To stay around for 50-plus years, says Wes Oestreich, a business needs not only to focus on customer satisfaction, but also be able to adapt to whatever changes come about in its industry. Oestreich’s company, Lincoln-based Cheever Construction Co., has done so. 

The company started out in 1954 as a masonry subcontractor, but has evolved into a full-line construction firm capable of erecting everything from a church to a surgical center.

The company may build a building on a blank patch of land, add to an existing building, or refurbish a building to meet the needs of a new occupant. Projects range from $10,000 to $10 million, Oestreich said.

Cheever Construction gets work both through competitive bids and simply by being hired for a job, said Oestreich.

Project manager Tim Donner said one way the company pursues publicly bid work is through the use of plan services, which show what construction projects are available for bids, and what the owner will want. If Cheever Construction wants to try for the project, he said, it asks subcontractors for bids, and assembles a total bid, figuring in everything from the wages of the construction crews to the cost of nails, and presents that to the owner.

The company has a master call list of hundreds of subcontractors, and will seek bids from a few in each category based on the subcontractors’ skills and the specifics of the job at hand.

An important part of Cheever Construction’s business is its reputation for fairness to employees and subcontractors, said Oestreich.

“You have to be demanding (in these relationships,” he said. “But with a touch of fairness.”

It’s also important, Oestreich said, for the company to know what it’s good at, and resist the temptation to bid on jobs that are suddenly hot.

“There’s a lot of utility work out now,” he said. “But we don’t just jump into the utility market.”

Doing a good job for the customer the first time leads to more opportunities, Oestreich said.

70th Street Properties has kept hiring Cheever Construction since 1994, said Robb Linafelter, the group’s CEO. Starting with the construction of the Lincoln Surgery Center, then two additions, 70th Street Properties has called only one name, he said.

“I think they do quality work,” said Linafelter. “The on-site managers work well with me on a day-to-day basis.”

Cheever Construction also proved to be understanding of the need at a medical clinic for quietude.

“If they were too noisy, we’d tell them to stop and they’d stop,” Linafelter said. “They were willing to come in weekends and nights and work around our schedule.”

Another customer is Fresh Start Home, which provides transitional housing and support services to women without children in their custody.

Thanks in part to the ideas of Cheever Construction, said executive director Tiffany Mullison, Fresh Start will  “open a brand new wonderful place in the summer of ’06.”  It’s at 64th and Havelock Avenue. 

Reach Rodd Cayton at 473-7107 or rcayton@journalstar.com.

 

Cheever Construction Co.

Address: 912 S. 26th St., Lincoln.

Telephone number: (402) 477-6745

Web address: www.cheeverconstruction.com

Ownership: Cliff Cheever, CEO and majority shareholder; employees own the rest of the company.

Chief executive on site, title: Wes Oestreich, president.

Number of local employees: 25

Services: Commercial General Construction, primarily of medical, office, educational and senior living buildings.

Company history: Founded by Cliff Cheever in 1954 as a masonry contractor. The company specialized in multi-family residential construction from 1975 to 1982, and entered the competitive bid commercial market in 1985.