Founded in 1919 by Clarence Wike Driver, Pasadena-based C.W. Driver Cos. is one of California’s oldest general contractors.
The company, which has constructed more than 200 million square feet over the course of its lifetime, works on a wide range of assets – including education facilities, civic and cultural centers, churches, office tenant improvements, multifamily housing, senior living, hotels, and more – sticking mainly to its Southern California roots.
“If there’s anything that needs to be built, we’re building it,” said C.W. Driver President Karl Kreutziger, who joined the team in 2011 originally as president of Driver SPG, a division which focuses on specialized new construction, renovation and tenant improvement projects. “We have a very diverse market which keeps us very active in any down market, as you can imagine.”
Though relatively small in its early years, C.W. Driver built a name for itself by spearheading iconic projects such as The Biltmore Los Angeles renovations downtown in 1923, the Wilshire United Methodist Church in Mid-Wilshire in 1926, the Warner Bros. Hollywood Theatre in 1929, the Los Angeles Theatre downtown in 1930 and Loyola Marymount University’s St. Robert’s Hall in 1935.
Between the 1950s and 1990s, the team established a relationship with the California State University school system and began taking on many educational projects – which has since grown to become the firm’s primary line of business.
Over the last five years alone, C.W. Driver has completed 57 school projects – including the CSU Fullerton Visual Arts Campus, UC Santa Barbara Interactive Learning Pavilion, Pomona College Center for Athletics, Recreation and Wellness, Deerfield Elementary School, Oak Creek Elementary School, Whittier Central Library, Brentwood School Saltair West Annex and Parking Garage, Springbook Elementary School and Woodbridge High School Performing Arts Complex.
“I always tell our people that we have a great legacy and reputation, but we have to go out every day and preserve that reputation,” Kreutziger said. “We’re only as good as our last project.”
Staying busy
The company has a large roster of works in progress – including New Malibu High School, College of the Desert in Palm Springs, two new student housing buildings for CSU Northridge, MonteCedro Senior Living Altadena, Irvine High School Performing Arts Complex, Jamul Hotel in Jamul, Rio San Gabriel Elementary School in Downey and Twelve Oaks Senior Living in Glendale.
“I often talk about a company that survives depression, two world wars, a pandemic, five or six down markets – there’s something special about that,” Kreutziger said. “We have really found that the special part of it is our people. That is our biggest asset – the people we hire, the people we train and so it’s our responsibility to make sure that we continue that process in the future.”
“I forget what the odds were of lasting 100 years, but it was very minimal. It’s a small percentage of companies,” he added. “It’s so fragile and it only takes a couple of bad jobs or some bad luck to lose a company like that. We’ve seen it on other construction companies that have stayed up with us but have had an unfortunate event or two that folds the company.”
Lessons learned
Kreutziger recalls a company shift in 2015 when the multifamily market took off and the company experienced dangerously rapid growth – characterized by a 239% jump in revenue in just two years. C.W. Driver had opened a multifamily division in San Jose and quickly onboarded employees in a manner even it couldn’t keep up with, risking the compromise of culture, according to Kreutziger.
Eyeing the possibility of disaster, C.W. Driver ultimately pulled out of the multifamily market – not reintroducing that line of business until nearly three years ago with extreme caution – and promoted Kreutziger to president that same year in an effort to redirect the company’s focus back to its people.
“When we did that, we totally changed the outcome of our projects and the way people felt about working at this company,” Kreutziger said. “And since then, we’ve had a very successful way of keeping people. We have a very low attrition rate and turnover.”
As C.W. Driver enters its 106th year in business, Kreutziger said legacy remains at the core of all it does and is a driving factor in the firm’s continued success. And as development evolves, and technology is expanded within the building sector, including the introduction of things like artificial intelligence, Kreutziger said it’s important to remain on the pulse of these trends to stay relevant.
The company is working to expand out, pushing further into the desert, as well as south into San Diego, while prioritizing maintaining a strong employee base.
“It’s making sure that we have a very clear picture of succession and of our people – how our executives move through our company and fostering the development of clear leaders below us in making sure they understand there is a path and where they fit,” he said. “That is so important to leave kind of no stone unturned in terms of your people knowing where you’re going, and that’s about putting the right people in the place to take it to the next generation moving forward.”
