Ernie Cline Exits May Construction

Did you hear that a long-time executive at Little Rock’s May Construction Co. is gone?

Ernie Cline, president of the general contracting firm for the past 12 years, exited July 6. His leaving is part of a succession of job cuts at the company dating back to October that has seen a 40 percent reduction in staff.

Lewis May, company CEO, declined to put a specific number to the cuts and said the layoffs have been painful.

“These are the people we built around for the past 12 years, people we helped train and further their careers,” May said.

“If a wave of work comes through, I’ll be hiring them back as fast as I can because there’s not a single one of them I wanted to lose.”

Cline, who worked at May Construction for 22 years, has no immediate career plans and wishes the company well.

“The company was good to me,” Cline said. “Lewis is a good guy. We parted as friends.”

May Construction reported revenue of $94 million in 2008, a one-year decline of 13 percent. The firm ranks among the 10 largest general contractors in Arkansas.

May said there are hopeful signs that business is picking back up but for now cost-cutting is in order.

“It’s simply a matter of shrinking the company to get in line with the current economy,” he said. “You can’t get it all off the bottom. You have to get some off the top to make the numbers work.

“I don’t fee like anything is in panic mode, but it is going to be slow for a while.”

May has an office in Bentonville, which did $28 million in revenue in 2006, the last year it broke out its northwest division sales for the Business Journal.