For Gregory Murphy, working for Slattery Construction is a family affair.
“I started off as laborer. My father was there for 40 years before me and he’s retired now — he started off as a laborer,” said Murphy, 50, of East New York. “And we worked our way up.”
Now Murphy serves as the community relations and marketing manager at Slattery, the Whitestone-based construction company responsible for such building projects as the AirTrain to Kennedy Airport, the rehabilitation of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and the controversial mini-generators that went on line in Long Island City last year.
“Slattery is a company that’s about 100 years old,” Slattery said. “We did the World Trade Center originally. We did the Empire State Building. We’ve been around for a long time.”
Murphy’s job was an outgrowth of responsibilities he already carried as a general foreman because the controversial AirTrain job required that someone step up to a full-time community relations position.
Slattery always plays a role in the borough president’s annual African American History Month Awards Reception by funding a $1,000 scholarship given out to a high school student.
“We’ve supported about 30 organizations in Queens every year, from Mothers Against Guns to the Young Entrepreneurs of Southeast Queens,” Murphy said.
But this year the company not only provided an award but also won one because of its civic activism.
“We normally would just give the scholarship and this year they selected us to have the award,” Murphy said.
