Jack Kulka

President & Founder, Kulka Construction

During Suffolk County’s go-go Seventies Jack Kulka helped realize Hauppauge’s potential as an industrial hub. The engineer and construction company founder built many of the office and light-assembly buildings that incoming manufacturers and service providers needed, then helped organize the Hauppauge Industrial Association to look after their interests. He recalled an Island-wide power blackout in the late ‘70s as the catalyst. “Power was out for days and no one could get answers from LILCO about what was going on,” he recalls. “We needed to organize to leverage our voice with the utility.” Kulka became the H.I.A.’s first president, stayed on as a board member, and remains active as a lifetime director. Over the course of four decades he’s developed over 22 million square feet across the tri-state area and Florida and was among the first to integrate LEED construction and design principles. He’s a lifelong proponent of Construction Management, which can be best described the way a client once did: “Construction Management means let Jack build it Jack’s way.” Kulka’s served as president of the Commack Jewish Center, board chairman of the Long Island Israeli Bond Campaign and of the United Way of Long Island campaign. He’s past president and founder of the Suffolk Y Jewish Community Center and the Farmingdale College Foundation. A long-time member of New York’s State Society of Professional Engineers, he serves on numerous governing and advisory boards including Touro Law Center and the L.I. Holocaust Committee.