What started as a high school friendship and a shared passion for construction has grown into a thriving general contracting firm with a national footprint. Cooper Tacia General Contracting traces its roots back to the mid-’90s, when founders John Cooper and Chris Tacia turned a firewood business in Sanford, North Carolina into a stepping stone for their ambitions in real estate and construction. Their early projects focused on residential development, from small-scale renovations to custom home communities.

The 2008 financial crisis proved to be a pivotal moment. While Chris continued in real estate, John steered the business toward commercial and industrial construction. Over the next decade, the company became known for its work in hospitality, helping shape Raleigh’s vibrant dining scene with acclaimed restaurants like Bida Manda, Brewery Bhavana and Crawford & Sons. It later expanded into large-scale manufacturing facilities, government buildings, schools and infrastructure projects.

In 2020, the company was rebranded as Cooper Tacia General Contracting, a tribute to the partnership that started it all. Today, the firm operates across the Southeast and beyond, with a growing presence in Georgia following the opening of its downtown Atlanta office in 2024. As the company continues to expand, it remains grounded in the values of craftsmanship, integrity, and strong relationships—principles that have guided its journey from a small firewood business to an industry leader.

We sat down with Executive VP Derar Issa to talk about Cooper Tacia’s evolution, its approach to tackling complex projects and what’s next for the company. Issa, known for his leadership skills and client dedication, oversees the division’s strategic direction and operations—and ensures Cooper Tacia maintains its high standards of safety, quality and service across all its construction projects.

Give us a snapshot of your brand.

The Cooper Tacia brand is the result of the long, hard work of our founder and President, John Cooper, who built the business from scratch. It’s a great story. He and his high school friend started renovating and building homes, then eventually expanded into the commercial and industrial space.

Our team has continued to build on that success story. We work to ensure that everyone involved in our projects—our clients, owners and partners—are successful, not just Cooper Tacia. It’s how we’ve built our client base and repeat business.

What type of clients and markets are you targeting?

We’re very diverse and we’re always working to expand our portfolio. The company currently works with public and private entities and targets educational, industrial, commercial, aviation, government and mixed-use projects. We are also looking to expand into health care, as well as water and wastewater treatment.

How does your work cater to today’s end-users?

Whether we are building a school or a manufacturing site, the word “partnership” embodies our goal, which is to guide our whole team to success and develop high-quality projects where all the stakeholders, including the end-users, are proud. We are also mindful that not everyone understands the construction process. We educate and communicate and try to make it as easy as possible for them to understand how we get to the finish line and how we can save them money.

How is your construction strategy based?

Cooper Tacia has developed a comprehensive strategy for our construction projects, with the main priority to be a safe workplace. We have invested a lot in the well-being of the internal team, along with subcontractors, to ensure everyone goes home safely at the end of the day.

We also heavily invest in training our internal team and in obtaining the latest and greatest engineering tools to keep things running smoothly. We also invest a lot in relationships, which is key to end-user satisfaction. Another key strategy at Cooper Tacia is to prioritize client satisfaction over profits—which results in repeat customers.

What are some of today’s biggest challenges?

The biggest challenge today, especially after the pandemic, is material procurement—specifically electrical and mechanical equipment. There’s also the challenge of price increases. We’ve seen somewhat of a slowdown in price escalation, but it’s still a challenge with bids, budgets and so on.

Let me give an example. Say we win a project, but the permit goes on hold or is delayed. Then three months go by, and there are price escalation issues.

These are our current challenges. Looking ahead, the industry faces workforce issues that we must address.

What are the biggest challenges in construction or renovating a project?

The biggest project-related challenge is scheduling and finishing on time. There are many factors that can affect the progress of a project that are out of our control. We try our best to be proactive and avoid these issues. On hard bid projects, it usually dictates the duration of a project, which is based on historical data from similar projects. Most of the time, these timelines are not tailored to the specific project at hand and an RFQ fails to see things on a project-by-project basis.

How are you working to promote sustainability?

As general contractors, we create sustainable buildings and communities as designed by architects, working with them to support these efforts for their clients. But as general contractors, we also have a role to play in our own industry—whether it’s purchasing and using electric vehicles, regulating energy use on our projects and the buildings we are constructing, looking at solar options or coming up with more sustainable construction methods. This is going to be a hot topic as we continue to deal with climate change.

“Our approach to customer service and projects makes us unique, and we are always thirsty and ambitious for growth. Our mindset is to keep pushing forward and challenging ourselves to do better next year, the year after that and five years from now.”

What do you see as some of the biggest challenges in construction, moving ahead?

Finding talent and hiring young people who are interested in the construction industry is our top challenge. As the older generation is nearing retirement age, it’s crucial to go out, find good people and entice them to become part of this industry. Construction is hard work and long hours—but you can make a good living out of it. So, how do we make our industry more attractive to younger people?

Are you optimistic about what you see in your building and construction sectors?

Absolutely. Cooper Tacia has been blessed over its 20-plus year history. We have a diverse portfolio and we’ve grown tremendously over the last three years throughout the Southeastern U.S. Recently, we were awarded a project in Utah. With all the growth in Raleigh and North Carolina, the future is promising. And I can say the same thing about the Atlanta market. I’m looking forward to what’s ahead for us.

What trends are you seeing?

As mentioned, our industry is facing a labor shortage with older workers retiring, leaving a gaping hole of experience. We have to create apprenticeship and internship opportunities to attract younger people to our industry and get them excited about careers in construction. We also mentioned sustainability, with a new focus on green building practices and renewable energy.

Other trends focus on technology, such as automation, robotics and the use of drones, to improve efficiency and safety on the job site; experimentation with modular and prefabricated construction materials and 3-D printing; and how to work around the scarcity and increasing costs of such materials as aluminum and steel.

Where is your business headed?

Cooper Tacia is headed to be a billion-dollar company. The goal is to continue growing and be a substantial part of the industry, while providing services and support to as many industry sectors as possible. Essentially, we want to repeat what we’ve successfully done over the past 20 years. Serve our clients well. Earn repeat business. Expand into new sectors. Win new projects in other states. And provide the same level of exceptional customer service that has made us who we are today.

Tell us what makes your brand unique?

Our approach to customer service and projects makes us unique, and we are always thirsty and ambitious for growth. Our mindset is to keep pushing forward and challenging ourselves to do better next year, the year after that and five years from now.

Is there a story you can share that shows off your work and ability to engage with the industry?

I worked on a high-profile project called The MET in Costa Mesa, California at the beginning of my career. It was one contract with 12 separate projects, and it involved different locations and multiple groups of subcontractors. We were working on over 600,000 square feet of space and I was the sole project engineer at the time. I was working long hours seven days per week to keep up with the pace of the project and I collaborated with national design firms to do a great job—and do it on time.

That project gave me a whole different perspective on my talents and abilities—and it gave me a glimpse of what my future could look like in this industry. I also had repeated opportunities to work directly with higher-ups in the company, which is something I would not have typically done at that level in my career. The amount of trust they put in me helped me understand nothing is truly impossible. And I needed to go after opportunities, rather than wait for them.

One-on-one with… Cooper Tacia’s Derar Issa

Describe a typical day at work.

There is no typical day. You might come to work with a plan and then one phone call or email can send you on a completely different track. Whether it’s coming to the office or going to a job site, I always come in and hit the priority of that day—whether that’s addressing a new opportunity, working with our clients and trade partners or following up on closing another project.

What was the best advice you ever received?

One piece of advice that’s stuck with me is that everybody has a boss. If you work with your project team in a way that prevents them from having to go to their boss to ask for help or break bad news, then you will be the person they want to work with all the time because you’re relieving stress and establishing trust.

What’s the best thing a client has ever said to you? What was the job and why?

The client I worked with for The MET in Costa Mesa. I asked him if he would meet me for lunch because I wanted his feedback after the project ended. He was a very senior guy, and he told me that he always looked to me in meetings because I had the information they were looking for. This compliment, especially coming from someone who was so seasoned in his career, made me feel good about myself and my abilities on the job.