Hugh Kelleher cuts an impressive figure that contradicts any misconstrued stereotype of the American contractor.
Construction quality control manager, master plumber, author, press secretary, teacher, Harvard graduate — it’s clear that Hugh Kelleher, president of Construction Quality Analysis, Cambridge, MA, cuts an impressive figure that contradicts any misconstrued stereotype of the American contractor. And Kelleher enjoys challenging this stereotype. A story he fondly recounts takes him back to his days as a second-year apprentice in the mid-’80s when he worked on an enormous renovation of the Harvard biology labs for two and half years and at night taught a writing class. “I was working there all day in my greasy work clothes and at 3:30 I would walk two blocks to a friend’s apartment, shower, pick up my briefcase and walk to Harvard Yard to teach my evening class,” remembers Kelleher. “I would walk past the professors and they would see me earlier in the day but wouldn’t recognize me. It was a great kick to have a card in my pocket that said plumber and another that said Harvard visiting faculty.”
Graduating on scholarship with high honors from Harvard in 1973 with a BA in English and a thesis on Leo Tolstoy’s theory of art, Kelleher chose many diverse paths before engaging on the one that would lead him back to Harvard as a plumber. Kelleher started out as an English teacher at an elite prep school in New York and from there became the chief aide to the president of the Boston City Council. His press and speech-writing skills found him a position in Washington, D.C., as the press secretary for Massachusetts congressman Jim Shannon. While sitting at his desk one day, Kelleher weighed his future options. “I was there in Washington and I was thinking I was in my early thirties, was doing fairly well, but I looked down the road and asked myself, ‘Do I want to be sitting in an office writing speeches for the rest of my career?’” said Kelleher. “I thought not and decided that I would learn a trade.”