Editors’ Note

The cornerstone of Dan McConaghy’s approach to his life is developing relationships. He believes that investing time to understand and connect with team members, customers, and partners is time well spent. With 25 years in the construction industry, it was his relationships with the people who built the hundreds of buildings he oversaw to which he attributes his success. As President of Corvias Campus Living, McConaghy appreciates the opportunity to have an impact on education – an issue near and dear to him. He is a member of the Board of Trustees for LaSalle Academy and is the K-12 Council Chair for the Rhode Island Department of Education. McConaghy personifies Corvias Campus Living with his enthusiasm for helping colleges and universities solve their problems.

Company Brief

Corvias Group (corvias.com) is a privately owned company that strives to tackle complex, large-scale challenges through trusted partnerships that put client interests first, producing sustainable long-term solutions by focusing more on performance than profit. The company works on behalf of the U.S. military, and public and private higher education institutions, as well as municipal and state governments to develop tailored solutions for many of the nation’s most challenging infrastructure deficiencies caused by chronic underinvestment. Their mission is to materially improve the lives of the people their projects touch. Corvias Group is headquartered in East Greenwich, Rhode Island.

What made Corvias such an attractive place to work?

I’ve spent my career focused on trying to make the world a better place, but from the construction side. Having partnered with Corvias before officially joining the company, I saw that they were similar in this sense. Corvias is also very client-centric; we really try and listen and put ourselves in our client’s shoes so that we can best solve their challenges and better their communities. They can then focus on their own business or mission. For example, with our partners in higher education, we do our best to help them navigate through the waters during these tough times when institutions are dealing with issues such as deferred maintenance and a lack of funds to complete these projects, or student debt rising to the point where online learning has become competition for traditional four-year colleges.

How do you believe the company’s core principles are reflected in the everyday culture at Corvias?

Corvias has three core principles – to be the best place to work, the best provider of service, and to give back to the communities we serve. During my time at Corvias, it’s been remarkable to see the consistency throughout the organization to carry out these principles and always focus on our core mission of bettering communities. From the receptionists to the Founder and CEO, every person at Corvias one comes into contact with has a consistent, strong, and positive message. We are constantly asking ourselves, “What are we doing to connect and better the lives of others?” Also, people’s efforts are acknowledged by others in the organization and rewarded, which makes this work even more meaningful on a personal, as well as a professional, level.

What makes Corvias’ approach to developing relationships and forming partnerships so different and successful?

There is an incredible sense of empathy across the organization, among leadership and employees at all levels, of being able to put yourself in your client’s position and understand that client’s challenges. This allows for our purview to be much broader so we’re able to think long term from their perspective in an authentic way about how to solve their problems, as well as how our work can translate into additional benefits for their surrounding communities. It’s clear to our partners that we are not interested in a transactional type of agreement; our goals are 100 percent aligned with theirs for the entire length of the partnership.

Does this impact who Corvias will enter into partnerships with?

These partnerships are like marriages in that they last for such long periods of time. We look to partner with people who are just as interested as we are in the broader impact our work can have on the surrounding communities in addition to our direct customers. We’ve been successful at making sure our clients understand this and it’s something that is really starting to resonate with others across the industry.•