Friede Construction: A Trusted Name for Generations
This article originally appeared in the 2020 Annual Awards edition of Corporate America Today. The publication is at the forefront of all matters corporate, reaching professionals and board level decision-makers, dealmakers, game-changers, and all those actively working in the U.S. business market. Winners were carefully chosen from the world’s elite providers of professional services—the innovators and disruptors of the status quo who offer their clients the highest possible levels of service and expertise, above and beyond industry standards.
Kalahari Resort Convention Center
The 112,000-square-foot addition—which includes a new 52,000-square-foot ballroom and 10 additional meeting rooms—brings Kalahari’s Convention Center total to 212,000 square feet, making it the largest private convention center in the state and one of the largest in the Midwest.
If the second half of 2020 turns out to be half as exciting and crazy as the first six months for Friede & Associates—a commercial general contractor serving the southern half of Wisconsin—then this year will be remembered for much more than just their 75th anniversary.
The Reedsburg, Wisconsin-based firm began the year by collecting seven Associated Builders & Contractors of Wisconsin Projects of Distinction Awards for projects completed in 2019 that ranged from a 1,500-square-foot church addition to a 125,000-square-foot Convention Center addition at Kalahari Resorts & Waterpark. That was followed by the Friede Team receiving two Metallic Building Company Design Awards—one for Oakstone Recreational, a 14,000-square-foot volleyball facility and restaurant; and a second for RG Heating, a 15,000-square-foot service center that features alternating colored insulated metal panels on its exterior. These awards continued to enhance Friede & Associates’ reputation as one of the most awarded contractors in Wisconsin; with the firm receiving state and national recognition for more than 25 of their completed projects in just the last three years and nearly 40 since 2015.
A lot has changed since these Friede Brothers employees installed this concrete slab and foundations in the 1960s.
After all these years, Friede crews still self-perform concrete work.
Friede & Associates, our Corporate America Today Contractor of the Year for Wisconsin, USA, is also celebrating its 75th year in business this year. Much has changed for this fourth generation family-owned firm, which traces its history back to the original William A. Friede and Sons Construction, a company that began building homes about 1900. For more than forty years, the company focused on residential construction before shutting down during World War II. Following the ending of the war in 1945, the “Sons” re-opened the firm with a new focus on commercial construction and with a new name, Friede Brothers Construction. After more than 50 years of operating as a growing, local commercial contracting company, and with all the “Brothers” retired, Roger Friede, Jr., now the fifth Friede to run the company, changed the name to Friede & Associates in 1998.
And just as with the last name change, the new company also changed its focus to become more of a regional construction firm. To accomplish this growth, Roger added a new partner in Scott Truehl, a former economic development specialist for a regional electric utility. Friede and Truehl quickly moved the firm away from the traditional bid and spec projects that had been their mainstay for generations, to delivering their projects using the design-build method where they could bring their years of experience to their projects from concept-to-completion.
Over the last 20 years, Friede & Associates has developed into a firm that can help their clients with every aspect of the construction process; from finding land, to sourcing financing, to municipal approvals; to building design and construction, and to even negotiating public incentives for their projects and helping their clients purchase office furniture.
With both carpentry and concrete crews still a part of their business, the 45-person firm has completed projects in nearly every industry, and with virtually every type of construction, including tilt-up. But today the firm is best known for its work in the neighboring community of Wisconsin Dells/Lake Delton.
Sundara Inn & Spa - New Woodland Suites
The Friede Team worked with Sundara Inn & Spa at The Wilderness Resort and design partner General Engineering Company to develop two four-unit buildings, along with an 80-foot elevated connector and a 1,200-square-foot quiet room that are situated behind the main spa complex.
Over the last 20 years “The Dells” as it is known, has developed into the state of Wisconsin’s top tourist region. The growth of the “Waterpark Capital of the World” has provided Friede with the opportunity to become one of the contractors of choice for the major hospitality developments in the area, including Chula Vista Resort, Great Wolf Lodge, Kalahari Resort & Waterpark, and the Wilderness Hotel & Golf Resort. Along the way, the wide variety of their projects in both The Dells and across the southern two-thirds of the State of Wisconsin has also brought with them a new, well-earned and trademarked corporate tagline of “We Do Weird Well!”
So, no matter what the second half of 2020 brings, you can bet that the Friede & Associates team will be out there creatively solving the construction needs of both the clients they’ve developed and served over the last 75 years and those of the new ones yet to come. Congratulations on your anniversary and for being named Corporate American Today’s Contractor of the Year in Wisconsin!
