When you want to build a building, you need someone who designs the building, someone who can figure out what it is going to cost to build it including the materials and the labor, someone to interface with the government entities to get all the permits and permissions you need, and someone to help you manage all the teams that do the building. Dunlop & Johnston Inc. can do all of those things for a company and has done them for over 100 years! They can help you design the building to be exactly what you want, help you figure out what it will cost to build and how to fit that into your budget, and manage all the sub-contractor. A sub-contractor is a company that works for the main builder, or contractor, and may include all the electricians who put in the electrical systems, plumbers who put in all the water-related systems like sinks and toilets and the pipes that manage the water, masons who lay all the brick and pour all the concrete, carpenters who do all the wood work and framing, roofers who install the roof and waterproofing, HVAC who handle the heating and cooling systems and other trades people working on the building. Handling the construction of a building is no small task and Dunlop & Johnston, Inc. bring the expertise to all their projects.

In 1910, John Dunlop and Frank Johnston, Jr. arrived in Ohio from Scotland. They were both carpenters and started working on projects together. Their expertise and professionalism led to bigger and bigger jobs until they decided to form a company and launched Dunlop & Johnston, Inc. They moved to Valley City in 2005 where they established their headquarters and now have about 20 full time employees.

In our work we either have as much as we can handle, or almost none. There doesn’t seem to be much in between. We do a lot of work on public projects, which means we work with government entities on what they want to build (prisons, schools, government buildings, etc) and the process to get those projects takes time. 

Our customers are almost always in Northeast Ohio and our subcontractors are always in the area of the job. A subcontractor is a company that works for us, rather than the company or government who is paying the bill, to do a specific task or job. It means we can bring in people who are really good at their jobs and we don’t have to know how to do everything. But at the same time, we manage the project so that each subcontractor gets to be onsite and have the time and space they need. 

We follow some of the LEED building standards in every project we have, even if the customer doesn’t require it. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and uses sustainable practices in the design and building process. In the United States, about 40% of landfills are made up of construction waste and we don’t like that so on every job we have a recycling dumpster. We send out to a company who sorts it into different components and recycles everything that can be recycled. It is really important to our company.

Most of our projects are for governmental agencies so we work with the teams that need to get the work done, and the teams that need to be able to share the details with the public. We work hard to make their jobs easier and we have had teams call us when another project comes around and ask us to bid because they enjoyed working with us. Their jobs are challenging and we just want to help them make it better.

We post all our positions on our website and then we get the most candidates through word of mouth. It may be our customers or our partners who refer the person. Over half of our staff has been here over 10 years and over 25% are 15 years. Our last new hire was 4 years ago. 

Why do employees like to work here?

 Our culture – we are different from other construction companies because we are very calm. No one is yelling or getting overly emotional about things. We focus first on the customer and getting the work done to our standard and the money follows. But we aren’t focused on the money so the attitude is different. If you see something that should be done a certain way, you can do it and know it will be praised because that is what is important to us.