Company Profile
DPR Construction
Company Overview
Founded in 1990, DPR is a privately held, employee-owned technical builder that has grown to a multi-billion-dollar organization. Ranked in the top 50 general contractors in the country since 1997, DPR is one of the largest general contractors in the nation.
We Exist to Build Great Things.® It’s really that simple. We are a company of builders building great projects, great teams, great relationships, great value.
Our purpose and core values are a starting point that help clearly define who we are and what we stand for as a company. They underlie the passion that drives us to be better and different; they allow us the freedoms of our entrepreneurial organization, where people can make a difference with their ideas and hard work.
Core Values - DPR’s fundamental, inviolable values and beliefs:
INTEGRITY.
We conduct all business with the highest standards of honesty and fairness; we can be trusted.
ENJOYMENT.
We believe work should be fun and intrinsically satisfying; if we are not enjoying ourselves, we are doing something wrong.
UNIQUENESS.
We must be different from and more progressive than all other construction companies; we stand for something.
EVER FORWARD.
We believe in continual self-initiated change, improvement, learning and the advancement of standards for their own sake.
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Mission:
To be one of the most admired companies by the year 2030.
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Vivid Descriptions:
Over the next 30 years our people practices will be recognized as being as progressive and influential as Hewlett Packard’s were over the last 50 years. When it comes to quality and innovation, we will do for the Construction Industry what Toyota did for the Auto Industry. We will have created a brand image that is as positive and consistent as Disney’s. Like Microsoft and Sun Microsystems, our people and company will be known for being aggressive and “Bullet Smart.” We will be as integral and indispensable to the communities we operate in as are The Boys and Girls Clubs and The Red Cross. We will consistently produce truly great results and financial returns comparable to the Most Admired Companies.
Company History
To truly understand the DPR culture is to know the history. The people behind the name. The passion for better serving customers and building complex projects with a strong sense of purpose and value. The desire to continuously be the best and drive an industry forward, doing what others believe simply cannot be done.
The DPR story begins in July of 1990. Doug Woods, Peter Nosler and Ron Davidowski, the D, the P and the R, made one of the best business decisions of their lives and started their own company. Armed with $750,000 of pooled resources and a steadfast determination, the three construction veterans set out to do something different in an industry traditionally resistant to change.
“At the time, most people thought of construction as more like a manufacturing type business,” said Peter. “It’s not; it’s a service business.”
“When we started DPR, we wanted to be a customer-focused organization,” said Doug. “We’re not a hard bid general contractor; we’re a negotiating general contractor that takes care of our customers. To do that, we need great people, who are happy and willing to work hard. That’s one of the things that started us, making us different from the very beginning.”
“Our distinct purpose of building great things and the core values we dialed in on [integrity, enjoyment, uniqueness, ever forward] emulate the way we like to work and we like to live and transcend into the way we do business, again doing something different in an industry that has not always had a reputation for integrity and doing things right the first time,” said Ron.
Then and Now - Building Great Things
DPR started its first year with a total of 11 professionals. In addition to “D, P and R,” the original crew included Sandy Grayson, Michele Leiva, Eric Lamb, Peter Salvati, Jim Washburn, Mark Bartley, Brad Des Jardin and Jim Dolen—seven of whom are still with the company today. Much like the hundreds of projects DPR has completed over the years, the company has grown at a breakneck pace, with regional offices established in nearly every major technology center in the U.S. that serve customers throughout the nation. DPR also reached the $1 billion mark in less than 10 years since its founding. Since 1997, it has continued to rank in the top 50 general contractors in the country. In 2017, it reached $4.5 billion.
When asked what he considered to be the most successful moment at DPR, Doug answered, “We’ve had a lot of great successes, but I can’t think of one defining moment, because we’re not done yet. As the company continues to move forward, new opportunities constantly arise. One way we measure success, however, is by not letting employees down and keeping people within the company challenged and moving up.”
DPR exists to build great things with integrity, enjoyment, uniqueness, ever forward, and the right people have been, and always will be, the foundation of DPR.