Dominion Mechanical Contractors Inc.

In 2002, Will McAteer founded Dominion Mechanical Contractors Inc. (DMC), a growing business dedicated to high quality performance in the commercial sector. Offering diverse specialty services, the company has grown steadily for the last 12 years, performing plumbing, mechanical construction, equipment replacement, retrofitting and maintenance work for a growing customer base. The company has added teams dedicated to budgeting and design-build, as well as a successful service division. McAteer continues to lead the operation as president, alongside Bruce Thomas, vice president of DMC.

With a combined experience of several decades between the managerial staff, the company has a strong backbone. “I’ve worked in this industry for more than 30 years,” Thomas notes. “Our staff of around 250 has experience that aligns with ours. Our team is very dedicated, whether in the field or in the office.”

Based in Springfield, Va., DMC has established connections throughout Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Maryland. The crew has completed large and challenging projects across the region, working with general contractors, as well as private owners. The company’s diverse capabilities and proven professionalism has brought DMC into hospitals, data centers, office buildings and other locations where performance, efficiency and integrity are critical to a project’s success. The company’s commitment to staff education has led to the popular weekly ‘Lunch and Learn’ series at the offices, which is well attended by area vendors.

A growing portfolio

“We do a lot of health care, mission-critical and renovation work,” explains Thomas. “We are doing more specialized plumbing and mechanical. We also have a full complementing service department. Our tenant improvement and special projects division focuses on smaller projects, ranging up to $500,000.”

Over the years, the company’s experience has helped to increase the team’s bonding capacity. Where the business only a few years ago was limited financially, the team is now turning over jobs netting as much as $30 million.

More important than volume and revenue, the business has been maintaining a consistent quality of work. With a large staff of union tradespeople and laborers, DMC has produced award-winning work, lauded for high standards of craftsmanship. One of the company’s recent projects, the Prince William Hospital in Haymarket, Va., achieved the 2014 Washington Building Congress Craftsmanship Award for HVAC piping.

Completed in 2013, the hospital is owned by Novant Health. DMC worked closely with the general contractor, Brasfield & Gorrie LLC, as well as architects and engineers to provide diverse mechanical and plumbing solutions for the facility. Scope of work covered approximately 221,000 square feet in four stories, as well as a new central energy plant.

Other major projects include several local health care facilities across the region, including INOVA Fairfax Hospital, HCA’s Reston Hospital Center and MedStar Washington Hospital Center Heart Institute, to name a few.

A current project that is outside of the health care market is Intelsat, a beautiful high-rise office building that sits proudly in view of The Capital Beltway in Tysons Corner, Va., which is just a small sampling of DMC’s ability to serve general contractors and owners, in varied areas of commercial construction.

“Not every mechanical subcontractor has the capabilities to do this kind of specialized work,” Thomas notes. “These are our most challenging projects and our ability to complete them properly, efficiently and on schedule is what sets us apart from competitors.”

Thriving in a changing market

DMC has been busy over the last several years, despite the challenges presented by the recent economic downturn. “Our biggest challenge was the competition,” Thomas explains. “There were many companies entering the market without the capabilities to perform this kind of work. That drove the pricing down, but now those companies are not around.”

The company’s high standards of performance have guaranteed the team a leading edge over other contractors. Union labor ensures quality work while providing steady employment for workers. “The more we grow, the more men we need in the field,” Thomas adds. “As a union shop, we continue to add high-quality labor to our manpower.”

Thomas and his team are increasingly proud of DMC’s progress as a business. The company has become an established brand in the region, with a name associated with hard work and integrity. “We are certainly a profit-driven company,” he elaborates. “The true measure of our performance, however, is if we get repeat business on a campus or with the general contractors we are working for. The mark of a project well done for us is a letter of recognition.”

Strong support from strategic partners, combined with regional economic improvement, sets the perfect stage for DMC’s continued growth. “I’m glad we are in the D.C. metro area,” Thomas says. “What we see here is a strong economy getting stronger. There is a lot of work in our area and we have opportunities that will help us expand as a business.”

As work picks up, the team is growing, too. DMC continues to attract top-shelf project managers who will help the business maintain reasonable and sustainable growth. DMC is also active in the construction charity community participating in, and sponsoring, events throughout the region that benefit local and national charities. Thomas is looking forward to working with familiar contractors and new partners on increasingly larger projects. Dominion Mechanical Contractors Inc. is on a roll, offering reliable, high-quality mechanical services to a growing market.