a campus where students and teachers move from class to class between buildings, additional safety measures had to be in place, especially with heavy equipment in motion, including cranes.
Unlike Braddock Gateway, the architecture for the school was traditional, utilizing a uniform color of bricks and mortar. Instead, the challenge here involved lifting into place 7,000 cast stone units adorned with medallions and engravings that celebrate the school’s history. Each weighed between 2,500 and 3,500 pounds, and although some were placed in the stadium, others had to be lifted into the interior of the completed building, without damage.
That same year, 2023, Telligent Masonry won a second MAMA craftsmanship award for its 1150 1st St NE commercial project.
Meanwhile, a newly constructed project, rivaling the Braddock Gateway in complexity, the Rockville Town Center Phase II, has been submitted for the 2024 MAMA Craftsmanship Award. The 18-story, mixed-use building contains residential units, including affordable senior units, retail, amenities, and parking. It is composed of 540,000 bricks in six unique types and colors, including Norwegian brick, which is difficult to install because of its size. In addition, there are 130,000 units of CMU, 2,600 units of cast stone, 22,000 linear feet of flashing, and 91,000 square feet of rigid insulation.
The design called for the selective use of hand-cut bricks and for some bricks to lie horizontally with the window, while in other areas they lie vertically, with heavy elements of cast stone hand-placed at the bottom of the windows by the masons.
Three different scaffolding systems were required. Where possible, the Telligent crew used Fraco, but because the building has multiple tiers, a swing scaffold had to be used in those areas, and since there was no exterior access into the courtyard, tube scaffolding was required. Erecting those systems was a labor-intensive process.
During the project, Telligent had numerous crews managing their scope of work, meaning crews for each scaffolding system, for each of the veneer areas, and for the two different CMU areas.
Recently, Pappas told us, the company wrapped up a Coast Guard building at Fort Myers, Florida, and completed the brickwork on the remodeled 720,000-square-foot former Fannie Mae building in mid-town Washington, now referred to as City Ridge. But when Pappas casually says “brickwork,” readers can be sure this is no ordinary brickwork, rivaling the artisanal and artistic work on the previously mentioned projects.
Currently, the company is estimating projects in Florida, the Carolinas, and the Boston area. Although Telligent Masonry generally does not bid on jobs outside its traditional Pennsylvania/Florida territory, it will go further afield for an existing client who may be opening a new facility, as with the Boston project, says Pappas.
In his day, company founder Gus Pappas believed that a safe working environment produced a higher quality of work, and that belief continues to be the foundation of Telligent Masonry, which goes beyond what is required by OSHA, insurance companies, construction partners, and local regulations.
Ulises Gomez has played a key role in driving improvements to the safety program, taking the lead in its enhancement. With eight years of experience in the safety industry, he brings valuable expertise to the team. He recognizes the hazards of working in an environment where just one careless step or faulty piece of equipment can mean disaster and death. Together with the company, he believes in a multifaceted approach to safety, which begins with performing all safety-related work in-house with the company’s own personnel, all 600 of them.
The benefits of having employees who undergo regular safety training; all foremen having 30-hour OSHA cards; all workers being screened for drug use and subject to random drug tests; and all workers being required to wear the correct PPE are real and tangible. Most valuable, though, is that in response to this culture permeating Telligent, its personnel fully grasp the company’s safety stance and buy into it.
“However,” Pappas cautions, “we’re competing against companies going in the opposite direction, subbing and hiring work crews, and that is a burden on the industry. If they have a job with 50 to 60 people on it, they might have five or six sub-crews with 10 or 12 people on each, and they all have different agendas and varying amounts of safety training. That just doesn’t work for quality control or safety.”
Telligent’s culture of safety extends to the office with pre-construction meetings to consider all materials, details, drawings, access areas, and potential challenges in advance, plus the use of 3D imaging software that allows the team to work through intricate details before the materials are delivered and construction begins. Job sites also begin each week with a safety meeting to refresh, remind, and learn anew, with regular safety inspections carried out by Gomez, who, because of his industry experience, knows exactly what a safe job site looks like.
But not only does Telligent Masonry invest in employees and their training, as opposed to subcontracting; it also invests in its own equipment, as opposed to renting, and inspects and maintains it on a strict schedule. “We have 15 people working right now to maintain the equipment,” says Pappas. “We do have a couple of guys who do repairs, but we do a lot of maintenance which avoids equipment breaking down and endangering our employees.”
This multi-faceted, comprehensive approach to safety has added up to a lot of awards in this area as well. Between 2014 and 2021, Telligent Masonry received eight Gold Level STEP Safety Management System Awards from the Associated Builders & Contractors, and in 2022 moved up to the Platinum Level award. If the activities of this company and its talented people all sound highly Telligent, well, it’s no surprise.
