The Alaska Contractor - Summer 2008
The Alaska Contractor - Summer 2008
The Alaska Contractor - Summer 2008
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MEMBER PROFILE<br />
DAVIS CONSTRUCTORS By NANCY POUNDS<br />
Davis Constructors posts steady growth<br />
General contractor reveals its secret of success<br />
General contractor Davis Constructors and<br />
Engineers Inc. has taken skills learned<br />
from its early days of rural construction to<br />
become a powerhouse with several highly visible<br />
projects now under way.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Anchorage-based business refined planning<br />
abilities and an eye for details 30 years ago while<br />
handling Bush school projects. This summer Davis<br />
Constructors is building major projects, including<br />
the new downtown Anchorage parking garage and<br />
the 14-story JL Tower office building in midtown.<br />
Davis Constructors has built projects across the<br />
state, from north of the Arctic Circle to Southeast<br />
and from the Aleutian Islands to Western <strong>Alaska</strong>.<br />
Its employees have handled various materials and<br />
construction methods, from cast-in-place concrete<br />
and structural steel to precast concrete panels and<br />
wood-frame structures. Besides school, hotel, retail<br />
and office building construction, the project resume<br />
also includes rural church restorations, like<br />
St. George Church on St. George Island and St.<br />
Alexander in Akutan.<br />
<strong>The</strong> company’s portfolio lists increasingly larger<br />
projects, in dollar amount and scope. Davis Constructors<br />
has completed more than 200 projects<br />
statewide, which compiled stack up to more than<br />
$1 billion, according to the company’s Web site.<br />
<strong>The</strong> secret to success is practicing the Golden<br />
Rule, according to president Kyle Randich.<br />
“We’ve had a lot of cool projects and we have a<br />
lot we’re proud of,” Randich said.<br />
“I really think our top accomplishment is treating<br />
people right and in return we are treated right.”<br />
As a result, subcontractors, suppliers and other<br />
people want to work for Davis Constructors, Randich<br />
said.<br />
And the treat-them-right philosophy has allowed<br />
the company to land bigger projects, he noted.<br />
Bright beginnings<br />
Jeff Davis started the company in 1976. In the<br />
late 1970s and early 1980s Davis Constructors specialized<br />
in rural school construction, according to<br />
Randich. <strong>The</strong> work required company staffers to be<br />
very detail-oriented, he added.<br />
“We were very successful,” said Randich, a 22year<br />
Davis Constructors employee.<br />
In the ’80s, the company started competing for<br />
Materials were shipped to Aniak in 1982 for a school.<br />
projects in Anchorage and Fairbanks, carrying over<br />
skills learned from rural projects successes.<br />
Davis Constructors opened a Seattle office in<br />
the 1980s during a construction slowdown in Anchorage.<br />
That office was closed later in the decade<br />
when founder Jeff Davis died in a plane crash, Randich<br />
said.<br />
In the late 1980s Davis Constructors started handling<br />
design-build work, he said. Throughout the<br />
1990s design-build and negotiated projects increased,<br />
growing to 80 percent of the company’s total work<br />
compared to 20 percent competitively bid work.<br />
Today, the majority of Davis Constructors’ work<br />
is design-build or negotiated, Randich said.<br />
One big break for the company was landing the<br />
contract to build Anchorage’s first large national retailer,<br />
Kmart. <strong>The</strong> store opened in 1992, and Davis<br />
Constructors also built a location in North Anchorage<br />
and Fairbanks. After a frenzied <strong>Alaska</strong> debut,<br />
Kmart officials closed the <strong>Alaska</strong> locations in 2003<br />
based on the company’s lagging financial performance<br />
nationwide.<br />
“Those projects really put us on the map,” said<br />
marketing coordinator Lynn Steeves. After completing<br />
the Kmart work, the size and type of projects<br />
began to change, she said.<br />
Randich said the Kmart construction provided<br />
new exposure for the contractor.