MEMBER PROFILE ‒ CONTRACTOR
With 35 years
in the piling
industry, DeWitt
Construction roots
are firmly planted
in the Pacific
Northwest
By Judy Penz Sheluk
In 1979, Wayne DeWitt left his job as
the general manager of a piling company
and founded DeWitt Construction
in Portland, Ore. Now located in Vancouver,
Wash., today DeWitt is one of the most
respected and experienced deep foundation
pile driving companies in the Pacific
Northwest.
From the beginning, DeWitt
Construction was a family-owned and operated
business, with Wayne’s wife, Kay, handling
the company’s books, and his son, Ty,
working in the field during high school and
college summer vacations.
After graduating from the University
of Idaho, Ty made the decision to join the
family business on a full-time basis. Despite
earning a degree in corporate finance, Ty
started in the field, pile driving and drilling
– and loved every minute of it. Under the
mentorship of his father and the company’s
vice president, the late Guy Banks, Ty took
on more and more responsibility.
“My first superintendent job was in
1984, a shoring project,” said Ty DeWitt.
“My father and Guy just seemed to know
when I was ready to take on additional
duties, from bidding on small to increasingly
larger jobs, to coding the invoices on
projects, to running the work and handling
the trucking. I don’t think my dad estimated
a single job after the late 1980s. Then one
day in the early 1990s, he came to me and
said, ‘Hey, you’re taking care of the cash
flow,’ and so I started doing that as well. In
1997, he announced his retirement, and I
took on the position of company president.
I asked him how he knew I was capable of
taking over him. He said he’d never doubted
All images courtesy of DeWitt Construction
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