Johnson Contracting says it fabricates most of the ductwork that it installs for commercial, institutional and industrial projects.

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The mechanical contractor is currently piecing together sections of ductwork that are “the size of a one-car garage with heavy gages and structural bracing for a mill fume exhaust system,” President Doug Johnson says. “It’s an ongoing project that is comprised of several phases and will take a better part of a year to complete.”

A third of the company’s 60,000-square-foot-shop is dedicated to welding and fabrication of large ductwork. “We fabricate most of the ductwork that we install,” Johnson says. “Other trades buy materials from a supplier and install it.

“Since we make the ductwork ourselves, we usually have a larger capital investment than other crafts because we have the shop to make what we’re going to install.”

Johnson Contracting recently signed its largest contract to date, with OSF Saint Francis Hospital in Peoria, Ill. “It is in excess of $14 million for our portion of the work and will run two and a half years,” Johnson states. “We’re going to do the air distribution.” He expects the project to begin in winter 2008 and be completed in spring 2010.

In an interview with Construction Today, Johnson talked about how Johnson Contracting came to be, its most difficult project, current developments in the company, market trends and where he thinks the construction industry is headed in upcoming decades.

Construction Today: What year and by whom was the company founded?
Doug Johnson: In 1918 by my grandfather Anton Johnson. He had lived in a small farming community about 30 miles east of here. He and his new bride moved to East Moline on Christmas Eve in a covered wagon and started doing residential work. That continued until World War II when his health went bad.

My father was a mechanical engineer that worked for a company in Ohio that built furnaces. When the war came along, he was drafted into the Army and was doing civil engineering and building runways. When the war was over, his father was still in poor health, so my father came back and helped run the business. That’s when the company transitioned from residential work to commercial and industrial work in 1947.

CT: What have you learned from your predecessors?
DJ: My father, like a lot of family businesses, would bring his problems home at the end of the day and we would sit around the kitchen table and talk about it over dinner. It was only my father, mom, sister and I, and we openly discussed what was going on at work. That’s the way a lot of family businesses are; everybody is involved even if it’s a small family. I was 10 when I came in on Saturdays and started sweeping the floors. Around school and time in the army, I worked in the field on ventilation and architectural sheet metal projects. Eventually, in 1978, I became president.

CT: Since you became president, has Johnson Contracting branched into other divisions or departments?
DJ: We have the construction end of the business, which fabricates and installs ventilation and industrial ductwork. Then we have a service department that services what we install. We also have a painting and sandblasting business. We have a separate facility that does painting and sandblasting of structural steel. We also have field crews that do industrial painting such as bridges and the exterior of large factories.

CT: What was the most difficult project you have ever done?
DJ: One of the ones we did was Thomson Prison, a high-security state prison in Thomson, Ill., in 1999. There were a lot of security requirements because it was a high-security prison, so all of the mechanical systems were hidden in such a way that you could never go back to them if you needed to make changes or corrections. As the project moved on you had to complete things 100 percent; you didn’t have the opportunity to go back.

CT: Discuss a current innovation.
DJ: We’re in the process of updating a lot of our manufacturing equipment that we used to make ductwork with. We were one of the first companies to buy a coil line in 1967. We are now updating that to a newer version.

CT: What are some trends you’re seeing in the industry?
DJ: We’re seeing more design/build work. We’re having more opportunities to work directly for the owner through either direct bid or design/build. We feel that benefits us significantly. We do a lot of work directly for the owner on the industrial side, so we have a lot of good customers that are owners rather than subcontractors or general contractors.

CT: Where do you see the market going?
DJ: I think the market will continue to segment and that contractors will specialize in more refined areas or more concise areas, rather than to broadly say you’re a mechanical contractor. You’ll wind up being a mechanical contractor that does work within a specified range like hospitals, churches or office buildings. There will be a segment that people will zero in on and become very good at, therefore, very competitive.

I think that manpower is going to be a problem. It’s going to be difficult to find qualified [labor]; specifically, the people doing the actual installation. I think it has to do with the marketing of the construction industry. We haven’t done a good job marketing what a great career it can be. We need to convince young people that it is an honorable and well-paying occupation. Somehow that’s become neglected for the past 20 years by all of us.