Building Highways & Roads in Alaska Since 1993
Ownership and History
HC Contractors was founded by Bill Hoople in 1993 and is located at 1296 Old Richardson Highway in North Pole, Alaska. HC has completed numerous earthwork, roadwork, sitework (including large waterline) projects and bridge projects within Fairbanks and the greater Alaskan Interior.
Bill Hoople began his working career as a civil engineer after receiving his Bachelor’s degree from Washington State University. Bill moved to Alaska in 1974, made Fairbanks his home, and received his master’s degree in arctic engineering from the University of Alaska Fairbanks while working in the construction trades as a superintendent, project manager, and estimator.
Bill founded HC Contractors, Inc. and it started out as a small company, with a handful of friends and a few pieces of equipment. Bill ran the projects onsite, maintained and serviced the equipment at night, and did the accounting and paperwork in-between. The long hours and dedication to producing the best final product, combined with his hands-on experience and engineering background helped HC Contractors grow from its humble beginnings, into a company employing hundreds of local laborers, operators, and office personnel each year.
Bill and those who work at HC care about the community and want to continually complete quality work efficiently, safely, and with an open mind to innovations and cost-saving techniques. HC has continuously evolved from its creation and will continue to do so by providing training opportunities for employees, working with project Owners, and adopting new technology.
Capacity and Resources
STAFFING
HC’s full-time year-round office staff consists of four (4) project managers (one of whom is registered a professional engineer), an estimator, controller, payroll technician, contract administrator, equipment manager, and an environmental health and safety manager. All of whom have years of experience in the construction industry in Alaska.
During the summer work season HC’s returning crews consist of superintendents, asphalt plant manager and staff, crushing operation manager and staff, and project crews that are hired out of the local laborer, operator, and teamster unions. The number of crews and their size depends on the workload. During this time, HC employed a total of 234 employees during the 2019 construction season: 65 laborers, 137 heavy equipment operators, 6 teamsters, 12 office personnel, and 13 non-union personnel. HC is capable of dynamically adjusting resources to fulfill the requirements of all their project.
EQUIPMENT
HC owns approximately 400 pieces of equipment and owns much of the equipment that would be required on the project. This includes company vehicles, service and mechanic vehicles, cranes and draglines for the gravel pits, lowboy trailers and tractor trailer trucks for equipment mobilization, end dumps, loaders, dozers, excavators, vibratory compactors, rollers, plate compactors, graders, pumps, job trailers, storage conexes, generators, light plants, traffic control devices and electronic signs, rock trucks, asphalt plants, crushing plants, pavers and miscellaneous asphalt equipment, and sweepers. Having access to such an extensive inventory of HC owned equipment eliminates a risk and dependence on sourcing the equipment from another resource.
TECHNOLOGY
HC project managers and superintendents have been trained on Trimble GPS technology and are trained to install, configure and run the system on HC’s machinery. This construction software allows equipment grade control and provides site positioning technology that otherwise would require a surveyor to layout. This technology optimizes productivity and provides a high-level of workflow integration from design through to the finished product.
Currently, HC has installed machine control on a large portion of excavators and finish machines. In addition, HC maintains good relationships with equipment rental companies in town which provides us with the capability of using GPS on a dozen other machines the rental companies already have set up for the technology