The opus prize: rewarding heroes $1 million at a time

When Gerald Rauenhorst went into the construction business for himself in 1953, he had little money--just $350 and a $2,500 loan from his older brother. But the 25-year-old had big expectations, not least of which was putting ethics and honesty at the foundation of his work. That meant no kickbacks, payoffs or back-room deals. It meant sticking to his word and delivering projects on time and on budget. It meant treating clients and employees with respect. And it meant giving back to the community.

Nearly 55 years later, Rauenhorst's company, the Opus Group, based near Minneapolis, has become one of the leading companies in the construction business. Opus has built projects all over the country, ranging from churches to sports arenas, corporate headquarters to shopping developments.

Opus is also a leader in corporate philanthrophy. Rauenhorst maintains that corporations have a responsibility not only to their stockholders, but to the community in which they operate. To that end, Opus donates 10 percent of the company's pre-tax profits to charity. And since 2004, the company's Opus Prize Foundation has awarded a $1 million humanitarian prize each year to an "unsung hero working on the front lines of today's most persistent social problems," as the foundation's Web site describes it. (See related story below.)

Rauenhorst, 80, has maintained a low profile over the years--"I like to walk around quietly," he told NCR--and his family remains private about their many community involvements. His philanthropic style is "largely driven by Gospel values," said Jesuit Fr. Robert Wild, president of Marquette University in Milwaukee, where Rauenhorst earned an engineering degree and has overseen construction of several buildings. "My strong sense is that ... he really believes that [you] don't let the right hand know what the left is doing. I admire that."

Over the years, Rauenhorst has asserted that integrity and ethics belong in corporate culture.

"I think it's the secret to success," he said. "Our company has done very well. We worked hard at it."

Opus' long record of successful projects and satisfied customers is a testament to that philosophy. Now led by Rauenhorst's son, chief executive officer Mark Rauenhorst, Opus is a $2.1 billion real estate development company with 2,100 employees, according to its Web site. It runs 28 offices in the United States and Toronto, organized into five geographical divisions: North, South, East, West and Northwest.

But Rauenhorst has avoided working "in certain parts of the country," such as New York City, where unethical behavior is more common, Tom Roberts, president and chief executive of Opus West in Phoenix, told the Phoenix Business Journal in 2003. A company spokeswoman confirmed that this is still the case.

Rauenhorst's values were formed early in his upbringing in rural Minnesota. One of eight children in a tenant farmer family, Rauenhorst, in a 2003 book, described his childhood as "poor in material things--we didn't even have an indoor biffy until I was 15--but we were rich in the things that count."

"We were taught all the right things. To work hard and not to cheat and to always tell the truth," he said in his book, A Better Way, written with help from business journalist William Swanson. "To treat people with respect, to pay your bills, and to go to church every Sunday."

Catholic clergy were frequent visitors in the Rauenhorst household, and Gerald Rauenhorst remembers those visits as an early lesson in the importance of stewardship and philanthropy.

In A Better Way, he tells of the time when the parish priest talked his father into pledging $2,000 for a new church. "My father was struggling to keep his family afloat, and yet he was asked for--and he provided--what was ... a staggering amount of money," he said. "I've never forgotten that story, knowing what a sacrifice that had to have been for him."

Rauenhorst's mother encouraged him to go to college, and he graduated from what is now the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul with a degree in economics, followed by an engineering degree from Marquette. Along the way, he married his college sweetheart, Henrietta; they would go on to have eight children, one of whom died in infancy.

He struck out on his own in 1953 after working for two construction companies whose unethical practices made him uncomfortable. "I founded Opus with the philosophy that business can be done a better way," Rauenhorst told the Design-Build Institute of America's Dateline in a 2007 interview.

Described as friendly but reserved and unimposing at 5-foot-7, the young Rauenhorst nonetheless began to win early bids for projects, competing with companies much larger and more established than his. It became clear that he was a man of his word, and he soon developed lasting relationships with clients such as the University of St. Thomas, which named its business school after Opus in 2006.