Restoring Hillsides and Building Strong Foundations 30 Years of Lessons Learned, Owner of Alpha Structural, Dave Tourjé Proves that Creativity, Passion & Hard Work Build Rock Solid Foundations that Last A tough kid from the hardscrabble hills of Northeast Los Angeles credits his blood, sweat, and tears with earning him the unlikely title of a pioneer. Dave Tourjé began practicing his trade in the late 1970s and has slogged away at it every day since, sometimes laboring more than 100 hours a week at back-breaking work nobody else wanted to do. Tourjé is the CEO and Owner of the 140-employee Alpha Structural, Inc.; the leading structural engineering and construction firm in LA, specializing in hillside, foundation and structural rehabilitation. And they are celebrating his company’s 30th anniversary and that’s just part of the story. The dynamic 62-year-old father of three is also an acclaimed artist whose work is known as a “contemporary hybrid of low and high art, reflecting his real-life immersion in surf and skate, the LA punk scene, graffiti, and other subcultures that thrived in the 1970s and 1980s.” He founded the Chouinard Foundation in 1999 and the internationally renowned California Locos in 2011, which also includes PV legend John Van Hamersveld as well as Chaz Bojórquez, Norton Wisdom and Gary Wong. The charismatic and influential business owner is a family man who has grown what he calls his unique “lifestyle” alongside his wife Linda Tourjé, Alpha Structural’s other Owner and Chief Financial Officer. She helped start the business decades ago when it was only Dave, his truck and his tools. Clearly, the couple is thriving, a testament to the fact that Tourjé loves what he does and never gave up. b u s i n e s s
Dave Tourjé exercises his creativity through art and music as well as mastering the art of hillside foundation work.
He says that the hard knocks in life taught him that his journey was at times, more about suffering than struggling. “You start the morning struggling and end the day suffering.” Sounds crazy? Tourjé believes it’s true and says that loving your trade is the only way to endure it and that having this passion will always eventually win out. “I have a love/hate relationship with construction. Underneath everything, I love it. I’m a tradesman. I’m a carpenter and formsetter. I pour concrete. It’s what I did to feed my family and it’s physical and satisfying. It kept me driving around the city to different places and is a lifestyle that has allowed me to reach my goals in Art as well,” he says. Tourjé was born in Glassell Park, growing up in Eagle Rock, Highland Park and Mount Washington, where he made his friends. “We were surfers and skaters. We were musicians and artists, and we did construction work. Those were the guys I learned from, and I liked it. Construction on hillsides is different from construction on flat ground. We were building decks and doing things outdoors on the hillsides, which led me to hillside foundation work, a very advanced form of foundation work for structures. That always fascinated me from the beginning,” he says. When he was not working with his buddies in the hills, he was working conventional construction and remodeling while earning licenses in three categories.
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