William “Bill” O’Neil II, the former CEO and board chairman of Chicago-based contractor W.E. O’Neil, passed away on April 10 at the age of 83, the company announced.

A third-generation leader at the firm founded by his grandfather, William Edward O’Neil, Bill O’Neil joined W.E. O’Neil in 1967. Over his nearly five-decade career, he served in multiple roles, including layout engineer, superintendent, project manager, and estimator, according to the company.

O’Neil rose to CEO in 1985 and led the firm until 2003, after which he served as chairman of the board until 2020. His leadership helped drive W.E. O’Neil’s expansion across the country, with new offices opening in Los Angeles in 1985, Denver in 1999, and Nashville in 2014, per the company’s history page.

In 1994, O’Neil and company leadership worked together to introduce the foundation of W.E. O’Neil’s employee stock ownership plan (ESOP), according to the company’s history page.

“Putting them right up front is the right thing to do,” O’Neil said at the time.

The ESOP model has since become a popular strategy in construction for succession planning and fostering employee ownership, with major firms like HDR, Willmeng Construction, and Rosendin Electric following similar paths.

Under former CEO Brian Ramsay, W.E. O’Neil became fully employee-owned in 2020. Ramsay, who retired earlier this year, reflected on O’Neil’s impact:

“As I worked at W.E. O’Neil over the course of several decades, the one thing that became more and more apparent about Bill O’Neil was that he had two great loves in his life: the love he demonstrated for his family and the love and support that he showed for the employees of O’Neil,” Ramsay said in the news release.

Founded in 1925, W.E. O’Neil is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. Recent highlights include the acquisition of Austin-based DCA Construction and significant work on the $1.4 billion Midfield Satellite Concourse South project at Los Angeles International Airport. As of October, initial construction on nine segments of the project had been completed offsite.

“He believed every employee should share in what we build together,” said John Finn, W.E. O’Neil’s current CEO. “Bill’s legacy lives on in the culture he helped shape and the lives he touched.”

Originally reported by Matthew Thibault in Construction Dive.