Ron Long

Title: Superintendent

Ron fits the typical profile of an Oak Contracting superintendent with his extensive knowledge of construction and 27-year tenure with the firm. He has risen through the ranks from his first job as a CDL truck driver to recently completing over 250,000 SF of training and research additions and laboratories at the notable Bloomberg School of Public Health for Johns Hopkins University. His exacting standards complemented by his friendly demeanor have proven him continuous success.

What's not typical about Ron is that he would rather be a police officer and solving crimes. As a young boy, Ron loved to watch cops and robbers on TV and dreamed of one day being a policeman. Perhaps also influenced from his father who was a police officer for the Western Maryland Railroad. Ron recalls going to Mt. Airy with his father during the blizzard of 1966 to check on a train that had derailed on a frozen curve of track. As an officer, he was summonsed to keep watch on the damaged railcars. Upon reaching the site, Ron remembers local farmers taking air filters and other merchandise from the train and encouraging his father to “shoot” the robbers, who fled the scene.

No exciting shoot-outs at the train wreck that day. However, a make believe shoot-out throwing rocks at each other later in his childhood would result in Ron loosing sight in his right eye as well as his sights for becoming a police officer. Following a love for nature, he pursued a degree in Forestry from Alleghany College and even built the nature trail around Rocky Gap State Park during a summer project. Being a native of Rodgers Forge in Towson, Ron returned to the area after graduating and started Chesapeake Conservation Service, which is still in business today as a commercial landscaping company. The firm was founded on the newly developed technology of the time called hydroseeding. After five years of raking rocks, Ron's brother-in-law, Tom Grey, offered him a job as a truck driver with Oak working on Thomas Johnson Elementary School for Baltimore City schools.

From there, Ron never looked back and quickly signed up to go to carpentry school. He later moved into working with concrete formwork and finishing and played a key role in the Towson Library and garage before eventually becoming a superintendent. Ron has worked on numerous projects throughout Maryland in his career noting Dorsey Search Courtyard and Fountain for the Rouse Company as one of his most memorable. After an eight-year stint at Johns Hopkins University, Ron is currently gearing up for a major rebuilding and addition of St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Church in Libertytown. And, after all these years, he is contemplating a routine surgery, which could restore sight in his right eye.

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