The Governor Hotel: P&C restored this downtown Portland landmark to its original historic beauty in the early 1990s.
With pride and commitment, Portland company builds relationships, trust and lasting legacy
Many local companies aspire to take deep root in their hometowns, to help change--and then become part of--the local landscape. Over its five-decade history, P&C Construction has done just that, translating its focus and commitment to its clients into a rich vista across the Pacific Northwest, helping create the places where their neighbors live, work, learn, shop, worship--or just gather to enjoy the region's beauty.
"When someone's entrusted their construction project to you, that's a deeply special relationship," says Dale Campbell, son of original P&C partner Don Campbell, and himself a 35-year veteran of the company. "You have to protect that, bust your butt for the client--and give them what they're entitled to."
That philosophy has served P&C well, now in its third generation of local ownership, as a foundation. The company has grown from a small partnership, headquartered over a Gresham garage, into one of the Portland area's most successful and respected general contracting firms. The company has built, restored or renovated some of the region's most notable structures, including Montgomery Park, the Governor Hotel, the original Niketown, buildings at Reed and Lewis & Clark Colleges--even Portland's Ronald McDonald House.
The Early Years: Building a Dream
P&C Construction began in 1961, when Raymond Pettyjohn, an experienced carpentry foreman, and Don Campbell, a civil engineer with Timber Structures Inc., joined forces.
Pictured here are Ray Pettyjohn (left) and Don Campbell (right) - founders in 1961 of P&C Construction.
"They each put in $2,000, a pickup and a skill saw, and set off building a company," says Dale Campbell today. And the two men had something more: The commitment to do the finest work and to bring collaboration and oversight to every job, while satisfying their clients' needs.
Dale Campbell remembers the early years as "very much a mom and pop operation." "I remember going over to the Pettyjohns' house for dinner," he says, "and their daughter, Diane, my brother Doug and I would match invoices with purchase orders on the living room floor."
In 1963, the company added a third owner, James Gillilan, also from Timber Structures Inc., who managed the office. Then came "a huge jumpstart for growth," says Campbell: the beginning of a relationship with Georgia-Pacific, which in the mid-'60s was expanding its network of warehouses, around the Pacific Northwest and beyond. P&C would end up building Georgia-Pacific warehouses in Tacoma and Sheldon, Washington; Billings, Montana, and Tampa, Florida--each of which had one of the company's three principals on site for much of the work.
"You sell the project yourself," says Campbell of the personal promise behind the P&C process. "You build relationships--and then you foster those relationships."
Bill Naito and the Sisters of Providence
Montgomery Park: P&C's long association with Bill Naito resulted in many high-profile projects, including renovation of Montgomery Park in the 1980s. Here, a detail of the atrium and lobby.
The P&C Field Team: On the Montgomery Park parking structure project site in 1987. Current co-owner Bruce Heintz is in the front row, fourth from right.
Albers Mill: This challenging late 1980s renovation of a working mill on the Willamette resulted in a green project ahead of its time: The river is the source for the building's recovery system, providing heating and cooling.
Relationship was key in the 25-year affiliation between P&C and prominent Portland developer Bill Naito. Naito had been a student at Reed College, as had Don Campbell, and that experience may have helped foster the friendship that developed. Naito’s ideas had to be transformed into bricks and mortar; Campbell's penchant for efficient, cost-effective design completed the perfect team.
After working on smaller projects for Naito in the '70s and '80s, including ones in the newly revitalized Old Town section of Northwest Portland, P&C began to grow its reputation as experts in historic restoration. And its relationship with Naito then led to one of the most ambitious projects in the city: the renovation of Montgomery Park--at 1 million square feet, one of the city's largest buildings.
"It was the old distribution center for Montgomery Ward," Campbell remembers, "and trains came into the center of the building disgorging wholesale and retail goods for distribution around the Northwest and sale on site. It was pretty impressive."
During the late '80s, P&C turned the rambling early 20th century structure into a striking new office complex and conference center, with an airy atrium, new lobby, seismic improvements and modern additions including a new parking structure.
Of the ongoing relationships P&C has built with customers like Naito, Campbell says, "Being asked back is one of the greatest accomplishments in this industry."
Another key early P&C relationship was with the Sisters of Providence, who oversee hospitals and clinics around Portland, including Providence Medical Center. Ambitious renovation and new construction projects for the hospital (including the Earle Chiles Center and surgical tower) were begun in the late '70s and were done over 21 years, and had to be approached delicately. "It involved moving multiple departments including: hyperbaric chamber, the MRI facility, the pharmacy--everything--and it all had to be done without disruption" to patients or hospital staff, Campbell remembers.
Bringing Historic Landmarks to Life
P&C continued to develop its expertise in restoring historic buildings. Albers Mill, north of the Broadway Bridge, had been a working mill and manufacturing operation for decades, making wheat flour, molasses, dog food and other products before it fell into disrepair.
The project was "really complex because of the age of the building and that much of the construction was affected by the rise and fall of the Willamette River," Campbell recalls, but after P&C's work inside and out, the unreinforced brick building was seismically upgraded and in 1989 reopened as a multi-use office building, a cornerstone of inner Northwest Portland.
In fact, the Willamette River became the source for Albers Mill recovery system providing heating and cooling for the building--a green project ahead of its time.
In the early '90s, P&C worked on another historic treasure, the Governor Hotel, once known as the Seward Hotel and now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The work required intensive seismic upgrades to the interior, as well as restoration and attention to the glazed terra cotta exterior.
Restoring the Simon Benson House was even more challenging: P&C helped to move the Queen Anne style home from its original location in downtown Portland to the campus of Portland State University, and then carefully worked with the architects to re-create its fine woodwork, inside and out.
P&C also helped give Portland's historic Galleria a facelift during its years of rebirth as a desirable retail location, in the early '80s. Working with the Naito Company, P&C refurbished the building twice, and added a new atrium, featuring its now-trademark translucent skylights.
Investing in the Community
Larry Koester (left) and Dale Campbell (right) grew P&C to a $50M+ company during their ownership period from 1988 to 2005.
P&C has also invested deeply in the surrounding region, working with local groups and Portland-based businesses from their earliest years.
P&C built the original Portland Ronald McDonald House, one of the country's first such facilities, which house the families of ill children being treated at Portland hospitals. The project became a favorite of the entire P&C community, including carpenters and laborers, who volunteered weekend time to help build the facility. "It really was The House That Love Built," Campbell says. Since the house's opening in 1983, more than 22,000 families have stayed there.
Similarly, P&C built Shepherd's Door, a 45,000 square foot women’s and children's shelter in Portland, affiliated with the Portland Rescue Mission. P&C helped spearhead the overall effort, by collaborating with local nonprofit groups to gather donations and in-kind contributions.
When the Wells Fargo Tower needed extensive tenant improvements in the late '90s, P&C handled all the details and updates in one of Portland's most recognizable landmarks.
In 1991 P&C also helped local shoe company Nike make its big splash in the retail world, with the very first Niketown, located in downtown Portland. The building, featuring seven different sales areas, has become one of Portland's most popular tourist destinations.
Growing the Silicon Forest
Lattice Semiconductor: Located in Hillsboro, this corporate headquarters facility houses executive offices and a state-of-the-art auditorium.
P&C also has had a significant history in the Portland area's high-tech industry, the so-called Silicon Forest. Larry Koester, whose career at P&C dates back to 1975, was the manager of several high-profile high-tech projects from the mid-'90s through 2004. From 1995 to 2001, Koester managed $104 million worth of high-tech projects in the Hillsboro area alone.
A key project was a $16 million Sun Microsystems manufacturing building--completed from groundbreaking to occupancy in just six months.
Sun Microsystems: Sun Microsystems is one of P&C's many high-tech clients throughout the Pacific Northwest. A key Sun project involved a server manufacturing facility that was completed in just six months. "That was a very technical building, and one of Sun's largest manufacturing facilities," Koester remembers. It was where Sun Microsystems built its servers, and the specs were exacting, the timeline accelerated. "If we couldn't finish it in six months, a lot of people at Sun would have lost their jobs." So P&C focused, as always, on its craftsmanship and on managing its resources effectively--which helped P&C deliver the Sun project on time and on budget
Other key high-tech projects have included state of the art facilities for Lattice Semiconductor, RadiSys and Sequent, among others.
Building a Better Future
Rolling Hills Community Church: P&C constructed a 180,000 sf addition that provided an education center and 2,500-seat auditorium.
Third-Generation Owners: From left, Steve Malany, Steve Anderson, and Bruce Heintz keep the P&C commitment strong
With the 21st century well under way, P&C is expanding its expertise and horizons, working on a variety of schools, libraries, and civic and religious projects.
A renovation of the Rolling Hills Church, overseen by Koester, was an ambitious $23.6 million undertaking, resulting in a spacious, warm facility seating up to 2,500 worshipers, with cutting-edge audio and video capabilities.
Other projects include the lovely Foothills Park in Lake Oswego, a $27 million expansion of Clatsop Community College in Astoria, and multiple health care expansion projects for Kaiser Permanente.
Under the direction of the company's current owners--Steve Malany, Steve Anderson and Bruce Heintz--P&C continues to lead the general contracting industry in the Pacific Northwest, by providing quality building projects while striving to exceed their clients' expectations.
After five decades, the name "P&C" reflects a nod to the company's original founders, and their commitment to putting quality into every job. And today, as before, "P&C stands for 'Pride and Commitment," Anderson says,"We essentially are seeking customers' 'pride' in our 'commitment.'…If there is a way to build it better, more economically, faster--you can count on the P&C team to identify it."
Malany adds, "We only know one way to do a project: beyond reproach, with total honesty, and without cutting corners….We want to be partners, and friends--and have a little fun along the way."
P&C's legacy, and ongoing vision, is to uphold all those values, fostering honesty, deep experience, leadership--and most importantly, customer loyalty. "That client relationship," says Heintz, "will always be the most important thing to us."
