Roger Hickel Contracting: smoothing the road for owners.

• Author: West, Gail
• Position: Top 49ers Spotlight: Superheroes of Success

Holding the reins steady for a company that does approximately $60 million a year in gross revenue can't be an easy job, but the president and chief operating officer of Roger Hickel Contracting Inc. does just that. Mike Shaw, who joined the company in 2004 and was promoted into the top spot in 2010, said his goal in that position is "to make owners' jobs easier when they hire us." That way, he continued, "they'll want to hire us again.

"We have a very good reputation as design/builders and as a general contractor," Shaw said, "and we have several repeat clients. We're also a company in transition. Many of our longterm employees are moving toward retirement and we've brought in good, young project managers and superintendents to make the transition easier."

In addition to keeping the company in good standing with clients, Shaw said it's important to invest in employees. "We believe our people are our greatest asset, and the biggest challenge we face fight now is the economy. It will be a challenge to keep our core people working until the private/public markets come back."

The company, however, isn't in a wait-and-see mode. While the economy is still a bit stagnant, RHC has recently completed a $20 million, 28,030-square-foot, state-of-the-art police station for Kodiak. The new building houses public and administrative areas, evidence areas, locker rooms and an emergency operations area and is LEED certified. Two additional projects were the installation of the South Anchorage High School football-field turf, to reduce maintenance and reduce sports' injuries, and Huffman Elementary School site improvements.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

"We've also recently finished the new Doyon headquarters building for Grayling Development--a subsidiary of CIRI," Shaw said. "It was a great project, and we exceeded our goal for Alaska Native hire by nearly 10 percent."

Current projects include the foundation for the new joint Chugach Electric Association and ML&P Southcentral power project at Chugach's headquarters' complex in Anchorage for $15 million. In this project, RHC is a subcontractor to SNCLavalin, prime contractor. RHC is also working on the new $6.3 million Glenn Olds Hall expansion at Alaska Pacific University and the pedestrian-bridge replacement at the Anchorage State DOT&PF aviation building--a $450,000 project.

HEALTH CENTER

One of RHC's primary projects today is the Anchorage Neighborhood Health Center, a $16 million, 42,000-squarefoot primary...