Alterman Inc. is a legacy contractor in the electrical space, having celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2023. 102 years ago, the business was founded by Nathan Alterman out of San Antonio, Texas, and it has been involved in a lot of work in the city’s downtown core over the ensuing century. These projects have ranged from the River Walk beautification project in the 1930s and the World’s Fair in 1960 to work on various downtown high-rises, offices, and theme parks.
“You name it in San Antonio, and we were on those projects,” President and CEO Greg Padalecki says of the company’s strong links to its community.
Alterman has seen a lot of growth in its time, but particularly within the last decade, thanks to its purchase of an Austin-based contractor around 2015. With offices in both the Dallas-Fort Worth and El Paso areas, the company is larger now than it was for most of its 100 years. Moreover, Alterman was in rare company by actually managing to grow throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, thanks to construction projects involving data centers and wastewater plants. The company was recognized as an essential business during a time when many others had their fortunes changed for the worse and it emerged from a difficult time even stronger thanks to its dedication.
Another fundamental aspect of the Alterman identity is that it has proudly remained a 100 percent employee-owned company for decades. It has been an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) business since the 1980s, which Padalecki says has helped the company retain a “think like an owner” attitude. The company’s safety team, he says, is rallied around an incident- and injury-free workplace based on the value of absolute care for employees, an investment that continues to pay off and is reflected in its ownership status. When a business focuses on caring for its employees, as Padalecki says, the safety statistics end up taking care of themselves, statistics that have never been better for Alterman than they are today.
To go along with its successes thus far this decade, Alterman recently completed a move into a new location in Live Oak, Texas. This new facility represents another major milestone in the company’s history, built to be an eye-catching sight that aims to aid in worker recruitment and retention. Now, the new headquarters has enabled Alterman to remove real estate as a constraint on its operations and to accommodate its recent growth. Padalecki says that the building, designed and constructed by interior design firm Studio8 Architects, represents a step forward for the business as well as a continued partnership between the two firms.
Alterman has maintained a close relationship with Studio8 since the latter firm was contracted to build its new workplace in 2021. Padalecki says that, of the potential contractors, Studio8 was the one to go the extra mile to build something that spoke to the company and was aligned with its culture and people. Alterman moved into its new 20-acre campus last year and has been more than satisfied now that all its operations are under one roof. In the future, the company will likely look to Studio8 again; as Padalecki says, “When we work with vendors and customers… we like to think of them as partners, not customers,” including Studio8.
Alterman has remained very busy into the 2020s, managing to pick up a lot of large and exciting projects in both brand-new locations and throughout the state of Texas. It also hit the 2000-employee mark two years ago. However, as Padalecki says, Texas is an environment wherein there is more work to do than there are people to do it, so once that problem is solved, it can help take the business to the next level.
That said, this team is still very happy to be working in its home state with a varied portfolio of large projects, including jobs for healthcare, K-12 education, manufacturing, and infrastructure clients. Padalecki says that the company is dialed into infrastructure especially, such as power, data, water, and more, as these segments are largely resistant to the effects of economic recession. Alterman has remained an integral part of a great many diverse market segments for nearly its entire life.
Of course, a field as large as electrical contracting is not immune to the issues affecting myriad global industries. Alterman, along with many other businesses in the sector, are still on the lookout for electricians, field supervisors, and project managers, meaning that everyone in the state is vying for a finite amount of talent to draw from. Padalecki says that contractors who stand out in the market as employment destinations are the ones that are winning the struggle because, as a worker, one would go with the business that has the best reputation. Alterman is meeting this challenge head-on: “We focus on being the best place to work if you are an electrician,” says Padalecki. The company’s best-in-class safety program, new tools, and compassionate leadership are what help it stay ahead of the game.
Alterman is also being strategic with its work opportunities, eliminating risks and selecting the projects that best fit the company’s outlook. Its current focus internally is on workforce development and turning its quality workers into leaders at a faster rate. Padalecki says that the workforce shortage in America is persistent across the board, especially as skilled craftspeople retire from the trade and are not being replenished fast enough. Alterman is working on strategies to put tools, materials, and direction in these workers’ hands to maximize production and to further secure a bright future for both the company and the industry writ large.
Padalecki also says that, when it comes to developing new talent, the old models of workplace recruitment and retention will not work today. The key is to be the most productive contractor in the eyes of the modern workforce—a proposition that is challenging but worth it. Over the course of more than 20 years, Padalecki himself managed to rise from apprentice to project manager, director, and finally to president/CEO in 2020. He says that his story is one that shows the potential for workers who want to succeed in the trades, which is a message that companies like Alterman are trying hard to get across as more potential new tradespeople circle the market.
The history of Alterman is one that is tied to that of its hometown of San Antonio, so the company plans to stay focused on its community as it branches out. Padalecki says that Alterman continues to move both geographically and into new vertical markets—in order for an ESOP to be successful and benefit shareholders and employees, he says, it must continue to grow responsibly. This is an approach that has seen the company through a century of success thus far—and which will hopefully see it through another 100 years and beyond.
