Top General Contractors of 2003

Area GCs View Future with Optimism

Welcome to Northwest Construction's annual Top General Contractor survey. We've expanded our reach this year, not only polling commercial builders, but breaking contractors out by specialty as well. As in past years, we've ranked the top 50 general contractors in the region, but this year, we've additional categories to include Top Design-Build Contractors, Top Transportation Contractors, Top Interiors Contractors and more. We've also broken our area GCs out by state, listing the top 20 in both Washington and Oregon. We hope these additional rankings will provide even more insight into the general contractors of the Pacific Northwest.

Our Top 50 Contractors of Oregon and Washington reported combined revenues of nearly $5 billion for the 2003 calendar year. Not quite the $6.7 billion reported by our top 50 last year, but still respectable.

Our annual State-of-the-Industry survey sheds some interesting light on area generals' attitude for the future. While revenues may have dipped in 2003, company leaders seem optimistic that things will be better in 2004. Eighty percent of respondents said they expected industry profit margins to be the same or higher this year than they were in 2003, compared with 60 percent last year. Only 12 percent thought profit margins would be lower, compared with 36 percent who thought that last year. More jobs also seem to be on the horizon, according to general contractors' predictions. Fifty-eight percent of respondents expect more work this year, compared with nearly half that - 30 percent - who answered the same question last year. Only 12 percent anticipate less work this year, while a whopping 50 percent last year saw a bleak year ahead.

Thank you to all the general contractors who responded to the survey and took the time to share their thoughts with us. In the following pages, you'll see the Top 50 contractors ranked according to revenues earned by company offices in Washington and/or Oregon, as well as additional listings sorted by specialty. A collection of the responding generals' more interesting and unique projects underway in 2003 is also included.

We used an in-house database of general contractors to survey for this year's list. If you weren't included on this year's Top 50 list and think you should be, please contact me at (206) 378-4716 or sheila_bacon@mcgraw-hill.com and we'll make sure you're on our list to receive a survey next year.

Sincerely,

Sheila Bacon, Editor
Northwest Construction magazine

Top 50 Contractors Ranking
Top Contractor Project Features