Keith Nixon

Relentless Ally

Paving a Legacy Across the Southeast

Keith Nixon doesn’t have a crystal ball to predict what’s on the horizon for mega infrastructure projects. But with 35 years of industry experience spanning the full gamut of preconstruction and operations, a track record of trusted partnerships and leading expertise in collaborative contracting models, he doesn’t need one.

As business development director for Balfour Beatty’s infrastructure operations in the Southeast, Keith channels that experience into forecasting the future—how to accurately price it, how to adequately staff it and how to effectively build it to last for his clients and communities. It’s a one-of-a-kind role that demands a unique blend of intuition, precision analysis and strategic problem solving, and no one is better suited to fill it than Keith.

Since joining Balfour Beatty in 1999, Keith has played a vital role in shaping the evolution of our infrastructure business in the Southeast. His legacy is paved into the numerous interstates, roads and bridges Balfour Beatty has delivered in the Carolinas and Georgia—projects totaling nearly $1.7 billion that continue to shape how people live, work, travel and play.

Whether he helped bring them to life in the field, behind a computer crunching thousands of numbers or in a combination of both roles, Keith’s impact on our business, industry and communities is undeniable.

A Trusted Voice in Collaborative Contracting

As Keith’s career evolved, so too have the skillsets he brings to his projects and partners. As collaborative contracting models began to take root in the public sector, Keith recognized a need to become well-versed in design-build and progressive design-build, two of the leading types of collaborative models. Like anything Keith endeavors, he set out in earnest to gain not just an understanding but a mastery. He became involved with the Design Build Institute of America (DBIA) and assumed the leadership role over Balfour Beatty’s Southeast infrastructure alternative delivery operations in 2017. 

“While public clients have historically been slower to adopt collaborative models than in the vertical buildings sector, I recognized a growing appetite for their application due to faster procurement, improved risk mitigation, better cost management, early collaboration and other benefits as compared to traditional bid build,” Keith recalls.

Firsts at Fayetteville

Keith put those skills to the test as design-build manager on the I-295 Fayetteville Outer Loop project in Fayetteville, North Carolina. From the outset, the project faced significant delays due the North Carolina Map Act, which required the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) to compensate landowners for properties included on future transportation maps. As the NCDOT addressed Map Act-related settlements and budget adjustments, the project was effectively suspended.

Compounding these issues, Hurricane Florence made landfall in September 2018, resulting in a catastrophic, 500-year flood event to the corridor connecting I-95 and Fayetteville Outer Loop. At the time, the Fayetteville Outer Loop project design was only planned to withstand a 50-year flood event. In the wake of the devastation, former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper emphasized the importance of resilient infrastructure to the state’s rebuilding efforts. 

In response, Keith partnered with the owner to proactively propose improvements bringing that segment of highway to a 100-year design standard. His initiative sparked broader conversations about the project’s untapped potential, ultimately leading to the inclusion of additional segments of I-95. Over the next 18 months, the project team successfully negotiated and integrated the expanded scope through a progressive design-build approach. The project grew from $129 million to $240 million in what became the largest change order and the first use of progressive design-build in NCDOT history.

“It was a win-win,” Keith recalls. “Balfour Beatty received critical time extension, and the owner was able to accelerate construction of I-95 by 15 years and bring it up to required standards. It was a truly collaborative effort.”

Moreover, the change order also reduced risk for both Balfour Beatty and the client. Because the change order was processed as a lump sum, it reduced our risk of incurring quantity overruns and the client’s risk of cost overruns.

Balancing Risk, Research and Reason

Balfour Beatty has gone on to procure additional collaborative contracts with NCDOT, including our largest regional project to date, U.S. 70 James City. Although Keith estimates that approximately sixty percent of infrastructure opportunities will soon be procured under collaborative models, many hard-bid and other traditional delivery opportunities still abound.

No matter what the delivery model, Keith has his eye fixed firmly five to seven years into the future, assessing every opportunity through a disciplined lens of risk tolerance, margin health and other critical decision factors that ensure Balfour Beatty achieves sustainable business growth.

While Keith bases his proposals on many known quantities, he also contends with much that is unknown. Due to market and supply chain volatility, a project priced two years ago at $100 million could easily have swelled to $200 million today. Keith’s longstanding relationships in the design and engineering communities as well as with industry associations such as the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) empower him to better anticipate these uncertainties in an industry that is becoming ever-more dynamic by the day.

Keith’s precision proposals are a powerful advantage in procuring work across every delivery type, but he is quick to credit Balfour Beatty’s integrated capabilities as the driver of success in his final bid numbers.

“You win with shorter schedules. You get shorter schedules by understanding the scope of work better than the competition, maintaining stronger relationships with the subcontractors who have solid production histories and then pricing the job correctly,” affirms Keith. “It’s about having the right leaders on the ground with the right blend of skills.”

An Architect of Change

A respected visionary within Balfour Beatty and the construction industry at large, Keith Nixon is an architect of change and an advocate for progress. His career – and the projects he has touched – are a testament to value of cultivating diverse skillsets, establishing trusted partnerships and leading with clarity and consistency.