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It all began with a chance encounter at Drusilla Restaurant in 1991 when Mike Polito bumped into Cajun Industries’ Lane Grigsby during a construction awards ceremony.
Polito was working for a New Orleans contractor at the time. “After my team came up to accept an award, Lane walked up to me and struck up a conversation,” he says. “I was taking the team to the Patio Lounge for a little celebration afterward, so I invited him and his wife to come along. A few beers later we were in business.”
They incorporated not long after as MAPP Construction, with Polito as CEO and Grigsby as a financial partner. MAPP started out small, pursuing only public bid work from its original office on Corporate Boulevard, but Polito always knew it would be bigger. He had cut his teeth on large projects and had a growth mindset.
It wasn’t until Richard Setliff—a respected construction industry veteran from New Orleans—joined the team as vice president that MAPP was able to bridge the credibility gap. Not long after, Mark LaHaye, current vice president of the company, came aboard, followed by Pat Hrncir as the Texas division manager in a second office in Dallas.
A watershed moment came in 1993, when MAPP was awarded the $30 million Catfish Town renovation project in Baton Rouge. Additional milestones included the LSU Tiger Stadium expansion in 1998, Shaw Group World Headquarters in 2000 and the Chevron Northpark office facility in 2008. The company has also built nearly 300 Raising Cane’s locations over the years, and in 2023 completed the Liberation Pavilion at the National WWII Museum in New Orleans—a complex project devoid of any 90-degree angles, inside or out.
George Solomon, a retired theater developer in New Orleans, says MAPP was always his contractor of choice when building one of his 20 theaters—from El Paso to Philadelphia. The partnership began with the 90,000-square-foot Elmwood Theater in Harahan in 1998, one of the first stadium seating-style theaters in Louisiana.
Before every project, MAPP would typically meet with Solomon and the architects to “value engineer” solutions to bring costs down. “With MAPP, everything was above board,” Solomon says. “We just had a respectful relationship.” Case in point: When Solomon ran into a problem with the insulation on a few of his theaters, MAPP stepped in to take care of the problem. “It would have been a $1 million-plus problem to fix,” he says, “but MAPP stood behind their work and took care of it. It was a bad experience that they made go away.”
ELEVATING THE INDUSTRY
MAPP’s focus on client intimacy has always been its true differentiator. The business model has helped it grow into a $250 million-plus company with offices in Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Dallas, Atlanta and Austin. “What’s important to our client becomes important to us,” Polito says. “It also makes for a better experience—everybody likes to do business with someone they like. You start building relationships.”
Bradley Tassin, executive vice president in MAPP’s Dallas office, accepted his first job with MAPP 20 years ago after graduating with a business degree from LSU. He originally planned for a career in real estate development, but he found MAPP to be a perfect fit. “MAPP is on a mission to change the industry, as well as the people in it, to make it better,” Tassin says. “That’s why we exist. We want to improve the industry and to be the professional in the room … a different kind of contractor.
“The construction industry still has a reputation of walking into a room with muddy boots and torn up jeans, but we want to be the professional … the trusted adviser for our clients.”
Technology is central to the process—“MAPPies” (as MAPP employees call themselves) refer to it as “data to wisdom.” For example, 3D building information modeling technology is used extensively on its jobsites, and the company now has a dedicated BIM expert on staff who creates the models in collaboration with the superintendents.
MAPP has also formed an AI committee to determine how to best utilize the technology in its processes. “We’ve got some bright people who are interested in that,” Tassin says. “They want to figure it out and bring it to the rest of the company. I’m excited to see what comes out of that.”
Mike O’Brien, senior superintendent, says he’s had chances to leave MAPP over the last 24 years but has turned them all down. “I like the fact that we’re allowed the freedom to build the culture and philosophy that best suits the team in the field,” he says. “We can work more effectively with our trade partners on-site, with the end goal of keeping the client happy.”
At the end of the day, he just wants to keep building. “I enjoy the work,” O’Brien says. “I’m a builder. I like to be challenged, and the jobs that MAPP has been bringing to me are interesting and complex. As long as Mike keeps feeding me projects, I’m going to keep building them.”
