Forty Under 40: Matt Bodishbaugh

A former lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, Matt Bodishbaugh, 33, has come full circle.

The Fayetteville native says the reasons he left Northwest Arkansas after graduating from the University of Arkansas with a degree in civil engineering are the same reasons he came back. The vice president of business development for Nabholz Construction Corp. wanted to settle down and raise a family.

“After being in other parts of the country, you appreciate what we’ve got here,” Bodishbaugh says.

He returned in 1994 after a four-year stay with May Construction Co. in Little Rock, where he was a project estimator and manager. In the Navy, he did construction management for the U.S. Department of Defense.

Bodishbaugh went to work for Nabholz in 1997.

“I take care of pre-construction services,” Bodishbaugh says. “That involves listening to clients’ needs and putting together a solution for them. We do a lot of design building, and once designs are ready for execution I hand off the job to a project manager.”

Bodishbaugh helped work on projects in 20 states last year, and he’s pursuing more regional clients.

Bodishbaugh, who received a Naval Achievement Medal, is president of the Sigma Nu Fraternity Alumni Advisory Board and is active in the Fellowship Baptist Church in Lowell.