ALASKA BUSINESS MONTHLY | 2016 CORPORATE 100 | COMPANY PROFILE
Watterson Construction Maintaining quality relationships By Tasha Anderson
W
atterson Construction has been providing construction services to Alaska since 1981, when it was opened by Watterson Construction President Bill Watterson and his wife, who has since sold her shares in the company. Watterson now shares ownership of the company with five other shareholders.
Employing Alaskans
Many Alaska companies see the wisdom in local hire, and Watterson is no different. Not only does the company focus on hiring Alaskans to do work in Alaska, but it makes an effort to employ people from the region in which the work will be performed. “We’ve had a job up at Fort Greely for a little over a year now,” Watterson says. “We hired about twelve or thirteen people from the Delta area, good quality people. That community has its own culture, and [our employees] that live there love it. Most of the people who go there from somewhere else don’t like it at all,” he laughs. “But [local hire] is good for us, and it’s good for the community.”
As another example, a superof their employees, one of Watintendent and foremen were sent terson’s site safety personnel, to work on a project in Seward; is taking an extended leave for the remainder of the employees health reasons. To find someone needed for the project were hired to fill in for him, the company out of Seward. One hire stood “started calling around and out: “He’s really good; we knew leaving messages and found right away,” Watterson says. At a former employee that had the initiation of the second part worked with us until about a of the project, this employee was Bill Watterson year ago, and she said yes, she promoted to superintendent. wants to come back,” Watterson Watterson says that employees hired in this says. “I called the current employee to make fashion can have opportunities to move to sure he knew he wasn’t going to get laid off, other sites, if there’s work available and they that he would be able to work when he can.” are interested. That kind of communication, Watterson Watterson also hires locally for their staff says, is one of the important ways that the positions in their Anchorage headquarters. company maintains quality relationships be“Fortunately we have low turnover,” Wat- tween all of its employees. The most important terson says, but it’s inevitable to need some thing, he says with a smile, is to have fun. But new employees over the years. Watterson’s other things are important: “I always say that brother Jim is on the advisory board for the everybody needs to work on their vocabulary: Construction Management program at the they need to learn to say ‘we’ and ‘our’ and ‘us,’ University of Alaska Anchorage, and so far because ‘I’ don’t get the job done,” Watterson Watterson has hired five employees from says. He says he also makes a point of giving that program, and three employees have employees appropriate credit for their good come from the University of Alaska Fair- work. All of Watterson’s 119 employees are banks campus, one of which is Watterson now Alaskans, with the company’s last out-ofhimself. state employee recently selling his shares. “We had one gal stop in cold and I interKey Considerations viewed her and twenty minutes later I said: I think we better talk to her a little longer. And Watterson does construction in various so we hired her,” he says. Just recently, one areas of the state, though not on the North
Kodiak High School, renovated and expanded by Watterson Construction. 44
Alaska Business Monthly | April 2016 www.akbizmag.com