LPR Construction grows to get difficult jobs done

Coors Field. Denver Art Museum. Loveland Police and Courts Building. North Colorado Medical Center Parking Garage. University of Denver Ice Arena. State Farm Insurance Cos. regional headquarters.

Six diverse structures with one common link: Steel erection by LPR Construction Co. in Loveland.

How did a company that started out in 1979 as a Northern Colorado homebuilder turn into one of the nation’s most-respected and successful steel-erection firms?

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Exorbitant interest rates in the late 1980s put the kibosh on building houses for the trio of friends who had moved to Colorado from Indiana to do just that. “One of the founding partners had a background in steel erection. We picked up some work in this field. It was not our initial intent,´ said Rocky Turner, president and CEO and the “R” in the company name.

Larry Boyd (the “L”) was the one with the steel background, but left the company after a couple of years. That left Pete Carner (the “P”), who retired from the business Jan. 1, and Turner. “He and I learned the business as we grew,” Turner said.

And grow they did. Last year, the company posted $43 million in sales and is anticipating that number to reach $60 million this year. LPR has 300 field employees and an office/professional staff of 40, including two engineers and eight project managers. Turner, now the sole founding owner, owns 40 percent of the company while about 30 key employees own the remaining portion.

Reputation for safety

Mention LPR in construction circles, and you’ll hear over and over about the company’s emphasis on safety, its ability to perform under challenging conditions and its trustworthiness from the top down.

Turner credits LPR’s reputation for safety – the company is an OSHA Voluntary Protection Programs contractor – as one of the reasons his company is successful in winning major contracts.

As one would suspect, the danger to ironworkers erecting steel is great. In 1992, LPR was the first in the industry to employ 100 percent fall protection beginning at 6 feet on all projects. The industry standard, set in 2001, is fall protection at 15 feet.

LPR co-invented the DBI/Sala BeamSafe Tie-Off System designed to provide an easy-to-install tie-off point for ironworkers and other construction personnel who must work before flooring or other fall protection is available.

The company has done numerous high-profile jobs across the nation – schools, hospitals and sports arenas – and each has had its own set of challenges and levels of difficulty. But one of the more recent buildings has that “how did they do it?” mystique: the Daniel Liebeskind addition to the Denver Art Museum.

DAM difficult project

“That was quite an accomplishment,” Turner said. “We have an engineer who’s been in the business 25 years and with us for six years. He did some retractable-roof stadiums in the Texas area, and he made the comment that the Denver Art Museum was tougher by a factor of five than anything he attempted before.

“The reality for us is that it went very well, very smoothly. That’s a result of the team that M.A. Mortenson, the general contractor, put together. Detailing is an important aspect – where to put the holes in the pieces of steel and get everything to fit.”

LPR was involved with the art museum project from the get-go, working with the planning team for a year and a half before steel was set on the project site. The new wing, a complicated geometric structure, was constructed as a steel frame with many sharp angles and a large feature that cantilevers over 13th Street in downtown Denver. LPR employed 3-D modeling to plan, sequence and erect the addition.

Ernie Crownover, president/CEO of Thissen Construction Corp. in Greeley, has worked with LPR on several projects, including the parking garage at North Colorado Medical Center – the first west of the Mississippi constructed of cast-in-place tension decks supported by galvanized steel beams, columns and braces. The 700-stall, four-level garage was erected in less than four weeks. Finishing the job on time, if not ahead of schedule, is another of LPR’s virtues.

Crownover also tells how LPR’s crew of 150 worked amidst a huge herd of dairy cows to erect a new milk barn – big enough to milk 160 cows every 10 minutes – for Johnson’s Dairy east of Eaton “in the coldest winter we’ve ever had. They’re out there at 18 below putting steel up. They’re hardcore. They just get it done.”

Business that does it right

If you’re talking about getting it done, you can’t leave out the American Airlines Arena in Miami, home of the Miami Heat. Trusses for the new arena weighed 400,000 pounds each, measuring 350 to 370 feet long and almost 40 feet deep. LPR devised a plan for erecting the trusses using a midair splice at 150 feet in the air. And they had to do it while leaving room for other trades to do their jobs.

And you should probably not leave out Coors Field. “That was certainly a major project for us and a very tough one,” Turner said, because of the schedule, the complexity and the size of the project. “At the time we did it, it was half our volume.”

The list of buildings LPR has helped assemble is a long one, from the small jobs to the giants. “It’s challenging,” Turner said, “and it’s rewarding to put together the resources and talent necessary to complete the tough projects. We have a great team of people, some recognized as the best in the business.”

LPR is an example of a business that does it right, said Kirk Dando, president and CEO of Dando Advisors, a management consulting business in Loveland, who has worked with Turner in growing the company.

“In the steel-erection industry, where there’s a multitude of work and education backgrounds, to get everybody on the same play book takes a lot of cooperation, communication and focus.”

Dando, a former chief operating officer and chief financial officer of a billion-dollar company, added, “Rocky is one of the most compassionate, understanding, giving individuals I’ve met, and I have met a lot of people across the country. From the success they’re having, there are a number of other people in the organization that mirror that way of treating other people. At the end of the day, people want to work with people they like, know and trust.”