Tim Larson explains how this family-run company has thrived for nearly 100 years.

When brothers Frank and Charlie Larson partnered with Emil Danielson in 1908 to establish Larson-Danielson Construction in La Porte, Ind., their intent was to leverage their individual expertise. Leverage it they did. Four generations later, their great grandchildren are running one of Indiana’s largest construction firms with revenues of $60 million a year.

“Next year is the company’s 100th anniversary, which is quite a major milestone. Not a lot of companies make it,” said Tim Larson, president of Larson-Danielson. “We’ll celebrate, and then we’ll start planning for the next 100 years.”

Larson took on the top leadership position in 1996 as part of a passing of the torch from the third to fourth generations. It was a critical point in the company’s evolution. The new team wanted to grow the business but in a sustainable way. It soon picked up Sears as a client, which opened the door to explosive growth and a big decision.

Tim Larson, President

“We realized that we had to make a choice,” Larson said. “Did we want all of our work to be for Sears, or did we want to grow the company and diversify our client base?”

Larson-Danielson would ultimately work on Sears projects in 18 different states, but knowing that diversification was the smarter way to grow, the management team also began targeting healthcare, schools, industry, and other commercial markets. Today it has a significant presence in all areas of construction other than residential.

Unlike much of its competition, Larson-Danielson hires the expertise it needs rather than relying totally on subcontractors. This, Larson believes, gives the company an edge. “Our employees understand our culture and how we operate. This helps with our quality, how we interact with our clients, and everything we do,” he said.

Finding and retaining employees can be challenging, especially in today’s job market. Larson-Danielson typically has 150 to 170 employees in the winter months and 250 or more during the summer months.

Employees receive significant training, from new-hire orientation of the company’s mission, core values, and expectations of behavior and philosophy to ongoing process and skills training. Most of the training is developed and presented inhouse, including a certified 10-hour OSHA course that everyone in the company is expected to take as part of the company’s major safety initiative: Work Safe, Stay Safe.

That initiative was launched about three years ago when the company realized that it had slipped since earning a top safety performance award from the Indiana Association of General Contractors in the early 1990s. The renewed focus has paid off. In 2006, costs related to safety issues were 87% less than the year before and 86% less than the previous three-year average.

“You need to focus on it day in and day out, drilling it in that before employees do anything on the job site, they need to stop and think how they can do it more safely,” Larson said.

Other training is developed as needed. For example, to better serve its healthcare clients, the company developed a course on infectious disease control to instruct employees on how to contain a construction site in the middle of the clean environment of a hospital. Another custom course teaches employees working on school projects how to protect curious children from the hazards of construction.

One of the new areas of training on the horizon is certification in green building. As yet, there has been limited interest from clients, but Larson expects that to change as environmental issues become even more mainstream. Constructing a certifiable green building requires extensive up-front planning along with up-front costs, which most clients still don’t clearly understand.

“We are looking into getting some of our people certified, then we will have to do internal training and client training. But in the end the green building movement will be a good thing for our industry and the environment,” Larson said.

Well-trained employees are a big piece of Larson-Danielson’s reputation for delivering on what it promises. Honest pricing is another. “When we tell prospective clients that a project will cost X amount of dollars, that’s what it costs,” Larson said, adding that an honest bid can hurt them with new prospects.

“People are laying out a capital expenditure on something they can’t see, so a lot of them will make their decision based on price. We’ve had a lot of people say we’re too high and then come back to us later and tell us that the price we gave them was the price it cost them. Those who work with us learn to know they can count on what we say, ” he said.

The fifth generation of the family is already in the wings, and there is a commitment on the part of the current team to keep it a family business. However, the definition of family is changing to allow key employees to accumulate stock.

“We’re a family business, but you don’t have to have the family name. You just need to be the right employee—one that has our philosophy, work ethic, and attitude—to be a part of the company’s future. It’s all about what is best for the business,” he concluded.

Kristine Ellis is a freelance writer based in Helena, Montana. She can be contacted at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .