The Beginning
Nielsen started J. Nielsen and Co. in 1908 in Round Hill, moving to Leesburg in 1910 and to Harrisonburg in 1917.
In 1924, Nielsen acquired the firm of W.M. Bucher & Son, a prominent builder in the Shenandoah Valley. The company was incorporated and renamed the Nielsen Construction Co. in 1951.
In 1996, Nielsen formed Nielsen Management Group, which merged with Nielsen Construction Co. to form the parent company of Nielsen Builders.
At the start, the founder's main goal was surrounding himself with a "team of craftspersons," said Nielsen Chief Executive Officer John Neff.
That led to another unique quality: Nielsen has its own masonry, carpentry and millwork departments, which in turn means the company has relatively few subcontracting projects.
"We've always prided ourselves that we self-perform work others might subcontract out," Biller said. "We're doing much higher-quality work with the same number of people."
A Team Environment
This year, the company is transitioning into an employee stock ownership plan, an idea that came out of planning sessions with employees, Biller said. Nielsen's work force will own the majority of the company's stock.
The company, which normally has about 200 to 250 employees, has managed to keep its employees on the payroll even when times were tough.
The team atmosphere translates well for clients, too, Biller said: The firm has developed an 87 percent repeat client base, Biller said.
Some of the more prominent repeat customers include James Madison University, Rockingham Memorial Hospital, and primary and secondary schools, including both Harrisonburg and Rockingham County.
"Businesses come back to us because we produce what they want," Neff said. "That's another reason we've been around for 100 years."
The type of projects Nielsen takes on runs the gamut from JMU's $82 million Center for the Performing Arts, to much smaller projects with a price range in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The average cost of a project is between $7 million and $12 million, Neff said.
Nielsen's revenue is close to $185 million this year, Biller said, up $20 million from last year.
"It [goes] up and down, year after year," he said. "The business is cyclical."
Giving Back
Even with those numbers, Nielsen hasn't forgotten its humble beginnings, or the community that has helped get it where it is today, Neff said.
"As we have been blessed to have work and receive the benefits, we share what we have earned, with charities and not-for-profits," Neff said.
Nielsen held a recent golf tournament where it raised $4,000, half of which went to the United Way of Harrisonburg and Rockingham County.
It also plans on establishing a scholarship for employees' children, which should help the firm maintain that team feeling - something that was so important to Joseph Nielsen 100 years ago - through the next few generations.
"We'd love nothing better than to knock off another hundred years," Biller said.
Contact Kate Prahlad at 574-6277 or kprahlad@dnronline.com