Diede constructs new headquarters

Lodi company a leader in design-build contracting

By William West
    You may not be familiar with Diede Construction but you’ve seen their buildings and probably walked through them. Your children may have attended schools they’ve built.
    Recently, the Business Journal was given a tour of their new headquarters building and spoke with Steve Diede, one of the founders of the company in 1978, along with his wife Lillian (Bo), and his brother Wayne and Bruce.
    The new 20,000 square foot building reflects the team approach that has been so effective for Diede. Teams of in-house craftsman, designers, estimators, and project managers make Diede a design-build contractor with years of working together to get jobs done. Many other contractors hire out by the job.
    “We aren’t a paper contractor,” said Steve Diede during an interview in his office in the new building near Armstrong Road south of Lodi.
    Mr. Diede’s office is very large, not for effect but because a dozen people gather to help flesh out bids for jobs. There is a flat screen high on the wall that is a video terminal for the powerful computer network built throughout the building.
    The Diede’s built their early reputation on public works projects.
    “Our first job taught us how to form a business,” said Diede. “It was about a $25,000 public works job for the City of Lodi. The police station needed an ‘eyebrow’ replacement. The framework at the top of the building was sagging. We got the contract and that job taught us about getting bonds and producing financial statements.”
    In later years they have built more and more private projects. That includes construction of buildings, concrete (a specialty), and other work that doesn’t fall into a neat cubbyhole.
    “We’ll do almost any job that is construction related,” said Diede. “We’ll do maintenance jobs. We keep our employees busy. They have many skills and they can multi-task.”
    “For example, we brought the Amtrak stations from Lodi to Bakersfield up to ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) code,” Diede said. “We did the ACE stations. We did parking lots all the way to Pleasanton.”
    Varied work is the trademark of Diede Construction. They’ve worked on Hetch Hetchy Dam for the City of San Francisco. They needed to get some anchors for pipelines up into the high country. Water from Hetch Hetchy reservoir supplies San Francisco with its water through a long pipeline from the mountains to the bay.
    Diede has also done fish ladders in northern California, along Butte Creek near Chico. Water projects are a favorite of the company, according to Steve Diede. They’ve recently finished a project at Morelli Park in downtown Stockton. They have a seawall project on the boards for that area.
    In addition, they are constructing a dry boat storage building for the City of Stockton. It will be a three story structure wherein boats are lifted into racks all the way up the walls of the three-story structure. Diede is the design-build contractor on the job.
    “We try to stay in a 60-mile radius so our men aren’t away from their families over night,” Diede said. “We have 125-175 employees, depending on what time of year it might be. We have about 30 different companies under this roof. Each company is an LLC. It is a legal structure that seems to work best. It has an impact of cutting out lawsuits, for one thing.”
    “Our corporate journey has taught us the best way to do things” he said. “We’ve even done chicken ranches for Foster Farms, which are really hi-tech and not just a bunch of chicken coops.”
    The task of bidding and winning jobs is a team event at Diede. Bids are filed in a long room with multiple cubby holes for RFPs and related documentation. There is an estimating staff that works with each project manager and project team to formulate bids.
    When the job is won, the project manager forms his team.
    The new building has multiple office suites where project managers have a mini-company within a company. Each mini-office has a small staff that includes the project manager, a project supervisor, a bookkeeper, and other necessary personnel to get the job done.
    “Our new building is set up so that we have many ‘pods’ or office suites where a project manager can team with a small staff to manage a particular project” said John Anderson, a sales executive with Diede, who guided the building tour.
    “Each pod has a mini-conference room as well as offices,” he said.  
    “Any owner can get hold of someone on a project,” said Diede.
    A company-wide team works on bids for all projects.
    The Diedes have a strong work ethic but also a strong family ethic. The building contains a playroom / nursery so employees have a place for their kids when necessary. Steve Diede emphasized that the whole company is a family, not just those with the Diede surname.
    A small gym is being fitted out with workout equipment. A cold-room keeps racks of servers cool as they perform the massive amount of graphic and database work necessary to supply the project workers with all the data they need.
    There are many video displays throughout the large building.
    “We have a file server called ‘Voodoo’,” said Kenneth Inman IT developer who’s been with Diede for a year and a half. Inman was with Robert Half as a database administrator for hire in Nevada. Jim Nevin is the network administrator.
    A very large conference room situated close to the front of the building has a wall divider so you could run two meetings. It has flat screen displays on all the walls so everyone can see without shifting. Hookups and power ports for laptops are built into the long conference table.
    “Local community groups are encouraged to use the room,” said Anderson. “Micke’s Grove Zoological Society is one that does use the space, for example.”
    There is a kitchen on-site and the company offers to buy lunch for employees from local area restaurants. A menu lay on one counter in the kitchen.
    As for the future in these challenging economic times, Diede was optimistic.
    “We feel pretty good about the future,” said Steve Diede. “We’re just working hard to make that future happen.”
    “Our parents were cattle ranchers and had vineyards,” said Diede. “We have a real strong work ethic. Our work family has that work ethic, too.”