2010 Alaska Business Monthly Contractor of the year: Davis Constructors and Engineers Inc.

• Author: West, Gail
• Position: SPECIAL SECTION: BUILDING ALASKA

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Contractor of the Year is an annual award presented by Alaska Business Monthly to a company recommended by a group of peers in the contracting business. Bases for the award include the size and scope of projects during the past year, the company's contribution to the Alaska economy and the creation and maintenance of an environmentally sound and safe work place.

For all these reasons, the award is a meaningful one to each of the contractors that receives it. This year, Davis Constructors and Engineers Inc. joins this eminent group.

Davis is owned by partners Josh Pepperd, president; Carl Swanson, vice president; and Idonna Pieper-Nelson, the company's chief financial officer.

"It was a smooth transfer of company ownership when Greg Romack retired, followed by Kyle Randich two years later," Pepperd, said. "Davis was started in 1976 by Jeff Davis, a general contractor doing most of his work in the Bush. Then, he took the company into jobs all across the state."

For a time, Davis had an office in Washington and was working outside Alaska; but after his death in a plane crash in the late 1980s, the company closed the Washington office and concentrated its efforts in Alaska.

"At that time, Romack took over the company," Pepperd said. "Ultimately, he and Randich really carved the company's history, and are responsible for the culture that is Davis Constructors today."

One of the company's first big jobs was the Kmart store in South Anchorage.

"From there, we've grown steadily, and today, we have offices in both Anchorage and Fairbanks," Pepperd said. "For the last 10 or 12 years, about 95 percent of our work has been in one of the two cities."

This year, the company ranked 23rd among the Top 49 Alaska-owned and -operated companies. Pepperd said he estimated the company does between $130 million and $200 million in work each year, and carries between 35 and 45 year-round, full-time employees.

"In the trades, that will spike up to 180 during construction season, then fall to about 80 during the winter," he added.

According to Davis' website, the company has completed more than 200 projects totaling more than $1 billion in its 34-year history. These projects span a wide range of material and methods, from cast-in-place concrete and structural steel to precast-concrete panels and wood-frame structures. Davis has built both urban and rural schools, special housing projects, hotels and retail stores, multi-story office buildings...