Back On Site in 2022: AGC of Alaska celebrates excellence in construction.

• Author: Rhode, Scott
• Position: CONSTRUCTION

Excitement was building. Members of the Associated General Contractors (AGC) of Alaska missed their annual conference in 2020, when it was cancelled because of COVID-19. The event in November 2021 was split into two, with the in-person activities postponed as well. When the conference finally took place in January at the Hotel Captain Cook in Anchorage, AGC members were in a mood to party. The room was a little emptier than usual for the statewide conference, but the construction industry professionals who attended were eager to catch up with their colleagues and to honor this year's awardees.

Due to skipping a year, AGC had two of its annual Hard Hat awards to hand out. As it happens, both honorees are past presidents of the trade group. For one of them, the year-plus delay makes his award posthumous.

Hard Hat John

3. John Eng was still alive when he was selected for AGC's Hard Hat award in September 2020. However, he died unexpectedly of natural causes in July 2021 at age 74. Accepting the award on his behalf, his widow Lynn Ann Eng brought a pair of his size-14 cowboy boots up to the podium, so John could be there in spirit. Being there in his place, she later said, gave her some big shoes to fill.

"We've awarded the Hard Hat award since 1964, and I've been pretty active since the early '90s," says Robby Capps of F&W Construction Company, "and I can't think of a more worthy recipient than John."

Capps, who was AGC president in 2006, presented the Hard Hat to Lynn. "The policy with AGC has always been that you check your individual company's business at the door and it's all about the industry," Capps says. "The Hard Hat goes a little bit beyond that. The Hard Hat recipient isn't just a contractor but is involved in the community."

John moved to Alaska in 1980 from Nebraska, where he grew up as the son of a contractor and earned a degree in construction management from the University of Nebraska. In 1993, he co-founded Cornerstone Construction, now Cornerstone General Contractors, builders of the Veterans Hospital at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson and the Alaska Airlines Center arena at UAA.

After his term as AGC president in 2013, John sold his interest in Cornerstone, He and Lynn stayed busy, though, with further construction ventures in Alaska and in South Dakota, where his grandfather settled after emigrating from Norway. Semi-retirement also saw John spend a month in Africa and, as president of Anchorage Rotary Club, he went to...