DAWSON CONSTRUCTION // EST. 1967
2025
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We began building in Southeast Alaska and Northwest Washington in 1967. Since then Dawson has grown from a local builder into an employee-owned company working across multiple sectors. Through six decades of leadership, the company has delivered schools, healthcare facilities, transportation infrastructure, civic projects, and many others that serve communities for decades. The work has evolved, but the commitment to quality, relationships, and long-term stewardship remains the same.
Dawson operates across more than seven market sectors in local communities where our employees live. We are excited to move into two new offices this year and celebrate our 60th anniversary next year. Our employee ownership group and workforce continue to grow as we pursue our vision to be the chosen builder today and for generations to come.
New Dawson Campus
In 2025, Dawson started remodeling a new office in Ketchikan, AK and broke ground on a new campus in Bellingham, WA. The Washington campus brings our office, equipment, and yard teams together on one site. Both moves provide more room for our enduring legacy and the next generation of builders to grow.
In 2024, Dawson completed the Vintage Park Medical Office Building in Juneau's Mendenhall Valley. As the largest project we've built for SEARHC, it brings urgent care, primary care, imaging, rehabilitation, and behavioral health under one roof. We are honored by twenty-plus years of partnership with SEARHC, from renovations at Mt. Edgecumbe Hospital to the replacement hospital in Wrangell, and the Vintage Park Dental Clinic to the upcoming Haines hospital and workforce housing. The quality of work on every project has made Dawson the builder that healthcare providers trust with their facilities.
In 2021, Kendall Nielsen became Dawson's President after contributing to many of our successful projects and over 20 years in the construction industry. His large scale project experience spans 12 states and the island of Guam, including a vast array of project types. Kendall promotes collaboration and building teams around the owner's vision. He is a strong proponent of getting the job done right the first time and doing the right thing. Under his leadership the company has grown and expanded employee ownership.
In 2017 and 2018, Dawson built a new Juneau office and yard, providing even stronger Southeast Alaska capabilities and remote logistics.
In 2016, Dawson implemented an employee ownership program to transition to an enduring legacy where the people who build the company are also owners. New owners are invited each year, in Alaska and Washington, who are dedicated to building highly successful projects for generations to come.
In 2015, Dawson completed the Walter Soboleff Building for Sealaska Heritage Institute: 35,000 square feet in downtown Juneau, with climate-controlled archives, exhibit space, and a cedar clan house. Every space inside serves the Institute's mission to perpetuate and enhance Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian cultures. Dawson is proud of the trust SHI placed in our crews, and of building a landmark where those cultures are taught, practiced, and celebrated in the heart of the capital.
The National Construction Solutions Group is a coast-to-coast network of contractors founded in 1998 to share honest cost data, hard-won lessons, and smarter ways to build. Joining it marked a real shift for Dawson: decades of lessons learned on its own jobsites, now measured against contractors across the country. Membership means sharing Dawson's number with the group and seeking suggestions to make us even better. The result is the strength of a national network with the heart of a local company, brought to every Dawson jobsite in Alaska and Washington.
When Pete Dawson took ownership in 1997, he built upon the foundation his father started. After determining that he wanted to create an enduring company legacy, he implemented an Advisory Board, expanded leadership, and started standardizing processes. Many of Dawson's strong partnerships began during this time, and continue today.
In 1994, Dawson built a salmon hatchery on the Yana River in Russia's Far East. The remote project was completed through a partnership between Russian and Alaskan labor and project management, creating unique logistical and cultural challenges that would have tested any general contractor. It served as an early demonstration of Dawson's capabilities and ability to deliver complex work in demanding conditions. Designed with a capacity of 34 million eggs, the hatchery is still raising salmon more than three decades later.
In 1986, Dawson teamed up with Whatcom Community College President Harold Heiner to launch the first campus buildout. Building began with the college core at Laidlaw Center and grew to include the gym, the pavilion, the tennis courts, and more. Forty years later, the partnership continues with construction of the new WCC Tech & Engineering Center.
In 1977, the United States Coast Guard relocated its Southeast Alaska air station from Annette Island, and Dawson carried the housing with it: fourteen buildings, barged across open water. The work began a relationship that has run ever since, from wharf repairs in Kodiak to hangar rehabilitation in Sitka to homeport upgrades for the Fast Response Cutter fleet.
In 1967, Jack Dawson founded Dawson Construction on three principles: show up early, work harder than expected, and never leave a job unfinished. He established a strong reputation for quality that has framed the company's growth. Dawson built the foundations of Southeast Alaska and Northwest Washington, including infrastructure and buildings in cities, towns and remote areas most contractors couldn't reach.
Jack Dawson grew up on jobsites. Sixteen years of carpentry and framing across Southeast Alaska before founding the company in 1967.