EDUCATION Mater Dei High School; Bachelor of Business Administration in accounting, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana (1966)
HOMETOWN Evansville
RESUME Industrial Contractors/ICI Skanska (1961-2013), president and CEO (1983-2011)
FAMILY Wife Sharon; daughter Molly Russell and son Matthew (died in 2022); five grandchildren
Alan Braun’s fingerprints are all over Evansville, from his years as a business leader and philanthropist, to his time as chair of the University of Evansville’s Board of Trustees. Retired since 2013, Braun’s presence still looms large: His family’s company, Industrial Contractors — bought by Skanska in 2011 and sold to Sterling Industrial in 2022 — was a major builder of industrial and power plants and amassed most of its construction portfolio within a 50-mile radius of the River City, with projects such as Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indiana in Princeton, AK Steel in Spencer County, Deaconess Gateway Hospital, Springleaf Financial (now OneMain Financial), and corporate headquarters for Old National Bank and Vectren (now CenterPoint Energy).
Braun says that in business and many other activities, he has taken a put-up-or-shut-up approach. “I’ll put it this way: I don’t talk about very many things that I don’t do,” he explains. “I’m more a doer than a talker.”
EVANSVILLE BUSINESS: TELL US ABOUT YOUR BACKGROUND WITH INDUSTRIAL CONTRACTORS.
Alan Braun: I started when I was in high school, working in the summers and then some when I was in college and when I got out of college. I went in the Navy for two years, and when I came back in 1970, I started working full-time. … I started running field construction when I was 28, which would have been 1972. I took over as president in 1983. My dad bought the company when I was at Notre Dame, in 1964. At the time, we were doing about $3 million worth of work. When we sold it to Skanska in 2011, we’d done $470 million that year.
EB: WHAT COMMUNITY PROJECTS HAVE YOU SUPPORTED?
AB: I’ve been pretty involved with Habitat for Humanity of Evansville. I led the Transforming Lives, Changing Neighborhoods fund drive to get them their 500th home by 2018 and, for them, brought in over $6 million. I was over UE’s UEnvision 2010 Campaign, and I was head of the Deaconess Foundation when they started the Deaconess Classic for Women’s Health in 1995. It has been a sellout for 31 straight years. … The tournament has provided much-needed funds for women’s health.
EB: WHY HAS YOUR WORK WITH HABITAT BEEN SO MEANINGFUL FOR YOU?
AB: With Industrial, we built probably five or six homes. When I sold Industrial, Skanska said, “We’re a good corporate citizen, but we’re not going to give like you all did.” So, I took 10 percent of the sale and put it in a foundation so my wife and I and our family could keep giving about the same that Industrial used to give. Then Habitat came to me and asked if Sharon and I would run their 500th home campaign. I said, “Your delinquency’s too high. You don’t have people in line to get in your houses that are ready to move in. It’s not as simple as just raising money, but you’ve got to do all this other stuff.” … Beth Folz had taken over (as executive director), and she did a great job of getting people lined up, getting them educated to move in, and being able to handle the financial part of it. So, it was a success. And I’ve been with them ever since.
EB: YOU OWN RIVERFRONT PROPERTY ALONG RIVERSIDE DRIVE. WHAT’S YOUR OPINION OF THE DEVELOPMENT PLANS THAT HAVE BEEN REVEALED FOR THAT AREA?
AB: I hope they’re able to do something. They’re talking about a baseball stadium, and those have been successful in some cities. We missed out the last time when I think we had a pretty good opportunity. But hopefully this time they’ll be able to pull that off and bring some people in here.
