The Eastern Finland District Board of the Finnish Building Construction Industry Association gained two new members at the beginning of 2026.
Mika Kaskinen, CEO of SSP Group Oy from Savonlinna and Tommi Heikkinen, CEO of Eleve Oy from Joensuu, have already gone through their first board meeting of the year.
Read about the expectations, moods, and goals they have when accepting a position of trust.
New member of the Eastern Finland District Board of the Finnish Building Industry Association:
Mika Kaskinen, CEO, SSP Group Oy
It was easy for Mika Kaskinen to respond positively to the invitation from Kimmo Anttonen, the Eastern Finland Regional Manager of the Finnish Building Construction Industry Association, to join the RT board, because Anttonen was already familiar to him as a teacher in master builder studies, and the idea of board work had been brewing in his mind for several years.
Kaskinen began his work on the RT board with an open mind. The first meeting left a positive impression: “Businesslike and suitably relaxed,” he commented.
Kaskinen considers change and new perspectives to be vital in government work. “They keep the whole orchestra in tune.”
Although Mika admits to being a hands-on person, he does not hold back his opinions, but wants to speak about things directly and be trustworthy, just as he does in his own role as CEO of his company. “Honest, open and consistent actions are the most important basis for trust,” he says.
Kaskinen has clearly focused his goals on the board: "To be concretely involved in helping the construction industry recover, untie the knots of financing, untangle the tangles of bureaucracy, and strive to influence the guidelines that determine everyday life on construction sites."
Quality to the last detail
Mika Kaskinen is the CEO of SSP Group Oy, a full-service construction company founded in 2002 and co-owned by him and Janne Jyrkinen. The company, which employs approximately 35–40 construction professionals, focuses on new construction and renovation, sheet metal work, HVAC services, and hazardous substance surveys and demolition work.
Initially, the company's projects were located in the immediate vicinity of Savonlinna, Punkaharju, Kerimäki and Sulkava. Since then, the area has expanded to include larger surrounding cities, including Joensuu and Mikkeli.
Mika mentions the demanding renovation and repair construction at the Saimaa Art Cave Retreat as his most interesting project.
The project started out as a few thousand euros, but as the project progressed it grew to be worth several million. The construction project of the Retreat became an important project for Mika and he participated in the project in several different roles. He says that during the heaviest construction period, he moved the office from the main site to a construction site barracks in the courtyard of the Retreat.
""The work is done on a whim," Mika Kaskinen says. "Every project is important. There is no compromise on quality," he assures.
Occupational safety is at a high level. Success has been achieved in the Eastern Finland occupational safety competitions for several years. The SME series wins came home in 2024, 2023 and 2020. The award for the best renovation construction site was awarded in 2020 for the Saimaa Nature and Provincial Museum construction project and in 2024 for the Savonlinna Central Hospital project. The company has also received the award for the best interior fabrication site for the Savonlinna community hall project in 2023 and the award for the best foundation and frame construction site for the Savonlinna Music and Dance Institute project in 2024.
Mika emphasizes that the starting point for construction and customer service has always been understanding the customers' everyday lives. "Whether the client is a housing company, a company or an individual resident, the work must be adapted to their situation."
As an example of this, Mika Kaskinen tells about the renovation of sixty apartments they carried out. “We managed to do it so discreetly that, for example, one of the residents of the building didn’t even notice that the renovation had taken place.”
"A positive attitude carries you”
Mika has been interested in making things with his hands since he was a child. He spent his childhood building wooden houses with carpenters and his father on construction sites in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area and Savonlinna. “And he hasn’t regretted it.”
“It has always been clear that I am heading towards the construction industry,” says Mika Kaskinen, who trained as a construction foreman while working.
The CEO from Savonlinna sees the construction industry heading in a good direction. “The interest in the industry has grown in the eyes of young people. Old clichés are being forgotten and positive things are being highlighted on social media.”
Still, Mika sees everyday life as hectic and the outlook for the industry as short. “We rely on small and medium-sized projects.” Although the uncertain outlook is weighing on the entire industry, trust in the work of your own team and a positive attitude will carry you through difficult times. “Layoff announcements can turn into recruitment in a couple of days, or vice versa.”
Life in the soul landscape
About five years ago, with a generational change, Mika had the opportunity to move back to his childhood home farm.
“Going out for hobbies just requires opening the front door.”
Life with a family of five, surrounded by nature, creates peace of mind and a suitable distance from the hectic everyday life. Winter walks in snowy forests and snowmobile trips, summers on the blue waves of Lake Saimaa, cycling and yard work give time for thinking and calming down.
"Moving forward together”
Mika Kaskinen hopes for common sense in construction and for working together for the future of the construction industry and society as a whole. He is confident that a positive attitude, high-quality work, jointly drawn up rules of the game and a common will will carry the construction industry through challenging times.
New member of the Eastern Finland District Board of the Finnish Building Industry Association: Tommi Heikkinen, CEO, Eleve Oy
Tommi Heikkinen humbly accepts the board position offered to him on the Eastern Finland board of the Building Construction Industry Association. His first reaction was, however, cautious. Knowing the demands and responsibilities of board work, and knowing that it would also take away a piece of family time, Tommi wanted to discuss the matter with his family.
Having accepted the invitation, the feeling was both enthusiastic and respectful. RT is known to be an influential actor whose voice is widely heard. This brought weight to the task.
Path to the construction industry
In his youth, Tommi Heikkinen did not plan a career in the construction industry, although he became familiar with construction on the family business's construction sites.
Looking back, however, the construction site experiences of my youth turned out to be more valuable than I could have realized in the past. What it's like to be part of a work team, how a construction site works, or what the rhythm of good work is. These are not taught in school.
The winds of life guided the path to engineering studies, business courses taught goal setting, planning, and strategic thinking. Eyes were opened to understand what leadership and construction can be at their best.
"Customer orientation, quality first”
Tommi Heikkinen now works as the CEO of Eleve Oy in Joensuu, an experienced new construction and renovation company.
The company's history dates back to 1993, when Tommi's father Timo and Seppo Suomalainen founded a construction company.
In 2013, Timo bought the company. With the generational change in 2017, the responsibility was transferred to Tommi. Timo's father has remained an owner to this day. The company concept was developed and refined with an eye on expanding the retrofit elevator business. As a result, in 2022 the company was renamed Eleve Oy.
At Eleve, we approach everything we do with passion, quality first, and customer focus.
Team play
Eleve works agilely in renovation construction. Tommi says that more balconies and facades are being renovated than in a long time. “In projects like this, the value increases in people’s eyes,” he says.
Heikkinen sees that the construction industry can be developed in a customer-oriented way. “When every step goes smoothly, trust is created,” he says.
When the CEO of Eleve Oy talks about his work, attitude and values, he talks above all about people. His construction sites and thoughts emphasize rhythm, team and fair play. Although construction is a strongly technical activity, Tommi reminds us that “problems usually don’t arise from technology. They arise from people.” That’s why he leads people, not machines, above all.
Team spirit is born in the booth, and it's perfected on the ice.
A large part of Tommi's free time is spent playing ice hockey and golf. His veteran team recently won the Finnish amateur hockey championship. But the most important thing is not the medals, but the community.
“A lot of hockey happens in the locker room, before and after the game,” Tommi says. “The locker room, the chats, the after-game beers. That’s the glue of the community.”
Golf emphasizes a different kind of connection: playing with your own children, calm progress and small successes. She has an eight-year-old son who can play up to two rounds a day. “It teaches you patience and that joy comes from small things.”
""Fairness is not a given, but you can work towards it"
Tommi Heikkinen has thought a lot about the world through gaming and likes to tackle the theme of fairness. He says frankly that the world is not fair, and he doesn't teach his children otherwise. Still, he emphasizes that fairness is something that can and should be worked towards. According to him, it is reflected in the way we treat others, especially in working life.
The construction industry is demanding, but that does not justify pressuring or treating employees poorly. Tommi emphasizes fair rules and ensuring well-being at work: “Everyone has the right to come to the construction site with a sense of security and to feel valued.”
He also believes that no work community can operate with the logic of a zero-sum game, where one person's advantage is taken away from another. "Good things have to circulate, and when a person helps another today, good things will come back to them one day, often multiplied. Fairness is not a given, but in Tommi's opinion, it is a kind of choice that must be made anew every day.
RT's board work is collaboration
Tommi Heikkinen accepts his position on the RT board with humility. He expects open and honest discussion from the board, where even difficult issues can be handled safely and constructively. He wants to promote the attractiveness of the industry, improve safety on construction sites, and strengthen open technical standards that facilitate cooperation across the entire construction industry.
Tommi believes that RT is a forum where people listen to their voices. That's why he wants to bring practical experience, fairness, and a people-oriented perspective to the board, with the goal of building an industry where it's easy to get around and where everyday work is smooth for everyone.
Text: Heikki Luukkonen