‘We’re not trying to build for everyone in the world. There’s only so much we can do as a family-owned company… We’re very loyal and we’re consistent. We’re still going to do all the stuff that a family business should do.’

— Steve Roel, chairman, Roel Construction Co

From left, some of Roel Construction Co.’s top executives are Craig Koehler, Steve Gray, John Elliott, Kevin Elliott, Steve Roel, Wayne Hickey, Steve Mead, Betty Lynn Senes and Pat Stark.

Steve Roel frequently refers to his construction company as “the family” and his chief executives as “family-type guys.” It’s a reflection not only of his business philosophy but the fact that it’s basically a family-run company.

“Our motto is ‘Spirit of the American Family,’” says Roel’s nephew, Kevin Elliott, the president and chief operating officer. “We’re a closely held family business.” Elliott is the fourth generation of the family to be involved in the company.

Kevin Elliott is the fourth generation to work at the company started by his great-grandfather in 1917.

Elliott’s grandfather Paul Roel was the son of Tom Roel, who founded the business in Fargo, N.D., in 1917. Elliott’s father, John Elliott, is executive vice president. Elliott has a brother who also works for the company.

“Regardless of the ownership breakdown, we try to deal with others as if they are family members, whether they are or not,” says Elliott. “It’s a way of showing respect.”

Roel Construction Co., one of the few San Diego-based family construction businesses to survive the recession of the early ’90s, is celebrating its 90th anniversary this year. Steve Roel, 61, retired from active management in 2001 but retains the title of chairman. “I’m just kind of a figurehead,” he says. “I carry the Roel name. I’ll help out in presentations when needed. I still manage the whole process of sales and marketing, and then of course I chair the board of directors.”

Roel describes the 1980s as “the glory years” of the family construction industry, but says the company since then has grown steadily. Besides its San Diego headquarters on Kurtz Street, Roel has established offices in Irvine, Palm Springs, Las Vegas and Bullhead City, Ariz.

“Our oldest outlying office is Palm Springs, 13 years,” says Roel. “We’ve been four years in Orange County, eight years for Las Vegas, two years for Bullhead City. There’s a ton of building going on there (in Bullhead and neighborhing Laughlin, Nev.) and we’re considered the ‘local guy.’ The big boys (big builders) in Vegas don’t want to go down there.”

Roel has about 350 construction projects under way, the majority in Southern California. It employs 300 people, 226 in San Diego County.

“Our revenues have increased steadily over the past five years,” says Roel. “Volume for 2006 (was) at $300 million. And we’ve remained profitable each of the past five years.”

Among the company’s larger San Diego projects are Qualcomm’s Building N, a $130 million office slated for completion this month, and Father Joe’s Village in Downtown San Diego, a $48 million project scheduled to start in February and finish in September 2008.

The Qualcomm Building N project is 475,000 square feet consisting of a 10-story corporate headquarters with a helipad, a seven-story atrium and a 543-seat auditorium that will be used for engineering lectures, digital cinema and musical performances.

“Qualcomm has always been the biggest project and this continues to grow,” says Roel. “We’ve worked on the site since 1994.” The company just completed Qualcomm’s $131 million Building WT project, a 415,000-square-foot, 12-story structural steel office building that includes more than 50,000 square feet of lab space, a fitness center and full-service cafeteria.

Father Joe’s Village is a 217,115-square-foot project at 16th and Market streets Downtown consisting of 136 apartments in a 12-story building with retail space on the bottom and two levels of underground parking.

Roel also has worked on other high-profile projects Downtown — Petco Park, Renaissance Condominiumns, Park Laurel on the Prado, Park Manor Suites Hotel, Emerald Plaza and Embassy Suites.

Outside of San Diego, the company is building the Boyd Gaming corporate office tenant improvements, a $10.3 million project in Las Vegas scheduled for completion in March, a $2 million professional office building in Lake Havasu City, Ariz., the $29.2 million Jamboree Business Center in Irvine and the $150 million Agua Caliente Casino Hotel in Rancho Mirage.

Roel Construction Co.’s tenant improvement business is the largest in San Diego with a volume in excess of $60 million, including some for buildings owned by The Irvine Co. — the NBC Tower and One America Plaza among them.

Wayne Hickey (above) is a ‘fabulous family-type guy,’ says Steve Roel. Hickey’s youngest son, Brett, 19, also works for the company while attending Cuyamaca College.

Roel credits a lot of the recent success of the company to Wayne Hickey, his CEO. “Wayne has been in the business for his entire life, starting out as a field guy and working his way up,” says Roel. “He has a big knack for estimating and costing and scheduling of jobs. He became a vice president of Menefee/Larson and, after the big crash in 1990-91, when the vast majority of our competition bailed or went under, we snagged Wayne. He started out as the senior project manager on a Qualcomm site.”

Roel calls Hickey, 50, a “fabulous family-type guy who believes in family values. He’s the kind of guy who’s not afraid to pick up the phone or walk down to my office and say, ‘I’ve got a problem. How would you deal with it?’”

Hickey was a vice president at the now-defunct Menefee/Larson Construction Co. when he was hired at Roel as a senior project manager in 1993. “He had all the attributes I was looking for in a guy who could be a very effective leader, who was sophisticated and polished enough to work with the government,” says Roel. “We just kind of let him mature in his craft.”

Hickey’s youngest son, Brett, 19, works for the company when he’s not attending Cuyamaca Community College. His daughter, Jennifer, 22, previously worked there.

John Elliott, Roel’s brother-in-law, was responsible for instituting another large division of the company: its consulting operation. He suggested a division made up of specialists in a number of construction fields — plumbing, drywall, roofing — to act as expert witnesses in construction defect lawsuits. Elliott came up with the idea after being asked to testify as a defense witness in one case. It’s called the Roel Consulting Group, but the company refers to it as the “forensics division.”

Roel’s father moved the company from North Dakota to La Jolla in 1959 and then to Kurtz Street. During the ’60s, the company built the 16-story Luther Tower, a church-owned residential complex for seniors that Roel called “San Diego’s first all-concrete high-rise.” The company devised the use of a tower crane in order to pour the concrete. “I think we had the first tower crane in town,” says Roel. “Dad engineered these old clanky wooden forms that get pulled up to the next level. It’s standard procedure now, but it was highly innovative back in ’63. The concept was ‘stolen’ in bits and pieces out of trade magazines from all over, but especially in Sweden, where they were doing it. That’s where the crane people came from. They gave us ideas. I remember the news cameras out there taking pictures of the crane.”

Although he retired in 2001, as chairman Steve Roel still helps his family business loom large over San Diego. (photo/alandeckerphoto.com)

Roel’s top executives expect the company to continue growing, but at a moderate pace, over the next decade and beyond. “We’re always looking to grow, but not too fast and not too slow,” says Elliott. “That’s a great way to provide opportunity for our people.”

Hickey says the company will look at other regions in the country and will certainly expand in Orange County and in Arizona.

Roel’s office construction projects in San Diego have largely been confined to suburban areas — not Downtown. But the chairman sees a resurgence coming.

Asked what he thinks of the small amount of office construction Downtown, Roel says: “Mark my word: that will change. There are about 10,000 (residential) units that already have been built or planned to be built, but you’re going to see a softening of the condo market. And with the migration of a lot of people to Downtown, you’re going to see consolidation of a lot of firms Downtown and that will create office building construction. That will happen.”