25 Years of Turning a Dream into a Reality

We are turning 25 years old this year! ESA South was established in 1999, and we have been blessed with 24 years of building a company with team members we truly consider to be friends. We are grateful to say that we are still working with our first employee (thanks Billy!) who will celebrate a full 25 years with us! It is our team’s dedication to delivering amazing projects that has helped us grow to be the contractor we are today, delivering projects that we barely dreamed of in 1999.

Although we are still the same honest and homegrown group at our core that we were when we started in 1999, we have worked hard to accomplish significant growth and evolution as a company. For the last six years, we have set a path to achieve defined milestones that enabled us to break through size standards from small to large and contract projects up to $100 million. 

Over the last 12 months, we have nearly doubled our workforce, hiring more than forty new employees and opening satellite offices in two additional states- Indiana and South Carolina. In that same time, we were awarded nearly $130 million in new construction contracts—marking two consecutive years of comparable magnitude in contract awards.

We were flattered to be recognized in 2024 as Florida’s statewide, mid-sized Veteran Employer of the Year by the Florida American Legion-a nod to the high (currently 38%) percentage of veterans we employ. 

We experienced many changes in 2024, including leadership shifts involving founder Malcolm Gibson accepting the chairman of the board position and founder Sean P. Harmon filling Malcolm’s CEO position. Jim Baker, having served as vice president of operations for six years, assumed the role of president, providing solid leadership to our team.

We are grateful to have been able to reach our silver anniversary with 25 years, and are excited to go for gold with another 25! We know the best is yet to come and we are grateful to our clients and our project teams who make it possible for us to plan what the next 25 years will look like. We hope to see you along our journey, continuing to support federal and military missions and deliver amazing projects!