Contractor Builds Thriving Business
Ebenal General Couple’s Early Sacrifices Rewarded

by Heidi Henken

 

In less than a decade, Ebenal General, a family owned and operated building contractor, has gone from a business run out of a living room, to being named one of Whatcom County’s top 50 privately owned companies, with annual revenues in the $16 million to $18 million range.

It started in the basement half of David and Bonnie Ebenal’s duplex home. Ebenal General’s Bellingham genesis in 1993 was the Washington state re-incorporation of a company founded by David’s father, Jim Ebenal, in Fairbanks, Alaska, in the mid-1970s. After moving to Whatcom County, the elder Ebenal and his son recreated the company, working as partners before David Ebenal bought his father out.

Those early years were an exercise in delayed gratification. Both David and Bonnie worked other jobs — David on weekends and Bonnie days — so they could put all of Ebenal General’s profits back into the company. At the same time, they rented out the top half of their duplex to pay the mortgage.

How did the Ebenals carve a niche in such a competitive field, especially among better-known, more-established companies? Basically by working “24 hours a day,” David Ebenal says, and by hiring “the very best people we can.”

Ebenal General also bids extensively on public projects. The Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce runs a Web site that tracks contractors around the state, showing who has bid on a project and who gets the award. Among Whatcom County contractors listed, Ebenal General is one of the most active bidders. Putting profits back into the company allowed Ebenal General to increase its bonding, necessary for bidding on public projects.

The strategy has paid off. Ebenal General now has a string of $1 million-plus public projects to its credit, including the Coast Guard Station at Squalicum Harbor, public safety buildings in Burlington and Anacortes, the Skagit Valley Kidney Center in Mount Vernon, the Port of Bellingham’s Squalicum Mall, facilities modification for the La Conner School District, Big Lake Elementary School and the remodel of the Bellingham Albertsons supermarket on Northwest Avenue. The Albertsons project, transforming an existing store into one that looked brand new, was unusual in that “we had to do it at night,” notes Bonnie Ebenal.

 

Working with nonprofits

Currently the company is at work on two fire stations, one for Bellingham and one for Whatcom County. Its work can also be seen in the specially-coordinated construction of two nonprofit organizational projects in Bellingham: the Sean Humphrey House for people suffering from AIDS and, more recently, a new Boys and Girls Club that opened last May on Kentucky Street.

Wayne Weed, Ebenal’s general project manager, was project manager for the Boys and Girls Club. “It was a fun project” for the company, he says, “because we went in and got the project as a low bid, but afterward, when we were telling a lot of the subcontractors about the project, they would even give us a better credit to pass along to the Boys and Girls Club. So we were able to save them considerably.”

For both nonprofit projects, Ebenal General worked with partial donations of labor and materials. The Boys and Girls Club was a $2.86 million project, $400,000 of which was in-kind contributions, says Lynn Templeton, executive director of Boys and Girls Clubs of Whatcom County. That included between 40 to 50 volunteer contributors who donated “everything from asphalt to wallboard, to two-by-fours to clearing and grading,” Templeton explains. Ebenal General had to coordinate all of the volunteers.

David Ebenal, Weed and project superintendent Tom Luther were key to the project’s success, Templeton believes. “Those three people worked for months in organizing what was a fairly complex schedule of contributions,” he explains.

Since the new facility opened May 3, 2001, the club has had 3,000 children join. Weed, whose longtime volunteer support of Boys and Girls Clubs includes coaching basketball for the organization, was appointed to the executive board after his work on the building project.

The Coast Guard station is another project wthat particularly stands out for the Ebenals. “I enjoyed that one,” says David Ebenal. “It was a neat project. The Coast Guard was a first-class, professional outfit to work for.”

An unusual aspect of the Coast Guard project was a process called “partnering,” which required that principals from the Coast Guard and the builders begin by sitting down with a consultant to meet face to face and discuss their feelings about the upcoming construction.

“It really opened up the communication,” says Bonnie Ebenal. “Those meetings in the very beginning came back to help us throughout the whole project, because you knew these people personally now.”

“It’s basically a program of working together better,” explains her husband, enthusiastic about the process they experienced. “It creates a more positive atmosphere for the job.”

 

Change in direction

All this comes from a man who never thought he’d end up in the construction business. David Ebenal, who majored in accounting and history at the University of Washington, was the kind of student who loved college so much he went year-round, including summers, and amassed some 300 credits. It gave him a broad educational base, but he admits he had a hard time finding his focus.

His “whole family” was in construction, and “I told myself I’d never be in it,” he laughs.

But, “He couldn’t help himself,” his wife adds, laughing as well.

Now, says David Ebenal, “I like what I do.”

Ebenal General truly is a “whole-family” business. Core employees all have some relation to the Ebenal family. The office staff includes David’s mother Cay, his uncle, also named David Ebenal and called “Uncle Dave” around the office to eliminate confusion, and “Uncle Dave’s” daughter Robin. Weed is married to another member of the Ebenal clan.

Ebenal General may have moved up from the family living room to a spacious steel building on Pacific Highway — quarters more consistent with a multi-million-dollar enterprise — but it still has that family-centered atmosphere. Upstairs, staff members’ children, including the owners’ 3-year-old son, play under supervision in a company child-care room. Downstairs, it’s not unusual to encounter a family dog or two somewhere in the offices.

What’s Ebenal’s business philosophy? “We’re just trying to do quality construction at an affordable price,” says David Ebenal