Steel Works

LPR Construction Co.
Written by Robert Hoshowsky

Colorado-based LPR Construction Co. is approaching forty years as one of America’s most respected steel erection and industrial construction companies. Much of LPR’s success in business comes about through networking and word-of-mouth referrals from satisfied customers.
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“We have $50,000 jobs, and we have $10 million, $15 million, and $20 million jobs,” says Director of Structural Sales and Estimating Nick Miller who has been with the business for the past twenty-five years. He says the company has even taken on projects in the $30 million range and has a separate group handling smaller works of $5,000 to $50,000 for its many long-term clients.

No matter the size of work or degree of complexity, LPR Construction’s staff provide exceptional performance and professionalism every time. Its commitment to service, quality and safety is the same as when it was founded in 1979 by three entrepreneurs – Larry, Pete and Rocky – represented by the ‘LPR’ in the company name.

They came up with a plan to relocate from Indiana to Colorado. They settled in Loveland, less than fifty miles north of Denver, to build homes in the city. Unfortunately, as it was the early 1980s, the trio had a challenging time due to high interest rates.

Using industry connections, LPR Construction’s focus soon shifted to steel jobs around Wyoming, with the men performing much of the labor themselves at first. The company continued to expand the business and its scope to include industrial construction services and plant services for customers across the United States.

Today, Rocky is the only original owner remaining and brings his many years of industry experience to LPR as the company’s chief executive officer. Privately-owned LPR Construction operates nationwide with an average of about 560 staff. That number peaked at 750 last year. The open, non-union shop handles twenty to twenty-five projects at any time.

LPR’s team includes executives, sales, estimating, project managers, safety managers, superintendents, foremen, ironworkers, apprentices, pipefitters, millwrights and concrete laborers. They apply their expertise to commercial and industrial steel erection, industrial construction services and plant services.

“Being in all three of those markets, we will see a year where one of them will perform better than the others and the opposite the following year,” says Peter Radice. He has been vice president of the structural steel division for the past year and a half and has been with LPR for seventeen years. “That’s why we like being in those markets.”

The company is constantly investigating new places to offers its services. One of the most recent is Nashville, Tennessee’s capital and its most populated city, which is entering its fifth year as one of the fastest-growing places in America.

In the steel erection services sector, LPR’s many years of experience has seen the company work on intricate projects nationwide as it can and erect works under pressure. It prides itself on adhering to client timelines and budgets while maintaining quality throughout construction on all structure types.

Its plant services division provides top-notch project management services from renovations and retrofits to structural steel, process piping and process improvement.

“Our personnel on-site, both industrial and steel, definitely pride themselves on doing good work in the field, and that’s how you get repeat business,” says Miller. “A lot of the time, it might be the same project manager or contractor, because they liked what we did for them on site so much that they want us to go onto the next one and the next one.”

The company has completed many projects throughout its history. Recent works include work in the hospitality, pharmaceutical, power, sports and even space sectors. One such project was the Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center, located near the Denver International Airport in the City of Aurora. The massive facility will boast over 285,000 square feet of meeting and convention space, more than 1,500 guest rooms and 114 suites, world-class restaurants, spas, shops and more, set against a stunning of the Rocky Mountain’s Front Range.

On the pharmaceutical side, LPR is responsible for creating the shell of a new multi-billion building for Novo Nordisk in Clayton, North Carolina. The structure will be used by the drug company for its work with diabetes medication. And on the sports side, the company’s projects include the Colorado Rockies stadium and the Atlanta Braves baseball stadium. In New Orleans, LPR is currently working on an expansion of the city’s existing Louis Armstrong Airport.

Among its unique and challenging works, was the creation of two new test stands for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) in Huntsville, Alabama, as the respected space agency seeks to launch rockets to Mars. These test stands are subjected to enormous forces by the world’s most powerful rockets.

In industrial construction, LPR’s skill sets include steel erection and fabrication, crane hoisting and rigging, mechanical and pipe installation and pipe welding, concrete and other related services. The company operates with the utmost respect for safety, as it is active across sectors including mining and minerals, petrochemical, power and food and beverage processing.

For almost two decades, LPR Construction has held the Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) designation with the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) and is the only steel erector in the United States to achieve this prestigious partnership. The VPP works to encourage both private industries and federal agencies to prevent accidents and illnesses in the workplace.

The company is required to be audited in the four key areas of management leadership and employee involvement; worksite analysis; hazard prevention and control; and safety and health training. “People can get VPP status for a single job, a single project. Where we are a mobile site, so we carry the VPP status on a job that we go to within Region Eight of OSHA,” says Miller.

By implementing health and safety management systems according to VPP standards, LPR Construction is helping to prevent lost time injuries (LTI), which costs American businesses billions of dollars annually. The company recently underwent a major audit and will be the first VPP-certified company to have carried the designation for twenty years in region 8.

LPR Construction looks forward to celebrating its fortieth anniversary next year and meeting the needs of both repeat and new customers across America.

“We have a continual growth plan for revenue, which ultimately will bring us into different markets, whether it be geographic or type of work,” says Radice. “Ultimately, LPR, ten years down the road, is looking towards being a $300-million company.”

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