CB
Chris Bracken
Co-Owner · OperationsSon of J.C. Bracken. Grew up in the yard. Runs day-to-day operations across the COLUMBUS, MISSISSIPPI
Bracken has never been corporate. Never been sold. Three generations of the same family have run this company. The fourth is already on the payroll.
In 1956, three men — Ray Bracken, C.P. Bracken, and John Shivers — opened a steel business out of a service station on South Gallatin Street in Jackson, Mississippi.
They erected steel for whoever would hire them. Word got around. By 1962 the company had moved to Gault Street and J.C. Bracken had joined, buying out Shivers. J.C. brought a focus that would define the company for the next forty years: own your equipment, train your own people, and never promise what you can't deliver.
Chris and Jeff Bracken — J.C.'s sons — grew up in the yard. Today they run the company from its Columbus, Mississippi office, carrying the same standards and the same family name forward.
The milestones that built the company we are today.
Ray Bracken, C.P. Bracken, and John Shivers start Bracken Construction on South Gallatin Street in Jackson. Small crew. Steel erection.
Company moves to 5068 Gault Street. J.C. Bracken buys out Shivers and begins reshaping the business around owned equipment and in-house crews.
Bracken owns eight cranes outright — rare for a regional erector of that era and the start of the owned-equipment discipline we still run by.
A 25-ton Warner & Swaysey becomes the first hydraulic crane in the Bracken fleet. Hydraulics change what's possible on a jobsite. We've been adding ever since.
Founding partner C.P. Bracken dies. The remaining partners continue without him, committed to the standards the founders set.
J.C. Bracken becomes sole owner and brings his sons Chris and Jeff into leadership roles. The second generation starts learning the business from the yard up.
J.C. Bracken dies. Chris and Jeff continue the company he rebuilt — same name, same standards, same approach to the work.
Operations run from COLUMBUS, MISSISSIPPI
Bracken has never been sold. It's been handed down.
Son of J.C. Bracken. Grew up in the yard. Runs day-to-day operations across the COLUMBUS, MISSISSIPPI
Son of J.C. Bracken. Came up through the trades. Oversees field operations, the heavy haul division, and company-wide safety — the non-negotiable that's kept Bracken in business since 1956.
Safety is not a slogan. It's how we've stayed in business since 1956. We call the shot before we make the lift. Every time.
Every operator on a Bracken jobsite is NCCCO-certified. Every ironworker completes OSHA 30. Every lift above a certain threshold gets an engineered plan. When a crew sees something that isn't right, they stop the job — and nobody gets chewed out for it.
That's the culture J.C. built. It's the culture Chris and Jeff keep.
Members, certified, insured, bonded. The paperwork GCs ask about up front.
Active member
Erector member
Mississippi chapter
Mississippi chapter
Licensed in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Tennessee. Insurance and bonding documentation available on request.
We'll send you the full PDF — equipment list, licensing, insurance, bonding capacity, and project references.