hen Delta Constructors onboards employees, the company likes to use a simple analogy to help illustrate expectations of its newest team members.

“If you’ve ever played on a sports team,” President Dustin Cooper begins, “then you know what it feels like when everything is going right and everything is falling into place—the training, preparation, and plans you’ve put together are all working in your favor.”

“And you also know what it feels like when things start going against you,” he continues. “When things are going well, we call that, ‘Control of Work’; you’re in control of your work, you’re in control of your team, manpower, equipment, materials, and workspace.”

And lately, things have certainly felt right for the industrial contracting company. Having only been around for a little over a decade, Delta Constructors’ rapid growth has cemented it as a Top 49ers regular; the construction firm has made the ranks for the past five years running while reporting comparable revenues to companies more than twice its size.

In 2019, the multi-service powerhouse posted revenues of $214,838,000—a more than 20 percent increase from the previous year.

Delta Constructors started out as a general support services contractor for the oil and gas industry, providing carpentry and facility services to remote camps on the North Slope. Since then, the company has grown to more than 700 employees and expanded its offerings to provide a variety of critical services to all segments of the oil and gas and mining industries—with self-performed construction, project management, and commissioning services all within its capabilities.

Cooper says a good way to envision Delta Constructors’ efforts in the upstream segment is to think of everything involved from “the ground up,” explaining that as a facilities contractor the company doesn’t typically build the gravel pad itself. A large part of its efforts in this area are focused on drill pad and production facility installation—critical infrastructure for oil and gas development projects.

As for its midstream efforts, a tagline on its website claims the company can serve any midstream need, “from pipelines and storage tanks to compressor stations and infrastructure.”

And while primarily focused on upstream and midstream segments of the oil and gas industry, Delta Constructor’s mining industry services include new facility construction, as well as remodeling and repairs to existing infrastructure.

On the electrical side of things, the company performs all its own distribution, instrumentation, and controls and automation. A few years ago, Delta Constructors added its own commissioning division—Delta Commissioning Services, led by General Manager Mark White, which Cooper says has been another successful piece to its evolving business model.

To date, the company has completed projects in Alaska, North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana—and even a few projects in the Gulf of Mexico. The tradesmen involved in these diverse, wide-ranging projects come from every corner of the continent, attracting some of the most capable and skilled workers in the industry. Of its roughly 700 employees worldwide, more than one quarter are based in Alaska. And in addition to supplementing its team with top-class talent, Delta Constructors prides itself on developing its own.

The importance of the sports team analogy, Cooper says, is that it helps employees develop the ability to recognize when things are going right—or when they aren’t—and confidently apply those feelings to their decision-making processes in what are often highly hazardous work environments. This dedication to developing, and trusting in, employee decision making is a major part of Delta Constructors’ success, according to Cooper.

“When you’re operating that way, you strike this balance between working safely and being as productive as you can be,” Cooper says. “You can achieve both. A lot of people believe that people who preach safety don’t really believe you can be safe and productive, that there’s risks you have to take or corners you have to cut. And we really don’t believe that.

“When you’re competent about what you’re doing, you’re more confident, you’re more capable—and we can deliver more value to our client.”

The company gives every employee the right to stop work at any time for any reason, and not only is it acceptable—it is encouraged. Cooper explains that part of what happens with new hires, or “short-service” employees as he calls them, is that they are still gaining experience and are not necessarily comfortable or aware of all the hazards facing them in the workplace.

“You won’t be able to point to the policy or procedure or what the problem actually is, but you will be able to feel it. And you’ll know when things start falling apart well before they fall apart. So what we ask our guys is that when you start feeling that, that is when you use your stop-of-work—to stop, pull back, and collect the team, and then use those resources available,” Cooper says, adding that every employee is given a pocket HSE&Q (health, safety, environment, and quality) handbook outlining company policies, procedures, and best practices.

“All of these resources are tools for helping us get back on track when we lose our way… there’s no repercussions, there’s no hazing that goes along with it—we all want to go home at the end of the day.”

Cooper explains that one of the biggest challenges facing a company that’s experiencing such rapid growth—and a challenge facing the construction industry as a whole—is being able to secure capable skilled labor and leadership.

One way Delta Constructors has combatted this issue is through placing its faith in an ownership group that possesses decades of collective experience.

“Our success and our growth is primarily due to leadership. The leaders we have at the top of our company like Nate Andrews, Rick Hyce, Cecil Dale, Mark White, and Josh Lonas, among many others, set the tone for who we are, what we’re about, and how we operate,” Cooper says. “They’ve done an amazing job in developing and training the next group of people to be able to take on these challenging projects and these challenging times, and to be able to do it all safely where everyone’s coming home every day.”

Cooper also believes this leadership is to thank for the company’s ability to retain its employees. “We have a really low turnover—I think part of that is a testament to our company culture and our commitment to trying to make the most out of the individuals. And leading in a way where we meet every individual employee where they’re at, consistently challenge them, and try to create new opportunities for young people to take on additional responsibility and step up,” he says, noting employees are often given multiple chances in different positions to maximize their success.

“It’s great that as we’ve grown we haven’t lost that feel of the team. We have lots of people that have worked here for seven, eight, nine years,” says Cooper, who himself has been with the company since its inception, stepping into his current role of president in December of 2019.

In addition to safety and leadership, Delta Constructors puts quality at the forefront.

“We are driven to deliver the quality that should be expected from a professional contractor,” he says. “We look at our trades and the work that we do as a profession—not just a job.”

“Look at the tubing work by Raul Castro Jr. and Sr.,” he continues, emphasizing the skill and competency of the Delta Constructors tradesmen. “Doing it to the best of our ability and producing a quality product is part of being a professional contractor.”

On other values the company holds, Cooper points to dependability and reliability, as well as one other ingredient that has contributed to the company’s success.

“I think humility is one of the important things about us where we’ve been really successful,” Cooper says. But Cooper is as gracious as he is humble, as evidenced by the Delta Constructors president’s parting message to the Alaska business community:

“I really just want to thank our clients and let them know how much we appreciate them for putting their trust in us—and how grateful we’ve been for the opportunities to be able to work on these projects.”