Four years ago, Adam Taubman had just taken over as full owner of Norfolk, Va.’s Agent Walls Systems. The future looked bright, his partner Kenny Jones and him left on good terms and Taubman was prepared for the challenges of going it solo. But then COVID kicked in full gear and it was a rough start for him. Fortunately, the pandemic subsided and today Taubman is looking energized, stabilized and in full force.

For those that recall, Agent Wall Systems were feature in W&C’s March 2020 cover. Back then, the company was excited but held their reservations about COVID on a private note.

Agent Walls Systems on What it Means to be a Top 50 Contractor

After taking full ownership of Agent Wall Systems, Adam Taubman faced challenges during the pandemic but has since expanded the business into western Virginia. The company now specializes in load-bearing stud framing and prefabrication, influencing project designs. Taubman sees their recognition as a Top 50 Contractor as a tool to promote further growth.

“Those were a rough couple of years,” Taubman says.

When the magazine spoke to him in 2020, the company was still contracting pretty much locally and in its backyard. Now, Agent Walls Systems has expanded to western Virginia and is securing new relationships with builders out there.

“Starting out in the business, we were primarily focused on your typical commercial-drywall-contractor scope of work with a lot of our clients performing retail and office building projects,” said Jones, the company’s then president and founder. “It was a great time as our area in Southeastern Virginia was in a growth spurt of sorts. That time was exciting and a little scary as we had just recovered from a recession in the early-’90s.”

In regards to any niche services the company provides, load bearing stud framing and associated floor and roof systems are specialties it provides. The company actively is part of the design process as it relates to those type of building systems. Agent Wall Systems’ customers value its expertise—the company gets to influence the overall outcome of the project in a positive way when given the opportunity. The contractor also has projects with a heavy interior focus that would have high levels of detail and institutional type finish products like prefabricated GFRG and acoustic plaster, and other specialty finishes; this tends to be in larger institutional buildings like libraries and fine/performing arts buildings.

What’s new with the company is that it has opened a new pre-fab facility for its steel framing division. They prepare pre-fab systems off-site and Taubman said this has been a great success. 

And what does it mean for him to be a Top 50 Contractors? 

“I’ve been thinking about that for the last few days. Of course, it’s a great honor,” Taubman said. “But also, I want to use that as a badge of honor to help promote the company” as it ventures to new territory.