(Editor’s note: This is the 16th installment in a weekly series featuring Rhode Island’s oldest companies as the nation celebrates the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The other stories from this series can be found here.)
PROVIDENCE – In 1870, in a rapidly industrializing city thick with mill smoke, ship traffic, and the churn of a growing port economy, a small carpentry shop opened under the Gilbane name – laying the foundation for what would become Gilbane Inc.
More than 150 years later, that same company is helping build some of the most visible projects in American infrastructure, from major civic developments to large-scale stadiums and complex industrial sites.
Among them: the Buffalo Bills’ new stadium, recently completed and already part of a growing portfolio of nationally significant projects that also includes major work at Quonset Point in Rhode Island, landmark federal buildings, and high-tech infrastructure developments across the country.
For CEO Edward T. Broderick, the scale has changed dramatically. The identity, he said, has not.
“The world and Gilbane have advanced a long, long way since our founding fathers operated,” Broderick said.
The company’s roots trace back to Irish immigrants Thomas and Bridget Gilbane, who arrived in Rhode Island in the mid-1800s fleeing the potato famine.
Their son, William, trained as a carpenter and launched the business in 1870, during a period when Providence was surging as an industrial hub.
In those early years, Gilbane’s work focused on residential construction, particularly homes across Providence neighborhoods such as the East Side. Some of those early projects still stand today, marked with plaques identifying the builder more than a century later, said Broderick.
“We were building houses,” he said. “That thread of being a builder, starting with a hands-on trade, is what has stuck with the company.”
Over time, that foundation expanded into a national and international construction and real estate firm, delivering schools, healthcare facilities, affordable housing, data centers and major infrastructure projects.
But Broderick said the company increasingly defines itself not just by what it builds, but by what it enables.
“We’re not just building a building,” he said. “We’re building community.”
That philosophy has carried Gilbane through landmark chapters in its history, including its role in constructing Quonset Point during World War II, where the company employed thousands at peak wartime production and helped build one of the nation’s most important naval air stations.
From there, its footprint expanded into major civic and cultural projects across the country, along with today’s large-scale infrastructure and technology developments.
Despite that growth, Broderick said the company has remained anchored by a long-term mindset – reinforced by its continued status as a family-led, privately held firm with an evolved governance structure and independent oversight.
“That ability to take a long-term view is very helpful in business,” he said. “If you’re only planning quarter to quarter, you lose sight of what you’re actually trying to build.”
Across generations, he said, Gilbane has remained grounded in core values of integrity, caring, and accountability.
“There’s a proverb in our history,” Broderick said. “If a man tells the truth as he sees it, keeps his word, and works well at the task he gets, that’s how reputation is built.”
Those values, he added, continue to guide the company even as artificial intelligence, advanced construction methods, and rapidly evolving project demands reshape the industry.
“These are extremely interesting and exciting times,” he said. “We’re living through a period of tremendous change in how projects are designed and delivered."
Still, what has endured since those early Providence years is a simple throughline, Broderick noted.
“The mission stays the same,” he said. “Do the work well, and be trusted to build again.”
Matthew McNulty is a PBN staff writer. He can be reached at McNulty@PBN.com or on X at @MattMcNultyNYC.
