For those who know Brunson Cooper, it comes as no surprise to learn that during the height of the pandemic, he purchased a truckload of food for delivery to the Low Country Food Bank and took a one-day, 14-hour roundtrip from Washington, D.C., to his hometown of Hemingway, South Carolina, to distribute it after catching wind that many local families were in desperate need. More than 400 cars came through the donation line that day, leading Cooper to sponsor two additional food drives in Hemingway that year.
For Cooper, the act was second nature. Building and nurturing relationships is a driving force in his life—a value instilled in him by his father, after whom he’s named. Without deliberately taking time to foster key relationships, Cooper says, he’d never be doing what he does today: owning and operating his own construction company, D.C.-based Corenic Construction.
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Growing up in what he describes as a “very country, three-light town,” Cooper says his father showed him from a very young age what it was he didn’t want to do for a living. Outside of his parents’ day jobs—his father a paper mill foreman and his mother a second-grade teacher—the family cultivated a massive garden behind their home, akin to a small farm. Cooper’s chores included everything from mowing the family’s 2.5-acre property with a push mower, to weeding the huge garden, to washing his father’s pickup truck every three to four days.
“He was always telling me, ‘Listen. I want you to be better than me. I want you to get a good education. I want you to do something more,’” Cooper tells CE during an interview at Corenic’s offices near the Washington Navy Yard. “More” started with Cooper’s enrollment at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, North Carolina, where he completed a degree in civil engineering. Upon graduating in 1996, he accepted a job offer from Turner Construction. After expressing his pride with a hearty congratulations, Cooper’s father took his offer letter and drove him straight to a used-car dealership—in the vehicle that Cooper had been borrowing from him. “You’ve got a job now?” his father said. “You’re gonna buy your own car, and I’m taking back my car. I’ve done my part.”
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Maggie Murphy over at Construction Executive
