Zachry Construction Corporation - construction, project management, industrial maintenance and project management

Zachry Construction Corporation (ZCC) is the parent of several companies in the construction business. The original company, H. B. Zachry Company, was founded on August 23, 1924. As a newly graduated Texas A&M University civil engineer, 22-year-old Henry Bartell “Pat” Zachry briefly worked for the Texas Highway Department before forming his own company in Laredo, Texas.

The company’s first contract was a $40,000 Laredo bridge construction project for the Texas Highway Department.

One successful project gave way to others, and over the next four years the company prospered. By 1926, Zachry Company’s volume exceeded $200,000. In 1927, Zachry diversified and began constructing commercial buildings and remodeling projects.

During the 1930s, businesses and Americans suffered through the financial collapse of the Great Depression. Contracts for traditional construction work dried up, including Texas Highway Department jobs, which had been a cornerstone of Zachry’s business.

In response, Pat Zachry bid and worked on less profitable jobs to keep the company afloat. In 1931, Zachry was awarded the Chapman Ranch Road project, a difficult job near Corpus Christi, and a second Texas Highway Department job in Gonzales County. Later that year, Zachry Company won the award to pave streets at Randolph Airfield (now Randolph Air Force Base) in San Antonio, Texas, for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

By 1932, competition for small and medium Texas Highway Department jobs had intensified as the number of projects dwindled. As a result, Pat Zachry was pushed to further diversify. When the U.S. Agriculture Department subsidized the construction of water tanks to help farmers and ranchers conserve water and contend with soil erosion, Zachry became involved in the construction of these stock tanks. The work created high volume for Zachry Company over the next four years.

Meanwhile, the company continued to rely heavily on its core business. During 1935 and 1936, Zachry completed 37 Highway Department jobs, all the while amassing a sizeable highway construction equipment fleet.

Then, during 1937, Zachry created a dedicated building department to pursue building construction jobs. This was an important first step toward improving the company’s business. In the first year of operation, the building construction unit constructed two dormitory buildings and was awarded a contract for the Texas State Hospital System in Austin, Texas. From 1937 to 1940, Zachry added more than 20 building projects to the company’s experience list.

By the end of the decade, Zachry Company had not only survived, it had expanded in a number of areas, thanks to its founder’s foresight and ability to diversify.

During the rapid changes that marked the 1940s, H.B. Zachry Company realized significant growth thanks to construction projects for the U. S. government, the Highway Departments, the refining and petrochemical industries, and the commercial housing market.

When World War II began and brought an end to the Great Depression, H.B. Zachry Company pursued government contracts related to the war build-up. Among many notable contracts was the Fort Bliss/ Biggs Field expansion project in El Paso, Texas. A joint venture between J.E. Morgan & Sons and H.B. Zachry Company constructed this massive defense project, which called for concrete foundations, streets and roads, water and sewer lines and more.

Once the war began, Zachry lent strong support to the U.S. Armed Forces by performing $50 million worth of defense work from 1942 through 1945.

Because the war effort put renewed emphasis on transportation infrastructure, Zachry continued to build roads and bridges in addition to completing important military projects. During 1940 and 1941, the company completed 21 projects for Highway Departments.

As the decade progressed, Zachry’s domestic highway projects gave way to contracts for the construction of dams, bridges, airports, pipelines, processing plants, sewer lines, hospitals, railroads, commercial buildings and other new construction projects. Milestone Zachry projects included:

During the ‘40s, major players in the refining and petrochemical industry began looking to Texas’ Coastal Bend Area and its huge oil reserves to develop their businesses. Pat Zachry saw the potential growth these new customers represented and began positioning his company to enter the industrial plant construction market. His foresight had already laid the groundwork: in 1940, Zachry had created a company subsidiary to own and operate a recycling plant in Grapeland, Texas. The following year, Zachry and his business associates formed the Francitas Gas Company to own and operate a recycling plant in Francitas, Texas. Zachry constructed both plants, which led to contract awards for the construction of larger, more complex refining and petrochemical facilities in the Coastal Bend area and other regions.

The ‘40s represented dynamic change for the country, and Zachry responded to those changes. When the post-war boom began, Zachry was ready to enter the real estate development market and supply much-needed public housing.

Pat Zachry’s ability to adapt to the changing face of the nation and the construction industry paid off. From 1945 to 1955, Zachry’s total annual revenues increased from $2 million to $30 million.

The ‘50s

During the 1950’s the company began performing major modifications and small capital project for power and industrial manufacturing plants, such as the conversion of an Army ordinance plant to a JATO facility for the Air Force for the jet rocket division of Phillips Petroleum Company. The company also performed the Lon C. Hill Power Plant Upgrade.

The company built its first “big-inch” pipeline job in the early ‘50s when it laid 95 miles of 30-inch pipeline in Tennessee and Kentucky for the Texas Eastern Pipeline Company.

This decade also marked Zachry’s entry into large-scope construction in the power industry, an area that would contribute to major growth for Zachry over the next several decades. During the early 1950s, San Antonio’s City Public Service Board (CPSB), like other utility companies throughout the country, was inundated with an increased demand for power. To capitalize on this market opportunity, Zachry expanded from upgrading and rehabilitating such systems to constructing CPSB’s new W.B. Tuttle Steam Power Plant, the first of some 110 power plants Zachry would construct.

The ‘50s marked a major change for the company’s corporate character when, in 1952, Zachry moved its offices from Laredo to San Antonio, Texas to better serve Zachry’s growing clientele.Opportunity fostered further diversification during 1957, when H.B. Zachry Company won a contract from the U.S. Air Force to rebuild runways at Bergstrom Air Force Base in Austin, Texas. Zachry needed large amounts of sand and gravel for ready-mix concrete for the project; rather than purchase the materials from another supplier, Pat Zachry formed his own sand and gravel operation.

Zachry’s reputation for reliability, built in the ‘40s, reaped benefits in the ‘50s. In 1959, the Pacific-Martin-Zachry joint venture constructed a $3.2 million test facility in the Marshall Islands for the U.S. anti-missile defense project, the first of several similar projects over the next 25 years worth nearly $250 million.

The ‘60s

Zachry’s presence in the power industry flourished throughout the 1960s, evidenced by the company’s completion of 17 major power projects, including the Zorita Nuclear Plant in Madrid, Spain.

In 1965, the company reins passed from Pat Zachry to his son, Bartell. Bartell Zachry expanded the company’s presence in heavy construction, and as a result, the division was awarded several multi-million dollar projects, some exceeding $50 million.

In 1966, H.B. Zachry Company, as part of a six-company consortium, won a $142.9 million contract for a major dam construction on the Yuba River in Northern California – then the largest single contract ever awarded in the United States.

Two years later, the company made history when it constructed San Antonio’s 500-room Hilton Palacio del Rio Hotel in less than seven months. The rapid construction of the hotel, which was built to accommodate visitors to the 1968 World’s Fair, was accomplished through Zachry’s innovative use of modular construction methods. Since then, Zachry has made a name for itself using modular construction to expedite the building of hotels, hospitals, dormitories, condominiums, apartments, prisons and industrial facilities.

Zachry’s presence in the petrochemical, refinery and pipeline industries grew during the ‘60s with awards of many large petrochemical, refinery and pipeline contracts. These contracts were supplemented by contracts for heavy construction, power plants and commercial buildings.

The ‘70s

During the early ‘70s, H.B. Zachry Company’s increased emphasis on its various joint ventures positioned the company to construct such large projects as the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport Runway and Trans-Alaska Pipeline.

Zachry’s accomplishments on these massive projects were significant. On May 21, 1973, the Zachry-South Prairie Joint Venture achieved a world record for paving 5,312.5 linear feet of 50-ft.-wide, 15-inch-thick taxiway with 12,630 cu. yds. of concrete in a single day at the Dallas–Fort Worth International Airport – the equivalent of an 85-mile concrete sidewalk.

Meanwhile, Zachry’s industrial construction operation was also growing. From 1970 to 1974, H.B. Zachry Company completed construction of seven coal-fueled power projects worth $200 million and capable of delivering a total of 3,700 Mw of power.

By 1973, when Zachry began constructing Texas’ largest coal-burning plant at the Martin Lake Generating Station in Tatum, Texas, Zachry had become a major player in the construction of large projects. That reputation was strengthened in 1974 with Zachry’s completion of the Union Carbide Olefins Complex in Hahnville, Louisiana, an industrial process contract worth $445 million. H.B. Zachry Company and its subsidiaries' presence outside the continental United States also grew. This was demonstrated by the company’s projects to construct the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, the Missi Falls Dam in Canada and the South Coast Power Units in Puerto Rico.

The ‘80s

In 1980, the Texas Highway Department awarded Zachry TxDOT's largest-ever highway contract -a $63.5 million project for reconstruction of San Antonio’s North Loop 410/ IH-35 Interchange. The project called for widening roadways, realigning curves, reconstructing interchanges, extending and improving frontage roads, and building bridges.

In 1982, H.B. Zachry Company’s heavy construction division assumed its then-largest job when the company won the $64 million contract to construct the Richland Creek Dam for the Tarrant County Water Control District. Other dam projects the company completed in the early ‘80s included the Coleto Creek Dam, the Seven-Mile Dam Project and Gibbons Creek Dam.

Throughout the '80s, Zachry also built refineries and power, chemical, petrochemical and pharmaceutical plants worth hundreds of millions of dollars. During this decade Zachry also completed construction of eight major coal- or lignite-fired power projects and 75 major industrial facilities. Such projects include Borden Chemical’s PVC Facility in Geismar, Louisiana, Arco Chemical’s Methanol Plant in Channelview, Texas, and the Saber Refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas. The company’s industrial construction growth also provided opportunities to expand the business’ industrial maintenance services with the addition of 15 new customer sites.

1990 - Present

Since 1990 Zachry has focused on its core competencies to better serve construction and industrial maintenance customers. Zachry’s total annual revenue more than doubled from 1990 to 2003 to $1.5 billion. Projects that fueled the company’s growth include:

Extensive growth, opportunities in new markets and a broad base of management talent throughout the company set the stage for restructuring. In July 1998, Zachry Construction Corporation (ZCC) was formed to focus on core construction and maintenance activities, improve organization efficiency and improve access for customers, suppliers and partners. Later that year, Bartell Zachry’s sons, John and David, assumed leadership of the new company. John B. Zachry was named president of ZCC and David S. Zachry was named president of the ZCC Civil Group.

From 2000 to 2002, ZCC constructed and installed 25 new power projects that provided 13 percent of the new U.S. power generation capacity. Between 2000 and 2005, ZCC increased its ongoing industrial maintenance services to encompass more than 50 customer sites across the country. Additionally, the company continued to aggressively pursue commercial building construction projects in the U.S. and overseas, and was awarded contracts to build U.S. Embassies in Beijing, China; Managua, Nicaragua; and Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

In August 2004, David S. Zachry was named president and chief operating officer of Zachry Construction Corporation. John B. Zachry became chief executive officer of ZCC, undertaking responsibilities within affiliated interests. Bartell Zachry remains chairman of the board.

ZCC continues to be a private, family-owned company. ZCC employs more than 11,500 men and women whose dedication and passion for excellence are the cornerstones of the company’s sustained growth and success. For eight decades and more than 5,500 projects, the employees of the Zachry family of companies have improved the quality of life for thousands of people through civil and industrial projects. ZCC will continue to bring the same dedication and commitment to excellence to the company’s projects and its future.