Chris LeBlanc (McIntire ’12) came to UVA carrying an unusually high level of real-work experience for a 25-year-old. He was on the ground in New Orleans, managing grueling construction jobsites in the chaotic, muddy aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. For years, his education was measured in sweat, manual trades, and the erratic cash flow of early entrepreneurship, a business spirit supplemented and kept alive by working late nights waiting tables.
When he got to Grounds and finally settled into his first Integrated Core class at the Comm School, he was noticeably older than his peers, and he brought a perspective shaped by necessity and markedly different than what he may have absorbed in a corporate internship. In his case, being a Commerce major after having mapped business directly onto everything he had already lived through took some unlearning and reframing of what he already knew.
“When I first got to McIntire, I thought Organizational Behavior was complete BS,” LeBlanc admits bluntly. “I was a street-smart guy who had been running crews since I was a kid. I thought, ‘I know how to talk to people. Why am I sitting here reading about group dynamics?’”
The answer came during an intense team project. He watched how structured communication and clear role definition minimized friction, the exact friction that used to derail his own construction crews. McIntire wasn’t just teaching him how to interact with others; courses were showing LeBlanc how to listen within a framework for better results. He realized that instinct could take a leader only so far before the lack of structure broke the machine.
That significant lesson about people stayed with him as he launched his own enterprise, NOLA Build and Design, a Charlottesville-based contracting firm. He had seen firsthand how unforgiving the construction industry could be to talented laborers, which led him to develop a highly diversified business structure. NOLA Builds operates multiple distinct divisions: commercial renovations, residential remodeling, service trades, and property investments.
If residential leads dry up because of interest rates, the commercial side absorbs the labor. It is a deliberate hedge against the industry’s notorious boom-and-bust cycles, driven by a fundamentally human-centered philosophy focused on protecting his team from layoffs.
“I’ve lived through the panic of not knowing where the next job is coming from,” LeBlanc says. “When you diversify, you aren’t just chasing revenue; you’re building a roof over your employees’ heads. I don’t do anything here without them.”
But building a stable structure on paper was only the first step. As NOLA Builds grew, LeBlanc hit the classic entrepreneurial ceiling. He was still running the business on pure will, solving every problem personally and holding the entire operation together through sheer determination.
Realizing his own leadership gaps, LeBlanc did something many founders resist: He intentionally slowed the company’s growth to fix its foundation. He hired a seasoned chief operating officer to help him translate his fast-moving instincts into repeatable, codified processes. Together, they began building operations manuals, setting standardized workflows, and giving employees true ownership over their respective systems.
It required LeBlanc to step back from the daily improvisation and trust the score they were writing together. The transition was humbling, shifting his role from the loud conductor to the architect of the system.
Then came the moment that crystallized everything for him.
“We were growing, but it was pure chaos,” LeBlanc says. “We were making jazz and trying to get it onto sheet music so other people could play it. But I was the only one who knew the tune.”
Today, the name NOLA Builds serves as a nod to his formative Louisiana roots and a constant conversation starter for local Virginia clients who see his signature trucks parked all around town. But the business itself is entirely structured for the future. The survival instincts that got LeBlanc through the wreckage of Katrina haven’t been discarded or forgotten; they’ve been professionalized.
So while McIntire didn’t teach LeBlanc how to build—he already knew how to swing a hammer and manage a job site—it did give him a precise vocabulary for transforming his raw instincts into repeatable systems that advance his business. He no longer has to improvise solos every morning; by translating his professional music into repeatable, relatable patterns, LeBlanc has built a foundation stable enough for his entire team to play along.
