JC&A has been recognized as a top corporate philanthropist in Massachusetts for many years. Why has community engagement remained such a core part of your company culture as the business has grown?

When JC&A started 30 years ago with a desk, a phone and a vision, the goal was to build more than great projects. We wanted to build a company where strong relationships, great people and a commitment to our community were just as important as the projects we delivered.

That hasn’t changed. If anything, our growth has given us a greater opportunity and responsibility to give back. Our journey has taken a lot of grit—hard work, perseverance and people willing to roll up their sleeves and fi gure things out. But along with that grit comes a tremendous amount of gratitude for the employees, clients, partners and communities who have supported us and helped us grow.

Giving back is one of the ways we put that gratitude into action. It’s part of The JC&A Way and has been woven into our culture from the beginning. Thirty years later, we’re still working hard, still grateful and still committed to making a difference in the communities that have given so much to us. 

Your company often talks about “Doing Well by Doing Good.” What does that philosophy mean in practice, and how does it influence decisions across the organization?

“Doing Well by Doing Good” is the belief that being successful and doing the right thing should go hand in hand. In practice, it means working hard, treating people well, keeping our word and recognizing that none of us succeeds alone. It influences how we support our employees, serve our clients, work with our subcontractors and partners, and show up in our communities. It’s really about how we do business. We want to be successful, but never at the expense of our values or the relationships that have gotten us here.

That philosophy has guided us for 30 years and continues to guide where we go next.

JC&A employees have logged an impressive number of volunteer hours over the years. What have you learned about the connection between employee engagement and community impact?

What makes our community involvement so meaningful is that it comes from our employees. Over the years, we’ve consistently ranked among the top three companies for volunteer hours and have even been #1 a couple of times. I think that says less about the hours themselves and more about the kind of people we’re fortunate to have at JC&A.

Through JCAres, our employees support causes that are meaningful to them. They volunteer, organize fundraisers and drives, and simply show up when people need help. It’s not something we have to push—it happens naturally. And I think we get just as much out of those experiences as we give. Volunteering together gives us perspective, strengthens relationships and reminds us how fortunate we are. The recognition is nice, but what matters is that our people genuinely care about making a difference.

As a founding partner of Team IMPACT, you’ve helped support an organization that has changed the lives of thousands of children and student athletes. What initially inspired that commitment, and what impact has it had on your team?

Team IMPACT has a very personal connection for me. Growing up, my younger brother, Chris, absolutely loved sports, but because of his physical limitations, he couldn’t play. While I was fortunate to experience all the lessons and friendships that came from playing on teams, Chris was often on the sidelines. That changed when the Bristol Red Sox gave him the opportunity to become their batboy. Suddenly, he had a uniform, a role and a team of his own. We saw what that experience gave him—a sense of purpose, friendship and belonging—and how much it meant to simply be included.

After we unexpectedly lost Chris in his early twenties, that experience stayed with me. Years later, it helped inspire what would become Team IMPACT: creating that same opportunity for other kids who might otherwise be on the sidelines. Fifteen years ago, that idea began taking shape right inside JC&A’s o ffice, connecting children facing serious illness and disability with college athletic teams and giving them the opportunity to truly become part of a team.

Today, Team IMPACT has matched more than 5,000 children with teams at more than 900 colleges and universiti es across all 50 states, impacting more than 250,000 student-athletes. And what’s really amazing is how often we hear about those connections firsthand. It seems like everyone at JC&A knows someone who has been touched by the program. Our employees have kids in college who have had Team IMPACT teammates or were teammates themselves. People know children in their own towns who have been matched. Clients and partners tell us about their connecti ons to Team IMPACT. It comes up all the time.

There’s a lot of pride at JC&A in seeing how something that started in our office has grown and become part of so many people’s lives. The fact that 15 years later we’re still hearing new stories from employees, clients and friends who have a connection to Team IMPACT is pretty amazing.

As a company, we commit to a mission, show up every day, work hard and hold each other accountable. When you have a team that does that, the results give you a lot to be proud of.

JC&A is celebrating 30 years and Team IMPACT is celebrating 15 years. How would you describe those milestones?

There’s something incredibly special about celebrati ng these two milestones together. Both JC&A and Team IMPACT started with an idea and grew because people believed in what was possible, rolled up their sleeves and came together around a shared purpose.

That’s really what We Build…® Our Legacy, Together is all about.

These anniversaries give us an opportunity to appreciate how far we’ve come, but they’re certainly not a finish line. They’re a reminder of what it takes to build something that lasts: grit to keep pushing forward and grati tude for the people who make the journey possible.

Our legacy is still being built every day—not simply through what we accomplish, but through how we do it: the way we treat people, the relationships we strengthen, the opportunities we create and the impact we make together. We’re proud of the first 30 years and excited to keep building on that foundation for many years to come.