Rick Swartz and the $561,655 he left on the table

Rick Swartz had $561,655 coming to him. The calculation had been made. His 2024 management incentive award at MYR Group reflected the company's safety performance, even though its financial performance had fallen short of the plan's payout threshold. Swartz declined the award, citing the company's financial results. A compensation table ended up with a particularly eloquent empty space.

The decision offers a useful place to begin with the president and chief executive of an electrical construction business. Swartz has spent more than four decades inside the organization, starting as an apprentice electrician at Sturgeon Electric in 1982. He became MYR's CEO on January 1, 2017. Between those dates lie the less photogenic jobs that make construction companies function: foreman, superintendent, project manager, district manager.

There is an appealing symmetry here. An apprentice is expected to learn how his work fits into everybody else's. A chief executive is paid to understand the same thing on a much larger scale. Swartz's career has given him opportunities to consider that problem from both ends of the organizational chart.

Thirty-five years to the top job

Sturgeon Electric was already an established Colorado contractor when Swartz arrived. Founded in 1912, it had been working for seventy years before his apprenticeship began. The firm became an MYR operating subsidiary in 1995. His long tenure therefore spans a change in ownership as well as a succession of personal promotions.

That distinction matters. “Joined MYR in 1982” is a compact corporate biography. The fuller picture starts with a young tradesman entering a local electrical contractor, then staying as the business became part of a broader group. His professional world expanded around him while his own responsibilities expanded within it.

The dates show a gradual accumulation of authority. He was vice president of the transmission and distribution central division from 2002 to 2004, then a group vice president until 2009. Senior vice president followed. In May 2011, he became chief operating officer. Each move took him farther from responsibility for an individual job and closer to responsibility for the systems supporting many jobs.

By 2013, he was also president of four subsidiaries: Sturgeon Electric, The L. E. Myers Co., Harlan Electric and Hawkeye Construction. Bill Koertner, then MYR's chief executive, pointed directly to Swartz's apprenticeship when explaining the promotion. The career was being held up inside the business as an example of how far an employee could advance.

A company is also a place to stay

A year before that four-company promotion, Swartz had helped mark Sturgeon's centennial. Anniversaries invite speeches about longevity, and construction offers ample material for them. Buildings outlast the people who wire them. Company names sometimes do, too. Swartz's explanation for staying power was more immediate: employees needed reasons to remain.

“If you have the drive and ambition, the opportunities are here,” he said in 2012. He linked the firm's durability to investment in its people and the chance for long-serving employees to develop careers. Coming from someone thirty years into his own climb, the point had the advantage of a readily available example.

There is a practical business argument inside that sentiment. A contractor's capacity depends on what its people know how to do together. Experience resides in estimating, scheduling, supervision and the judgment exercised on site. Keeping that knowledge within the organization gives the next project a better starting point. Swartz's emphasis on retention fits the business he grew up in.

His later leadership responsibilities included developing project management and productivity programs, alongside corporate safety initiatives. Those are patient forms of improvement. They ask people to perform ordinary tasks more consistently, then repeat the process across crews and locations. The achievement is often visible in a job that proceeds without becoming a memorable story.

The promotion before the promotion

In September 2016, Swartz became executive vice president while retaining the operating chief's job. The expanded brief included marketing, fleet, acquisitions, safety and administrative responsibilities. It was a collection of functions with a common consequence: each could affect whether the company was ready to take on more work.

Three months later, MYR announced that Koertner would step down as president and chief executive. Swartz would succeed him at the start of 2017, while Koertner continued as executive chairman. The transition put an internal operator in charge of the company where he had built his career. Swartz joined the board in April 2019.

Today, he also chairs MYR's internal executive committee and carries responsibility for the group's profits and losses. His colleagues include chief financial officer Kelly Huntington and operating chiefs Brian Stern and Don Egan. The scale has changed considerably since the apprenticeship, but the work still depends on coordinating people with different responsibilities and specialist knowledge.

What competitors can share

One revealing part of Swartz's public outlook concerns cooperation between companies that otherwise compete. MYR was among the founding members of the Electrical Transmission & Distribution Partnership, formed in 2004. The arrangement brought contractors together with OSHA to develop shared practices and training.

Swartz described an essential condition as the willingness to “leave their egos at the door and be willing to share information.” In an industry built around winning bids, there is something quietly striking about agreeing that certain knowledge should travel freely between rivals. The partnership's work includes standardized instruction for line workers and supervisors.

That approach has an everyday counterpart inside MYR. Swartz's weekly newsletter, :60 Seconds for Safety, is distributed to employees with a timely topic and an update on company performance. A chief executive's recurring message may be a modest object beside a transmission line. Its repetition gives the subject a regular place in the working week.

The year the bonus stayed unpaid

The declined award becomes more interesting against that background. MYR's 2024 incentive plan measured financial and safety performance separately. The financial measure produced no payout for Swartz; the safety measures produced the calculated $561,655 award. He could qualify under part of the plan even in a disappointing financial year.

He chose to decline it. That decision concerned a specific management incentive award; his salary and other compensation were separate. Precision matters here because the actual choice is revealing enough without enlarging it. The company had calculated a payment under its rules, and its chief executive decided the year's financial performance made accepting it inappropriate.

Construction makes the gap between activity and results particularly tangible. MYR's fourth-quarter 2024 revenue fell 17.4 percent from a year earlier. The company was also being selective about solar work in certain markets, with Swartz emphasizing acceptable pricing and contract terms. Busy crews and attractive markets could coexist with disappointing returns.

For someone who had spent years developing productivity programs and managing operations, that distinction sat close to the work. Revenue counts the business done. The terms of a contract, the cost of executing it and the outcome at completion determine what the business earns. A large order book cannot answer every question.

Growth needs a speed limit

By February 2026, Swartz was explaining that idea in particularly plain terms. Asked about the capacity to grow faster, he acknowledged the opportunity, then returned to controlled growth. He questioned whether adding revenue would produce profitable work. The question carries more useful friction than a promise to chase every available dollar.

“I think anybody could really add revenue at this point, but could they do it profitably.”

Rick Swartz · February 2026 earnings call

MYR operates in two complementary areas. Transmission and distribution connects the company to power lines, substations and utility networks. Commercial and industrial work brings it into buildings, manufacturing, transportation and data centers. Swartz has worked across both sides. Their different customers and project types give him a broader set of opportunities to evaluate.

His acquisition strategy also involves bringing established contractors into that organization. In May 2026, MYR agreed to acquire Valley Electric and Comet Electric for approximately $328 million, subject to adjustments. Valley was based in Everett, Washington; Comet in Chatsworth, California. Both brought operating histories and existing customer relationships.

The transaction closed on July 1. Swartz had emphasized the incoming companies' workforces, management teams, design skills and compatibility with MYR's culture. For a former apprentice whose own employer became part of a larger group, there is a familiar organizational pattern here: growth through businesses that already know their customers and their work.

A bigger business, the same unfinished task

MYR's second-quarter 2026 revenue reached $1.08 billion, with backlog of $3.16 billion at June 30. Both were company records. The figures describe a substantial business under Swartz's leadership, while leaving the next assignment very much open: scheduled work still has to be built.

His stated priorities remain recognizable across the years: invest in employees, develop future leaders, maintain customer relationships and choose work with discipline. The aspiration is organizational. A company that advances its people needs another generation ready for responsibility, just as someone once gave a Sturgeon apprentice room to progress.

As of October 23, MYR's next results were scheduled for October 28, with an earnings call the following morning. Another set of numbers would soon invite questions about growth, margins and execution. Swartz's career suggests why those questions belong together. He has spent forty-four years moving through the business that must supply the answers.

The $561,655 decision remains a useful detail to keep in view. It attaches a personal consequence to a corporate result. After decades of promotions, committee meetings and earnings calls, the former apprentice made a choice that can be understood without knowing a single thing about electrical contracting. He had earned an award under the plan. He decided to leave it there.