Harry Humphry Mellon Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth and Family

Utilizing the vast resources of CRSS, Mellon mobilized a team of professionals in New York City in January 1990 to begin the fast track development of the SCA JOC program. Coordinating the effort was Robert Coffey from the CRSS office in Greenville, SC. However, in March 1990, General Williams fell victim to the political realities of New York City and resigned as the SCA’s president. The SCA’s interest in the JOC process died with General Williams’ resignation. It was during this three-month effort in New York City that Mellon and Coffey developed the idea of forming a company to help public agencies develop and implement Job Order Contracting programs. As more and more public works employees left the Federal government and migrated to state and local public agencies they carried their interest in the JOC process with them. It appeared that the time was ripe to start a company focused only on developing and implementing JOC for local public agencies. In June 1990, Mellon and Coffey founded The Gordian Group, Inc. to do just that.

The seeds for the founding of The Gordian Group were planted by Colonel Joe Stewart, USA (ret). Following his retirement from the Corps of Engineers, Stewart was hired by retired Engineer General Charles Williams who was the first president of the newly formed New York City School Construction Authority (SCA). Facing a massive backlog of repairs and alterations, Stewart believed that the JOC process would be an ideal procurement process for accomplishing the backlog. In November 1989, Stewart contacted Mellon and asked if he could assist the SCA in developing a Job Order Contracting program.

Mellon retired from the Army in July 1986 and joined one of the largest Architectural, Engineering and Constructions firms in the nation, CRSS (Caudill Rowlett Scott Sirrine). As he managed one of several design offices for CRSS, he saw the process that his team developed in Huntsville, to manage the production of price books for Job Order Contracting, begin to erode. By 1990, the Army lost the ability to generate a Job Order Contracting unit price book. Installations began to look to private companies for alternative solutions to their need for a unit price book.

General Sisinyak, made the decision that Monday morning to put together a taskforce to go to Europe in the early part of January 1985 to study the SHAPE project and to see how the process worked and what the results were. The task force gave a unanimous recommendation that the Corps of Engineers pursue adopting the same type of program. Sisinyak appointed Mellon to the task of implementing the “Mellon Plan” within the U.S. Army’s facilities system, and assigned Mellon to the office adjacent his. A senior executive civilian, Chuck Smith, headed the management group under Sisinyak that Mellon worked with. Also working in that group were Jim Lovo, Pete Amquist and Dave Spivey.

The first order of business was to come up with a more suitable name than the “Mellon Plan.” Open ended construction contract was not acceptable because no one in Washington would approve anything “open ended.” Dave Spivey said, “You know, when a customer calls the Facility Engineer and issues a work request, the Army generates a job order for that work request, so why don’t we call that contract a Job Order Contract?” That was the day, in January 1985, that the “Mellon Plan” became Job Order Contracting or JOC.

Mellon and Lovo realized that they did not have the staff level at Corps headquarters necessary to reach the goal of having the first Job Order Contract in place by the end of 1985. On May 21, 1985, Mellon and Lovo had their first Job Order Contracting Executive Conference in Atlanta, Georgia in an effort to gain additional resources to accomplish the goal. Following an introduction of where they were in the process, everyone was divided into subcommittees each having responsibility for completing an aspect of the project. This was before word processors but in a single day drafts for every aspect of this new idea were developed. Refinement of the documents and procedures occurred over the next couple of months with the goal of getting the solicitation for the first contracts on the street around August or September of that year.

Requests for Proposals for all of the test sites were advertised by September 1985. The pre-bids occurred in October and November. These were critical because of the unique nature of the contract. Mellon and Lovo wanted to make sure that the contractors understood the concept and could prepare good proposals.

The first Job Order Contract awarded was by the Tulsa District for Fort Sill, OK to Triangle Construction in early December. There was a celebration in Washington among the development team led by Mellon and Lovo, as they had met the deadline to have a Job Order Contract in place by the end of 1985. The second contract was awarded later that December by the Savannah District for Fort Bragg to Tier/Jorgensen. The rest of the test contracts were awarded over the next couple of months and all by the end of February, 1986.

The first in progress review was held at Fort Sill, OK in June 1985. It was attended by senior members of the Army staff, senior members of the Corps of Engineers, representative from each of the test bases, representatives from each of the test districts, and all JOC Contractors. Each test base would give a presentation to the group on their experience with Job Order Contracting. The presentations included job numbers, types, and size. It also included successes and failures. These presentations were followed by the districts and then contractors, each talking about the successes and failures. It was obvious to all that there was tremendous support for the system by all involved. However, at one point during the conference, one of the many frustrated contracting officials from the department of the Army stood up and said, “We can’t do this. This is just so totally illegal!”

In 1984, Mellon was reassigned as the Facilities Engineer for the United States Military Academy at West Point. Upon arriving at West Point, Mellon noticed the same facility problems that existed at the SHAPE headquarters in Belgium. Since there were no open-ended construction procurement tools, Mellon was forced to use the traditional design/bid/construct model for all contract work. Colonel Bill Badger, USMA Engineer, always aiming to find methods to raise standards and make improvements, was Mellon’s supervisor at West Point. Badger and Mellon shared the same frustrations of the standard contracting process. During the course of many discussions about their frustrations of the standard contracting process, Mellon shared the idea he used during his SHAPE project just a few years earlier.

In late November 1984, during the United States Army Corps of Engineers Worldwide Engineers’ Conference in Philadelphia, Badger spoke to Brigadier General Jerry Helms, the Southwestern Division Engineer, about the SHAPE project and arranged a breakfast meeting between Mellon and Helms. Prior to the breakfast, Helms mentioned the idea to the Chief of Engineers, Lieutenant General Elvin R. “Vald” Heiberg. Heiberg joined the breakfast meeting with Mellon, Helms, and Badger. Mellon explained the concept of the SHAPE project to the group. Though they were attentive and patient throughout the meeting, Heiberg and Helms did not demonstrate a lot of emotion. Though they remained noncommittal, both Generals did agree that this was an idea worth pursuing sometime in the future.

In 1982, Mellon conceived the idea of Job Order Contracting. He was working as the Chief Engineer at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Mons, Belgium. In 1985, Mellon implemented the Job Order Contracting concept for the U.S. Army, which was called the “Mellon Plan” at the time. Following implementation at the U.S. Army, Mellon moved the idea into the U.S. Air Force and Navy. In 1990, Mellon started The Gordian Group for the sole purpose of providing the services, software, data and documents that would make facility and infrastructure owners successful at Job Order Contracting.

Job Order Contracting has become a multibillion-dollar industry focused on expedited construction procurement. Mellon invented Job Order Contracting (JOC) in January 1982 as a way to solve dire repair and maintenance issues at SHAPE. SHAPE Headquarters was built in 1966 following France’s decision to leave the military arm of NATO, thereby forcing headquarters to be moved from Versailles, France to Mons, Belgium. The entire process of construction was completed in six months.

Mellon and his team developed a full collection of tasks, approximately 10,000, and then developed prices for each task. The idea was simple, let the contractor bid a markup to the task prices. Not a markup for each individual task price, but a single markup for all of the task prices. The lowest markup would be the lowest bid and the contractor that bid it would get the contract. The concept of the “open end construction contract” was first tested at SHAPE in 1982. The first contract was awarded to the Belgium firm Lixon, S.A.

Mellon completed basic training at Fort Polk, Louisiana and Engineer Officer Candidate School at Fort Belvoir, Virginia and was commissioned a second lieutenant at the age of 19. Mellon served in Vietnam as an Engineer Company Commander in the Mekong Delta. His primary mission was the construction of the Đồng Tâm Base Camp for the 9th Infantry Division. Following his service in Vietnam, Mellon was assigned to various Army installations including the Presidio of San Francisco. While serving at the Presidio in 1971, Mellon was responsible for coordinating the massive Federal Cleanup effort after the collision of two oil tankers under the Golden Gate Bridge. Following his service in San Francisco, Mellon attended San Diego State University, where he earned an undergraduate degree in Mathematics in 1973. Mellon was then assigned as the Resident Engineer for the Army Corps of Engineers at Langley Air Force Base, VA, where he was responsible for the timely construction of a number of facilities critical to the activation of the first squadron of F-15 fighter aircraft. While serving at Langley, Mellon earned a master’s degree in business administration from George Washington University. Mellon was then selected for an appointment to the faculty of the Department of Mathematics at the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY. In preparation for that assignment, Mellon spent two years at Princeton University earning a master’s degree in Civil Engineering. In 1978, Mellon joined the West Point faculty and taught Mathematics for three years. Following West Point, Mellon graduated from the Armed Forces Staff College and was assigned as the Chief Engineer, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Mons, Belgium where he invented Job Order Contracting. In 1984, Mellon was reassigned as the Facilities Engineer for the United States Military Academy. That assignment was interrupted in January 1985 when Mellon was reassigned to Corps of Engineers Headquarters for the purpose of developing and implementing the Job Order Contracting process for the United States Department of Defense. Mellon retired from the U.S. Army in July 1986 after 21 years of active service.

Harry Humphry Mellon (born September 26, 1946) is a retired Lieutenant Colonel of the United States Army, American businessman, inventor of Job Order Contracting, entrepreneur, and founder and Chairman of The Gordian Group, Inc.

Mellon was born September 1946, in San Mateo, California to Commander Hugh and Margret Mellon, USN. The Mellons had five sons and a daughter of which Harry was the eldest. Mellon moved to Hawaii, Chicago and Guam before his family finally settled on Coronado Island in California. Mellon graduated from Coronado High School in 1964. Much to the disappointment of his father, a Navy officer and World War II POW, Mellon enlisted in the Army in 1965. Hugh Mellon’s parting words to his son when dropping Mellon off to report for duty was, “Son, this is lowest day of your life, you can go no lower.”