New Journey Group CEO looks to future with plan for strategic growth

This article was originally published by Jodi Schwan of SiouxFalls.Business.

It’s before sunrise, but a team from Journey Group already has started its morning huddle — and their new CEO is there alongside them.

On one day, it’s a crew from SFC Civil Constructors and Black-Top Paving doing a bridge repair north of the South Dakota State Penitentiary.

On another, it’s a team from Journey Construction navigating a catwalk above a major expansion and renovation at Central Church.

At both, the theme is the same.

“I’m thrilled and thankful for the positive energy and excitement I’m seeing from our team,” said Brian Gramm, who transitioned into the role of CEO following the retirement of longtime leader Randy Knecht.

Gramm served as Journey Group’s chief financial officer and chief strategy officer for five years after previously consulting for the company through his own firm.

He has spent the past 60 days as he began the role of CEO intentionally meeting employees on their turf — not in an office but largely in the field.

“It’s been awesome getting to see the work from their point of view, getting into the field and talking to our team,” he said.

“You never know how people will react to transition and change, but overwhelmingly they’re open to seeing what’s coming and ready to be a part of it.”

From Gramm’s perspective, Sioux Falls-based Journey Group enters the era of a new CEO in an enviable position.

While he has built a career around entrepreneurial ventures and helping organizations scale, in this case, “we’re going to do this with pace and patience,” he said. “There’s no need to rush or completely restart. That’s not our reality. We ended the year strong, and we’re rolling into 2026 in a good spot.”

Career change-maker

As Gramm describes it, his entire career “has been around taking organizations that are in Point A and developing how to get them to Point B,” he said. “I am not somebody who’s wired or whose mind generally works toward making incremental changes.”

He learned early in his career that life at a CPA firm wasn’t for him, then thrived in the fast-paced world of professional hockey as director of finance for the Minnesota Wild.

“We at first didn’t have the franchise, didn’t have the money to buy the franchise, and then in 2.5 years had the franchise bought, people hired and all the infrastructure to make an NHL team,” Gramm said.

“We had to tear down a stadium in St. Paul and build what was then the Xcel Energy Center, so I learned a lot about getting in there and quickly moving from Point A to Point B.”

He continued to bring that mentality to consulting clients through his own firms, specializing in fractional CFO work, strategy and compliance.

At Journey Group, “there’s an inherent challenge in taking a 115-year-old business and making it quick, nimble and entrepreneurial,” Gramm said.

“At the same time, there’s this amazing foundation that’s been built. There are people who are very, very interested in getting from Point A to Point B and being part of something that is notably different, bigger, better and faster. So for me, it’s looking at what are the opportunities to throw fuel into and where should we coast a bit in order to get to a bigger vision?”

Before he tackles the opportunities ahead, though, he plans to solidify his leadership team — beginning with hiring a new CFO to backfill his former role.

“We’re bringing some new faces in, so we want to get the team built and stable and then start talking about how we’re going to grow and what growth means in the office and in the field.”

At Journey Group, though, “I think we are at a jumping-off point for scale,” he continued.

“We’re at a point where scale matters and we can take advantage of it, and that’s a different mindset. It’s leveraging people, time and resources in a different way, and that’s a new muscle we need to build, but we’re at a point it’s appropriate.”

Journey today and tomorrow

Gramm has no shortage of job sites to see firsthand as he continues connecting with Journey’s teams in the field.

Crews are in the middle of the largest construction project in the history of Avera Health — a six-story expansion of the women and children’s tower that will be complete early next year.

They’re also wrapping up work on the new two-story, nearly 33,000-square-foot Turner County Courthouse, on track to open this summer.

And they’re finishing the 100,000-square-foot DSU Applied Research Lab in Sioux Falls, scheduled to open later this year.

Looking ahead, “we anticipate some larger-scale development projects beginning,” Gramm said. “Hopefully, we’ll have more updates to share soon.”

SFC Civil Constructors was just awarded a large project on North Marion Road and is working on both the Basin 15 lift station in the city as well as a dam project near Mission in south-central South Dakota.

You’ll start to see the team from Black-Top Paving once construction begins this season on the next segment of Veterans Parkway, in addition to other large paving projects around town.

“Our group is very good at figuring out how to do challenging things,” Gramm said. “Some of these projects are ones you rarely get to work on in the course of a construction career — things like hospitals and courthouses and highly secure buildings — so if you thrive on challenge, you’ll love this work. It makes me proud to be part of it.”

However the organization evolves, it will remain true to the higher calling for why it exists, he added.

“We exist to build community,” Gramm said. “That’s not a slogan. It’s an important driver for us each day. Everyone here helps build community. There has to be that sense of purpose — taking what we have today, broadening it out and then ensuring our team is excited about what we’re doing and the impact we get to have on a whole bunch of people.”

Join the team

Journey Group is ramping up its hiring for the season ahead and is looking for crane operators, welders, foremen, field teams and more.

Look for walk-in interviews soon, or visit here to get started: journeyconstruction.com/careers.