Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity. The full conversation is available on our YouTube channel.
Celebrating eight decades of activity and spanning five generations of family involvement, Minneapolis-based Adolfson & Peterson Construction has a storied past.
It all began in the last year of the Roaring ’20s, when George Adolfson immigrated from Sweden to the U.S., with no more than $40 in his pocket, and began working as a traveling bricklayer in the Twin Cities area. It wasn’t until 1946 that Adolfson met former naval engineer Gordon Peterson, an encounter that led to the founding of a general contracting firm.
In 1979, Adolfson and his family bought Peterson’s interest in the company and, since then, the firm has remained 100 percent family-owned. Between 1980 and 2000, AP Construction expanded beyond the state of Minnesota, with the firm having built more than 3,000 projects totaling nearly 300 million square feet to date.
What’s the secret behind its longevity and success? In this interview with Commercial Property Executive, George Adolfson’s granddaughter Andra Adolfson and grandson Scott Weicht—both actively working in their grandfather’s company—discuss being raised around the firm, current construction industry challenges and their vision for the company for the next decade.
What was it like growing up around George Adolfson and AP Construction?
Weicht: Both Andra and myself, being third generation, we’ve been able to grow up with George and Maja Adolfson (editor’s note: his wife), which was very special. We were able to retain a lot of the oral tradition of what we heard it was like.
Adolfson: Not only did we spend our childhoods with them, but all of us grew up working for the company. Our parents worked for Adolfson & Peterson. We went in as small children. We worked there through college and beyond.
Tell us more about your grandparents. What was Maja’s role in the company?
Adolfson: I just don’t think the company would have started without Maja. They were a team and a partnership. And in a traditionally male-dominated industry, oftentimes you talk about all the men in the business, but she really was integral. She supported him. I think it was her idea initially to start a company. She did the accounting and bookkeeping early on. It was a great partnership and the company wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for our grandmother as well.
Weicht: We’ve really looked to both George and Maja. They were The Team.
Andra, how do you balance honoring that legacy with making decisions that push AP Construction forward?
Adolfson: As a longer-term employee and somebody who’s part of the family, my coworkers come to me for the history of the family and the company and context, perhaps. And I always say we’re still a family business. The DNA of that original small group in the early years is still here.
My grandmother and grandfather felt very strongly about providing lunch for employees in the early days and we had a cook come in and make lunch for everybody. That kind of hospitality and community, … of knowing each other and eating together … has been in the company for 80 years and it’s still around today.
We’re designing this new office building and when we’re planning our new space, (people told us) they want a giant lunch table to eat together every day. It’s a whole different way of knowing a coworker, to just sit down and share a meal.
What would you say were some key moments that shaped the company into what it is today?
Weicht: (George and Gordon) started with homes in the suburbs of Minneapolis and very quickly moved to doing commercial work in the 1950s. By the mid 1950s, we were seeing records that they were building K-12 schools, University of Minnesota work, a lot of government buildings as well. And that carried through to the 1960s.
Adolfson: I think another important kind of transition was AP’s expansion starting in 1980 with Colorado and then Dallas and then Arizona and other parts of the country. I think that kind of expansionist mindset was important. And I think we were, for the Midwest region, one of the first general contractors to open offices in other parts of the country. So that was visionary—to be looking beyond the Midwest and looking to expand into other markets that early.
