DPR Construction’s new office on 18th and J streets in midtown Sacramento.

DPR Construction employees on the first day at the company’s new Sacramento office.

DPR Construction (DPR) is a self-performing commercial contractor and construction manager. Construction veterans Doug Woods, Peter Nosler and Ron Davidowski founded the company as a negotiating general contractor with a focus on doing things right the first time and taking care of customers.

The founders opened their first offices—in Redwood City and Sacramento, California—in 1990. Today, there are regional offices in most major U.S. technology centers and approximately 6,000 employees nationally, half of whom are craftspeople working in the field.

The company focuses on complex and sustainable projects in five core markets: advanced technology, health care, higher education, life sciences and commercial. DPR is well-known for its technical projects, including high-performance buildings and developments with “deep green” sustainability goals.

“We pride ourselves on being a technical builder,” says Nils Blomquist, Sacramento Business Unit Leader. His first project when he joined DPR in 2005 was construction of a large biopharmaceutical manufacturing facility. The company initially worked on a lot of semiconductor manufacturing projects; it is now building data centers and is involved in projects for large social media companies, which take DPR teams all over the world.

With so many life sciences organizations in the Bay Area, “we’ve grown alongside our biotechnology company clients like Genentech,” Nils says. “We’re at 90 employees at the Sacramento office alone.”

DPR performs commercial work in hospitality and office buildings for developers, and also completes many projects on the campuses of higher education institutions.

Health care is a large market for DPR, from acute care hospitals to medical office buildings and facilities. A project with a personal connection for Nils was construction of the Alex G. Spanos Heart & Vascular Center, part of an expansion plan for the Mercy General Hospital network. In 2017, Mercy General Hospital was recognized by national reporting agency Healthgrades as one of America’s 50 Best Hospitals for Cardiovascular Surgery. He recalls that his mother had previously received excellent care there as a patient.

Located in the East Sacramento neighborhood, the Alex G. Spanos Heart & Vascular Center is surrounded on four sides by a well-established residential community. DPR worked in partnership with the hospital in its outreach to the community, addressing concerns about the impact of a major construction project on local traffic as well as the building’s design scheme. DPR successfully completed the expansion with minimal disruption. The new facility’s Craftsman-style architecture fits well with its residential surroundings.

A Focus on Well-Being & Sustainability

DPR’s new Sacramento office, located in a 1940s-era financial center in the Midtown area, is a testimony to sustainable building. It is currently being renovated, and the design is geared toward achieving Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum certification.

“We added an addition with a unique mass timber system that is absolutely beautiful,” Nils says. A major component was cross-laminated timber (CLT) made from sustainably harvested wood for the building’s roof and walls. This was the first structural CLT project built in Sacramento and the first project in California to incorporate CLT as a structural element for shear stress, to resist lateral movement during an earthquake and keep the building from twisting. DPR worked with Structurlam, a wood products vendor in British Columbia, which provided extensive 3D modeling of what the new space would look like and also manufactured the CLT system. “We did this to prove the concept works. We self-performed the installation and erected the structure ourselves,” Nils explains.

“The new office will be a net-positive energy building,” he adds, meaning that over the course of a year it will produce at least as much energy as it consumes. Design elements include photovoltaic panels and lots of natural daylighting.

DPR is also pursuing WELL certification for the space from the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI), which focuses on building occupant health and well-being elements, such as natural daylighting, and even addresses the food served to employees. The building’s “irresistible stairway” encourages physical activity, and all desks are sit-stand workstations. “Some of the attributes of a WELL building are design, others are based on how the building is operated,” Nils says. “It’s all about prioritizing our most valuable resource—our people—and taking care of them.”

Innovating for the Future

Creativity is at the core of DPR. A case in point is its use of a prefabricated structure for the city of Roseville’s Vernon Street office building. “The structural and exterior components were manufactured off-site using precast concrete and then erected on-site. Its resilient finish and unique structural properties reduce the on-site labor typically required for traditional architectural finishes,” Nils explains. “Manufacturing these components off-site also minimizes weather-related delays.” The project took place during an unusually wet winter, he notes. “If we’d been doing all of this work on-site while fighting the weather, we would have experienced significant delays.”

This project has been recognized with several awards including a 2017 Excellence in Structural Engineering Award from the Structural Engineers Association of Central California and received the U.S. Resiliency Council’s first Platinum Certification (and highest rating), based on the structure’s ability to withstand and respond to a natural disaster, protect occupants and permit continuous operations.

DPR also used prefabricated structures in the construction of Webster Hall (now known as Yosemite Hall), a 100,000-square-foot student housing project at UC Davis. Wall, ceiling and roof panels were manufactured by Digital Building Components at its Phoenix plant, shipped to the job site on trucks, and erected in place “sort of like Legos,” Nils says. Using prefabricated structures to build smarter, faster and better addresses changing labor conditions. It also provides better control over quality and safety when craftspeople are working at tabletop-level at a manufacturing facility versus up in the air at a building site. On the Webster Hall project, several components were welded together by robots.

Connected to the Community

DPR is committed to being integral and indispensable to the communities in which it operates. For instance, the company’s Sacramento employees have volunteered their time and talent to build homes for Habitat for Humanity of Greater Sacramento for the past 10 years.

Team members also participate in CREATE Summer Camp, a program provided by the Sacramento Regional Builders Exchange (SRBX). The camp introduces high school students to career opportunities in construction and the trades. Employees show the kids how to work with tools and talk with them about their jobs, sharing their sense of accomplishment when they can point to a local building and proudly tell their families, “I helped build that!” In addition, DPR sponsors local high school teams competing in the annual Design Build Competition hosted by SRBX’s Construction Industry Educational Foundation and provides mentoring to the participating students.

DPR’s annual Cornhole Classic fundraiser benefits local charities and provides a fun event for employees, subcontractors, vendors and trade partners. The 100-plus teams compete by tossing small bags filled with dried corn at cornhole game boards­—inclined wooden platforms with a hole at one end. The game boards, many of them designed by local artists, are then auctioned off. “It’s a blast,” Nils says. The 2019 tournament held in June benefited Wind Youth Services, a local nonprofit that supports homeless youth.

A Purpose-Built Culture

DPR’s founders enlisted Jim Collins, a former Stanford professor and renowned author of books including the classic “Good to Great,” to help them craft their mission statement and the core values that underlie the company’s focus on safety and accountability.

The company tracks data and metrics to measure what is working and where improvements can be made. DPR depends on an internal group of seven people who meet monthly to focus on continuous improvement initiatives for the company. Anyone in the organization can contribute suggestions and ideas, from new technologies to software programs and job site procedures. “Our front-line people are embedded in the action; we want their ideas,” Nils says.

Nils and the management team meet with regional employees at least three times a year. All employees are invited to these meetings, where DPR leaders gain local insights, find out what employees are thinking and how the company can improve. Employees hear about upcoming projects, discuss industry trends and meet DPR people from other job sites.

“We have a passion for building great things for our clients,” Nils says. “More than 90% of our business is with repeat clients. They know we can be trusted.”