Decency, discipline and faith will no doubt be the themes of Roland Toups’ legacy. They have been integral to his character since he was a young boy in Houma, when he even considered, then eventually decided against, entering the priesthood.
Later, as a young man, Toups found himself on the front lines of history, accompanied—as he usually was back then—by his identical twin brother, Leon. After the brothers earned graduate degrees in mechanical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, they joined the Air Force and were stationed at Cape Canaveral in Florida.
It was 1962, and it was the early days of the NASA space program. “We worked with a bunch of brilliant scientists and engineers,” Toups says. “It was a wonderful time to be there.” While at the Cape, the Toups brothers worked with the Atlas missile program and even played a role in preparing for John Glenn’s first space flight.
Toups later became embroiled in the Cuban Missile Crisis, when he was a launch officer and Leon a test conductor. “We were ordered to put a nuclear warhead on top of an Atlas D missile,” Toups says. “Obviously, we were ordered to stand down, but it was there just in case (Soviet Union premier Nikita) Khrushchev did not back down. Thankfully, Kennedy called his bluff.”
He also led the design-build of two massive missile tracking ships at a Brooklyn shipyard—at a then-staggering cost of $100 million. Sperry Corp. was the prime contractor, and its chairman at the time was retired Gen. Douglas MacArthur. “At the end of the job, MacArthur said to me, ‘Lieutenant, job well done.’ It was like an apostolic blessing,” he says.
Through it all, necessity dictated that Toups develop the problem-solving skillsets—and the unwavering work ethic—that would one day prove immensely beneficial to his career.
A Different Destiny
It was at the Cape that Toups met his wife, Kay. They soon married and moved to Baton Rouge, where he landed a job as a project manager for Ethel Corp. That’s when he first ran into Bert Turner, who at the time was leading Nichols Construction, a major contractor at the plant.
Nonetheless, Toups soon got the itch to return to NASA in 1968, which at the time was ramping up the Apollo space program. He’d already sold everything he owned and was about to leave for Florida, when Turner approached him with a different destiny in mind: Join Nichols and help him grow the company. “So, I did,” Toups says.
Turner was a true visionary, a hard worker and intelligent, and together they set about the task of increasing their project load, diversifying their service offerings and eventually renaming the company.
Over the years, Toups has found growing the Turner Industries brand to be a rewarding—yet often challenging—experience. “This is a cyclical business,” Toups says. “We’d get work, then we’d drop off and then have to go get more work. It was not a total geometric path. It was up and down, but over time we grew it from 100 people to 500 … then to 2,000. Today, we’re working 20,000 people and doing $3 billion a year.”
Of course, as the industrial market grew so did the rest of Baton Rouge’s industrial construction community. Toups paved the way for the next generation of contractors by helping develop the first construction management curriculum at LSU and even taught class for a couple of years. “I had a group of all-stars in my class … the likes of Eddie Rispone, Bill Firesheets, on down the line. You could tell they were going to be all stars.”
Toups also developed a profound commitment to public service, ultimately chairing the Louisiana State Board of Regents, what was then known as the Greater Baton Rouge Chamber of Commerce, the Louisiana Chemical Industry Alliance, and numerous civic organizations. He’s also been inducted into multiple halls of fame, including the Georgia Tech Academy of Distinguished Engineering Alumni, LSU Engineering Hall of Distinction and Baton Rouge Business Report Hall of Fame.
Dan Borne, retired president of the Louisiana Chemical Association and an ordained Catholic deacon for some 15 years, met Toups during the formation of the Louisiana Chemical Industry Alliance in the early 1990s. Later, they were both heavily involved in the Rotary Club.
“Roland’s entire life just absolutely puts into practice the Rotary motto of service above self,” Borne says. “As much as any person I’ve ever dealt with in my career, he has put service to others far ahead of himself.
“Wherever Roland was, whatever group he had to meet, whatever section of society he had to try to lead, he could always do so ethically and professionally and get along with the folks that he was trying to lead.”
Norman Deumite, founder of Deumite Construction, has been close friends with Toups ever since meeting him at Bocage Racquet Club some 50 years ago. At times, they’ve also been “friendly competitors” in the industrial space, as well as served together on the Catholic High School Board of Directors.
“I don’t think there’s one meaningful organization in town that Roland hasn’t been a part of, and I think that 90% of the boards he’s ever been on he’s served as chairman and one time or another,” says Deumite. “There are a handful of people that really made a difference in Baton Rouge and made it what it is today, and I include him in that number. He knows how to listen, and he knows how to bring people together.”
Changing Roles
During his tenure as chairman, following Turner’s retirement, Toups hammered home a mantra that most Turner employees know well. “I tell everyone that we’re going to do things in this order—our God, our family, and then Turner … and we’re going to have fun doing it. If that gets out of order, then we’ve got a problem. We preach that religiously.”
At 87, Toups still serves in an advisory capacity, while his son, Stevie, is the current CEO. It’s still very much a family affair—Bert Turner’s five children also remain involved in the company.
“I just listen and make suggestions, but Stevie’s running this thing with his team, and I stay in the background and let them run it,” he says. “They’re doing a great job.”
More than anything, Toups would like to be remembered as someone who impacted the lives of the people in his community.
“This business is not one of hardware. What means more is that we’ve hired hundreds of thousands of workers. We’ve given them the ability to raise families, educate their children and put food on their table. That makes me feel pretty good.”
Toups, who still deeply misses his twin brother (Leon died of pancreatic cancer in 2006), says most of his attention these days is on his family. He’s even wrapping up construction of a new home to be closer to his daughter.
“I tell my wife that I’m in the fourth quarter of my life, but she says I’m in double overtime,” he jokes. “My big emphasis now is children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. We’ve got two little great-grandchildren and they’re the apples of our eye.”
