The company traces its roots to when Joseph O'Malley, president of The Society of the Allied Building Trades, first published a subcontractor's registry for New York City in 1913. The Subcontractors Register for the Allied Building Trades was a directory of subcontractors for the New York City area, listing companies by their trade. It was published by Joseph O'Malley who was later joined by his nephew, Walter Francis O'Malley, as editor. The 1942 version calls itself: "A Classified List for the Allied Building Trades of Sub-Contractors, Material Dealers & Manufacturers, General Contractors & Builders, Architects - Engineers, Real Estate Management Firms". Later expansion in the New York and New England markets took place. The Blue Book spread to the west coast by 1992 and was permanently retired in 2016. It was subsequently replaced by a series of bi-annual regional magazines called The Who's Who in Building & Construction. The prior content of the hard bound book was transitioned online and referred to as The Blue Book Network. The web-based buyer's guide contains critical information on architects, contractors, manufacturers, suppliers, vendors, and other companies relevant to the commercial bidding and build process. In 1999, the company extended its focus to include bid messaging and private project reporting. A private and secure online plan room providing full reporting called BB-Bid was released at no cost to general contractors and property/facility managers. The BB-Bid software allowed a user to upload a construction project onto the site and message the bid to the subcontracting and supplier community, regardless of their presence in the paid print directory. In 2013, the company became an Employee Owned Corporation with the creation of an employee stock ownership plan devised by then owner James O'Malley. James O'Malley had been the CEO for over 50 years. In 2014 they partnered with.BUILD to help commercial construction companies secure their targeted domain and appropriate domain name registration. In 2016, The Blue Book introduced its new regional construction magazines - The Who's Who in Building & Construction. The magazines are published and delivered FREE of charge to the industry in both the spring and fall.
The Blue Book Network provides digital workflow solutions enabling over 400,000 construction professionals per month to find and spec products, share project documents, streamline bid communications and view, markup and takeoff project documents. The company has over 450 employees nationwide and seeks to build a business development role within small to mid-sized commercial contracting companies.
