Douglass Colony's other health care jobs include installing stainless steel metal and aluminum screen panels at The Children's Hospital Colorado and putting on a roof at Castle Rock Adventist Hospital.

Douglass Colony regularly lands jobs at Denver International Airport, one of the world's busiest, and is currently working on the long-awaited DIA Westin terminal hotel as well as hangars for United and Frontier airlines. "We did the vast majority of work on the original airport roofs, though not the Teflon ones," says Bechtholdt. "We've also replaced lots of roofs because of hail damage and wear." The airport's Teflon roofs include the signature white, Teflon-coated fiberglass roof over the main terminal that resembles mountain peaks.

The firm's business strategy now includes ensuring that Douglass Colony offers the competitive pay and benefits necessary to attract skilled workers.

The company is also focused on technology in order to satisfy owners' demands for precision work, but also to help ease labor demands. Douglass Colony went paperless years ago. All of its foremen use smartphones with apps for time management and documentation. All project superintendents carry iPads. The company assigns project managers with extensive experience to oversee all jobs to further ensure quality.

"People used to look at construction and think if you knew hammer and nails, that was enough," Bechtholdt says. "Now everything is so technically precise; standards are much higher. The future is for those contractors who think outside the box."

The Project of a Lifetime

Douglass Colony calls the work it did on the $17-million restoration of the 120-year-old Colorado State Capitol dome the “project of a lifetime.”

“Douglass Colony was brought onto the project as the most resourceful local company and the most responsible,” says Gary Constant, vice president with project general contractor GH Phipps.

The roofing contractor’s crews worked for three years 250 ft above the ground to fix or replace components—from copper panels under gold leaf and copper trim to ornamental metal pieces—in preparation for the dome’s regilding, which was done to commemorate the state’s mining history.

Douglass Colony workers were perched on a plastic-skinned scaffold that sometimes swayed so badly in high winds that they had to leave it temporarily. They also worked during heavy winter snows. Although the dome had been regilded in the past, it had never before been renovated completely. Each of the hundreds of pieces that Douglass Colony removed had to be replaced in exactly the same position.

Pieces that were so deteriorated they couldn’t be restored had to be recreated, and for that Douglass Colony brought in Hungarian-born historic roofing craftsman Erno Ovari, who lives in Utah. He trained the workers in old-world roofing techniques and acted as the contractor’s design consultant.

“Some of the restoration was really severe, requiring making some pieces,” says Douglass Colony’s Steve Bechtholdt. “Erno worked hand in hand with us on the job.”

The dome reopened to the public in October.