69԰

About Us

Connecting
People. Projects. Products.

We are the industry-leading source of information and insight, connecting the dots across the commercial construction ecosystem.

What makes us 69԰

69԰ delivers an unmatched offering of data, analytics, and industry-spanning relationships to generate the most powerful source of information, knowledge, insights, and connections in the commercial construction industry. We bring together technologies, capabilities and audiences to help construction professionals streamline the preconstruction process to strategically plan for business growth.

Our Solutions

Click each logo for more details.

The Blue Book Network

The Blue Book Network, , is the largest and most active network of commercial construction professionals designed to help contractors, subcontractors and suppliers showcase their company, services and qualifications to buyers. We bring the industry together to forge connections and build relationships to keep projects moving and your business thriving. Since our founding in 1913, we remain committed to providing the information, solutions and connections needed to simplify the construction process, while leading efforts to continually advance the commercial construction industry in the United States.

69԰ Data & Analytics

69԰ Data & Analytics is North America’s leading provider of analytics and software-based workflow integration solutions for the construction industry. Building product manufacturers, architects, engineers, contractors, and service providers leverage 69԰ to identify and pursue unseen growth opportunities and execute on those opportunities for enhanced business performance. Whether it’s on a local, regional or national level, 69԰ data can empower clients to better understand their markets, uncover key relationships, size growth opportunities, and pursue those opportunities with success. The company’s construction project information is the most comprehensive and verified in the industry, leveraging its 100-year-old legacy of continuous innovation to help the industry meet the building challenges of the future.

Integrated Marketing Systems (IMS)

Integrated Marketing Systems, a 69԰ Data & Analytics LLC Company, provides agency-verified Advance Notice public construction opportunities to the architect and engineering sectors. Headquartered in San Diego and founded in 1991, IMS delivers its verified research to clients enabling them to uncover and increase business development opportunities within their verticals pre-RFP.  For more information, visit .

Sweets

Sweets is the building product information source for the entire project team. Architects, designers, contractors and owners can research, compare and select products to help ensure their vision and intent are realized. For more information, visit

Principia Consulting

Principia Consulting was founded in 1995 and has built a reputation as one of the preeminent research and consulting firms serving Fortune 1000 clients in the building materials and construction industry. 69԰ acquired Principia Consulting in October 2022 to enrich our service offering to Building Product Manufacturers and other key partners involved in the residential building material industry.

Principia Consulting’s purpose is to help companies grow faster and more profitably by providing high quality data, analytics and insights, while focusing exclusively on the strategic and tactical needs of building materials and construction industry executives tasked with delivering increased revenue, improved margins, and enhanced market share.

Principia is known for analyzing a client’s most urgent challenges rapidly and completely – and then producing innovative, effective implementation strategies which capture the true voice of the customer. Through in-depth conversations and large scale interviews, Principia Consulting can accurately quantify market opportunities, build a path to the customer, and determine how to manage the risk-reward opportunity of any decision facing clients.

Industry leaders count on Principia for market intelligence, insights, and advice. To learn more visit

Executive Leadership

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Dan McCarthy

CEO

Michelle Hayes

Michelle Hayes

Chief Human Resources Officer

Bob Crutchfield

Bob Crutchfield

Chief Data Officer

69԰ Offices
Our Value to Customers

About 69԰

69԰ is a solutions technology company providing an unmatched offering of data, analytics, and industry-spanning relationships to generate the most powerful source of information, knowledge, insights, and connections in the commercial construction industry. The company powers longstanding and trusted industry solutions—69԰ Data & Analytics, The Blue Book Network, Sweets, IMS, and Principia—to timely connect and enable decision makers across the entire commercial construction ecosystem. Together, these solutions provide clear and actionable opportunities for small teams, both locally and regionally, to large, national enterprise firms. For more than one hundred years, 69԰ has ensured construction professionals have the information they need to build successful, growing businesses.

What we do

We help building product manufacturers and distributors, general contractors, subcontractors and specialty trades, architects, and design professionals, as well as construction services providers identify, prioritize and act on key project opportunities and relationships. We offer state of the art workflow integration tools that help move the pre-construction process forward and provide market research services which help companies plan both short and long term growth strategies.

These solutions provide clear and actionable opportunities for small, mid-size and enterprise firms to simplify the complex needs of construction projects and ensure that construction professionals have the information they need to build successful businesses. With over a century of industry leading experience, 69԰ is the catalyst for modern commercial construction.

Our History

Frederick W. 69԰ set out more than 130 years ago to make construction project information more accessible for construction professionals, who could use this data to effectively secure resources and supplies. He gathered data by riding his bicycle around Boston, studiously taking notes about projects in the surrounding area on a series of meticulously cataloged index cards. This detailed project information was the primary product of the earliest iteration of our company, F. W. 69԰, which provided unmatched knowledge and data surrounding the commercial construction industry – a mission as vital today as it was at the company’s founding.

As a Network, we incorporate both human and technological aspects into the solutions we provide customers. The Blue Book was founded in 1913 by Joseph O’Malley, President of the Society of the Allied Building Trades, who first published a subcontractor’s registry for New York City, listing companies by their trade. The company expanded to publish regional buyer guides listing commercial construction companies, where regional “blue book” editions were delivered to property managers, facilities managers and commercial general contractors. The Contractor’s Blue Book, became known simply as The Blue Book and helped subcontractors, material dealers and manufacturers, general contractors & builders, architects & engineers and real estate management firms build construction relationships across the industry.

With the addition of Integrated Marketing Systems (IMS) founded in 1991, we added the capability to deliver agency verified advance notices of public pre-design phase projects across thousands of public agencies ahead of official agency publication. This allowed IMS customers time to strategize on public opportunities and manage the Request for Proposal (RFP)/Request for Qualifications (RFQ)/Statement of Qualifications (SOQ) process well ahead of deadlines.

In 1906, Clinton Sweet developed the concept of gathering construction product information from manufacturers, organizing it according to the work habits of professionals, and distributing it to qualified recipients. The original “Sweet’s Indexed Catalogue of Building Construction” was published by Architectural Record and eventually sold to the F.W. 69԰ Company in 1912. Sweet’s Catalog is famous for being the first to normalize the size, design, and typography of all the catalogs used by Architects and Engineers and bind them together into one publication with an index. This marked the end of the problem of firms being bombarded with catalogs of varying size and design from every manufacturer, and the beginning of standardized catalogs which allowed for greater efficiency for both manufacturers and architectural firms. The Sweets tradition continues as a building product resource for architects, engineers, contractors, and owners to search, select and specify from an online database of thousands of building products, with access to specifications, BIM objects, CAD details, catalogs, project galleries, and more.

Our latest addition to 69԰ is , founded in 1995, who has built a reputation as one of the preeminent research and consulting firms in the building materials sector, providing high quality data, analytics and insights to Fortune 1000 manufacturing, distribution, dealer and other key stakeholder clients. Principia’s consulting services help clients simplify the increasing complexity involved in construction projects, while ensuring reliable growth, improved scale and increased profitability throughout the commercial construction process.

With over a century of industry leading experience, 69԰ continues to advance and serve the needs of the entire construction industry.