(Left to right) Mark Rukamp, Mike Perock, Mark VerHaagh, Todd Parczick, Travis Zimmerman and Bill Bos.

Alliance Construction and Design, Inc. carefully scheduled construction to completely remodel this office conference area for Bonewerks Culinarte in Green Bay, Wisconsin, while avoiding the need for downtime.

More than a designer and a contractor, Alliance Construction & Design, Inc. (Alliance Construction) is a partnership of like minds, focused on single-source accountability. On every project, every individual—from owners to craftsmen—emphasizes and embraces teamwork through a comprehensive design-build delivery system.

It’s that collective approach in the office and in the field, with clients and project partners, that has helped the company become firmly established as a leader in the highly competitive industrial and commercial design-build space—despite its early beginnings in the heart of the recession.

Here’s how, with teamwork and talent, the company has grown in less than a decade from remodeling small homes to designing and constructing multimillion-dollar industrial complexes.

A United Vision

Alliance Construction was founded in 2009 by Wisconsin natives Todd Parczick, a civil engineer, and Tom Perock, a successful local businessman. Mark VerHaagh joined the company as the Architectural Designer and Senior Vice President in charge of operations at the same time. Both Parczick and VerHaagh had worked together for more than a decade for another building company.

Parczick recalls, “We certainly recognized that we were setting ourselves up for a difficult challenge, starting a business in a recession. However, we believed that with our knowledge, work ethic and talented crews, we could deliver as good or better product and services to owners as the older firms.”

They rented a small office in De Pere, Wisconsin, outside Green Bay, and set out to find clients. Parczick and VerHaagh had considerable experience with plans and spec, helping clients determine materials, design requirements, and products and services necessary to get work completed. Travis Zimmerman, another colleague and friend, joined to expand the firm’s construction capabilities. Zimmerman had worked for 25 years in the industry, with 11 of those years as a carpenter in the field and 14 as a project manager.

Building a Presence

In the first two years, the company took on varied projects. Parczick recalls one of the first was a small room remodel for $1,800, and then designing and building a garage addition.

The firm hired Bill Bos, an architectural designer and project manager, and Mike Perock, an accountant, which added another 50+ years of combined construction experience. Not long after, Mark and Rod Rukamp joined as project and sales managers as well.

During that time, the firm won bids on a wide variety of projects, with included the construction of a brand new 1,600-square-foot house for less than $130,000, a stand-alone commercial office complex for Hometown Pharmacy in Rio, Wisconsin, and the renovation of a historic barn in Kewaunee, Wisconsin.

Parczick says, “Our crews—laborers, foremen and superintendents—are the backbone of Alliance. Their excellence really put us on the map.”

Overall, the Alliance Construction team knew that they had put together something special. VerHaagh explains, “Our collective skills, experience and common focus gave us something that few companies boast—the ability to deliver single-sourced accountability on projects of various scopes and scales.”

By 2015, they moved from the rented office space to a 13,000-square-foot building with an 8,000-square-foot shop located on 11 acres in Wrightstown, Wisconsin. The company leaders believe they can design, engineer and build virtually any system with efficiency and affordability because, as the saying goes, they have “skin in the game.”

Skin in the Game

Alliance Construction designs and builds small and large projects, new structures, remodels and renovations, largely using the design-build project delivery method. The firm’s portfolio includes tenant space remodels, major renovations, adaptive reuse of existing structures and construction of new, freestanding buildings, most located in Wisconsin, though the team has traveled to other areas when a client needs them.

“We spend time upfront making sure we can meet—and, ideally, exceed—our clients’ expectations,” says VerHaagh. “We do a lot of leg work to see if a project design makes sense. We determine if a building will fit on a site and the possible impact of codes and zoning requirements. If a project involves converting a building for a new use, we check to see if this is feasible. This is our skin in the game.”

To date, Alliance Construction has completed approximately 240 projects since it was founded in 2009. These projects vary widely in terms of scope and scale. The company might renovate a small space one day and then spend the next week on a large commercial structure. Each project presents a unique array of challenges. For example, the restaurant remodeling projects that Alliance Construction regularly completes for Pizza Hut bring a whole new meaning to the phrase “fast track.”

“We gut and refinish one half of a restaurant while the other half continues operating,” VerHaagh explains. “Then we switch sides to complete the entire remodel within seven days. Our schedule is planned down to the half hour.”

The firm has thus far completed 30 remodels for Pizza Hut throughout the state of Wisconsin and has more underway. It’s also currently working on a new 6,500-square-foot clubhouse expansion and golf simulator space for the Hilly Haven Golf Course in De Pere and the third building for Uncle Mike’s Bake Shoppe, an award-winning bakery business in Green Bay.

The team at Alliance Construction is currently working on their largest project to date, a $3.5 million remodeled warehouse for a repeat customer, U-Haul. The project will repurpose a 65,000-square-foot vacant space that used to be a grocery store into a 112,800-square-foot, two-story climatized storage facility with a showroom/hitch bay area for truck rental operations.

The ownership has also gone through a transition in the last year. In early 2017, Tom Perock sold his shares of the company to Bos, Mike Perock, Mark Rukamp, VerHaagh and Zimmerman as a reward for all they’ve accomplished since inception.

“We’ve got a highly experienced leadership team,” says Parczick, “but we all agree that it’s our craftsmen that really tell the story of our success. We have 38 of the most talented people in the business—and it shows in our ability to build with efficiency and cost-effectiveness, and in the quality of the final product.”

Parczick and the rest of the Alliance Construction team believe that their ability to solve problems through teamwork, talent and communication will continue to drive success in the coming years. Parczick concludes, “Wisconsin is our home. We are committed to delivering the best possible solution in terms of budget, schedule and purpose. Our relationships—whether clients, employees or even the community—are an important part of who we are as a company, as a team, as Alliance.”