By Anita Huslin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 28, 2007

Hanging on the wall of the small waiting room in Carl D. Jones's unassuming office, under the photos of former Maryland governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and President Bush, is a quote from Calvin Coolidge:

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

It's the same quote that Jones's son, Jason, hung in his bedroom when he went to college. And it is the philosophy that may best explain how the father-son team has come to be the dominant minority developer in the largest mixed-use project underway on the East Coast.

The $2 billion National Harbor project, a conglomeration of offices, retail stores, residences, and hotels with convention space, is the brainchild of Fairfax developer Milton V. Peterson, who has labored more than a decade to make it happen. Three years ago, when county officials began pressuring him to find local African American partners to ground the project further in Prince George's County, the answer came to him -- literally -- one Saturday morning.

Carl Jones, who for years had owned a company that was a primary supplier of asphalt to road construction projects in Southern Maryland, had stopped by National Harbor, not far from his Oxon Hill office, to check out progress on the site.

"When I met him he was on a D-8 bulldozer," Jones, 67, said of Peterson. "He said, 'I want you to build all my roads.' He'd seen my work on the Wilson Bridge and the Beltway and said, 'Hey, you do pretty good work here.' "

Though Jones had sold his asphalt company, he signed on as an equity partner in two office buildings and a marquee restaurant on the main street of Peterson's development. He declined to say how much he put into the projects upfront, but he will share in revenue they produce. Jason Jones, 35, became a manager of design and construction for the properties, coordinating permit submissions to the county and reviewing contracts. His father is also consulting on the overall infrastructure of the project, including street, sewer and electrical-line construction, an expertise he developed 30 years ago in the District.

Back then, contractors whose crews were cutting up streets to make way for cable would complain that they couldn't find subcontractors to replace and shore up the asphalt.

"I said, 'What are you paying?' " recalled Jones, who at the time was doing subcontracting work on small digs and building scaffolding and supports on other projects. "So I bought a truck and shovels and started doing it during my lunch hour."

He carved out a niche for himself, becoming the first minority contractor for Metro. He also benefited from the federal government's 8A minority contracting program and D.C. Mayor Marion Barry's push to expand government and boost minority-owned companies' share of District government contracts. Jones did so well that eventually he was able to buy a paving company for $211,000, positioning himself to be a primary supplier of the material for road construction projects in southern Maryland.

In the early 1980s his company won nearly $10 million in contracts to pave roads and haul sludge from D.C.'s Blue Plains Wastewater Treatment Plant, and Jones put his son to work raking the sludge in summer months. Over time, the company won bigger contracts, such as the Beltway and Wilson Bridge paving jobs, and grew into the fifth-largest asphalt operation in Maryland, with more than $25 million in annual sales.

In 2003, he sold the company and began to look for different kinds of business opportunities. While still maintaining an engineering office and the sludge-hauling operations, Jones turned his attention to real estate development investments through a variety of partnerships.

"He's doing this to kind of pave the way for his son, Jason," said Joe Gaskin, former president of the Prince George's County Contractors and Business Association. "You don't have be waking up at five in the morning to see if your trucks are on their way to get sand and gravel or whatever."

Within a year of selling his paving company, Jones surfaced as the partner of an Indiana firm bidding to buy the Rosecroft Raceway harness racing track in Fort Washington -- one of the sites under consideration for slots operations, should they be approved by the Maryland legislature. Jones, who is a registered Democrat, donated liberally to state and local officials of both parties, but had to take back $15,000 when he was found to have exceeded campaign-contribution limits. The Rosecroft deal eventually fell through, even after Jones tried to partner with other well-heeled funders. But in the end, he may still end up on the winning end of gambling venues if the legislature approves them for National Harbor.

And there are other projects that offer similar possibilities. Jones is working to develop a 90-acre site in Harford County, near Interstate 95, north of Baltimore. Two years ago, slots legislation advanced by the Maryland House of Representatives recommended that an unspecified site in Harford, within two miles of I-95, be designated for an off-track betting facility. Even if gambling is not approved, the area is poised to boom, as nearby Aberdeen Proving Ground stands to get nearly 13,000 new jobs under the Pentagon's Base Realignment and Closure Commission plan.

Beyond Maryland, Jones is also looking toward the District, where he is bidding to buy Greater Southeast Community Hospital and redevelop the campus. And he is seeking approval from the Surface Transportation Board to establish a short-line railroad in New England that would be used to transport trash, aggregate and other materials along the Eastern seaboard.

"If you want to earn above-market return for below-market risk, the way to do that is to diversify, invest in unrelated things," said Jason Jones, who earned an engineering degree like his father and then went on to get an MBA and a law degree. "I want to do something new and exciting, create something that's not the same-old, same-old."

National Harbor appears to fit the bill. The father-son duo earned a "seven-figure" fee to help oversee the $85 million infrastructure portion of the project, according to Peterson. They are equity partners -- 52 percent and 26 percent, respectively -- in the two $22 million buildings that feature 16,000 square feet of retail shops and 50,000 square feet of office space, according to Peterson and the Joneses. In addition, they hold about 26 percent equity in the building and land for the free-standing Grace's Fortune restaurant.

"They're both smart, work hard and are incredibly likable," Peterson said. "They're great partners and are going to be very successful in this business."

Carl Jones, however, recognizes that creating the kind of legacy wealth that will endure beyond generations is not necessarily a matter of setting up a business and installing an heir to run it.

"Even when the child wants to do it, he's got to work to get it done, and it doesn't always work out, because things change," he said. Then he recites another of his favorite adages: "It is not the strongest of the species, nor the most intelligent that survives. It's the one that is the most adaptable to change."