Company History / Timeline

December 9, 1946	Baldwin Contracting Company, Inc was incorporated in 1946 under the name Marin Corporation. There were two partners and total capitalization was forty thousand dollars in common stock. Stuart Rose was a Sausalito architect specializing in housing. David R. Straub had been Assistant to the President of Dravo Corporation, a large industrial concern in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Their plan was to design, build and sell houses in Sausalito, California. Several units were built and sold although this was not a great success financially. William H. Baldwin with a sales background with the United States Steel Company then joined the company as an equal stockholder. About this time Chester C. Baldwin also joined the firm as a minor stockholder.
September 3, 1947	Stuart Rose resigned and the name was changed from Marin Corporation to Baldwin-Straub. The company office was moved from Sausalito to San Rafael, California. The new plan was to bid and build industrial construction and public works.
March 21, 1952	William Baldwin and David Straub could not agree on the conduct of the business. Since they both held equal amounts of common stock, Chester C. Baldwin held the swing votes as a minor stockholder. Then the situation reached an impasse, Chester Baldwin purchased the stock of David Straub and he left the company. The company’s name was changed from Baldwin-Straub Corporation to Baldwin Contracting Company, Inc. William H. Baldwin, President and Chester C. Baldwin as Vice President.
November 23, 1954	William Baldwin negotiated the purchase of Rice Brothers in Marysville, California, a highway contractor with an aggregate plant, an asphalt plant and a ready-mix operation. Included in this purchase were large aggregate reserves in the Yuba Gold Fields at Hallwood. Today, Hallwood is still Baldwin’s largest aggregate and asphalt producer. This reserve is still used today for raw material. To finance the purchase, five hundred thousand dollars was obtained from William S. Towne of San Francisco in exchange for common and preferred stock. This placed William Towne, President of M&T Inc of San Francisco in control of Baldwin Contracting Company, Inc. He chose to stay in the background except for major financial and personnel decisions. Since Rice Brothers was an operating company, in addition to physical assets, we also obtained their construction personnel.
1954	A new main office was built in Marysville and the San Rafael office was closed. William Baldwin continued as President and Chester Baldwin was Vice President and General Manager. Baldwin operated with two divisions. The construction division did building, engineering and underground construction and the commercial division handled highway construction and operation of the aggregate plant, asphalt plant and ready-mix facility.
1954-74	Construction Division did many jobs at Aero Jet General, in Sacramento. Most of these jobs were for construction of rocket test stands, both liquid and solid fuel. Construction Division built eleven of the first thirteen test stands.
1958	Construction Division built a shell for future construction of buildings at the California State Prison at Vacaville.
1959	Construction Division built the Library plus several other smaller buildings at the University of California at Davis.
1960-61	Construction Division built the hangers for the Lemoore Naval Air Station in Lemoore, Ca. During this time they also built the Armstrong Tire and Rubber Company at Hanford, CA. This project had 43 acres under roof.
1962	William Baldwin resigned from the company and Mr. Towne became President, although he remained in San Francisco and was not involved in the daily operations. David Humphrey was appointed Assistant to the President and Manager of the Commercial Division.
December 27, 1962	Baldwin Contracting Company, Inc. purchased Butte Creek Rock Company in Chico, California. This firm was a highway contractor with an aggregate plant, an asphalt plant and a ready-mix operation.
1962-1963	The Commercial Division was poorly managed and became involved in several costly jobs. A serious financial loss was the result.
February 1964	Mr. Towne sent Malcolm Jayred, a member of his M&T staff, to Marysville to assist in financial and personal matters and to be a liaison between Baldwin and Mr. Towne.
1965	All Baldwin Contracting Company, Inc. stock was exchanged for stock in M&T, which made M&T the owner of Baldwin Contracting, and Baldwin stockholders, became stockholders in M&T.
1968	Construction Division built the Performing Arts Center at Chico State University; a hospital at Mather Air force Base in Sacramento; and the Consumnes River Junior College.
1969	William H. Baldwin, one of the original founders of the company died.
1968-70	Construction Division built the buildings for the new CalExpo facility, home of the California State fair. They also built the original buildings at the Sacramento International Airport.
September 14, 1973	Baldwin purchased an additional 73 acres next to the Pentz Plant.
October 10, 1973	Baldwin Contracting Company, Inc. purchased property from Stanley Clausen at Pentz off Wheelock Road.
October 10, 1973	Baldwin Contracting Company, Inc. purchased additional property at Pentz from Lloyd Wheelock.
September 13, 1976	Baldwin Contracting Company, Inc. purchased Kaiser Industries Corporation’s interest in all leases, contracts, commitments and all property regarding the Baker Brothers. Baldwin also purchased their Ready-mix Concrete Business located at Stony Creek. This purchase included crushing and washing equipment as well as an asphalt plant. This served the needs of Baldwin until 2000, when the reserves were nearly depleted and very expensive to extract.
January 18, 1977	Baldwin Contracting Company, Inc. purchased Hydro Conduit’s property located at Stony Creek.
February 3, 1977	Baldwin Contracting Company, Inc. purchased additional property located at the Pentz Plant from Jones & Lenhoff.
July 1, 1977	Baldwin Contracting Company, Inc. purchased the 28 acres they had been excavating materials from during their lease from Kimberly Clark in Chester.
July 5, 1977	Baldwin Contracting Company, Inc. signed a lease agreement with Plumas County to lease one acre next to the property that we purchased from Kimberly Clark to set up our portable hot plant.
1978	Baldwin closed the plant operation that was purchased from Butte Creek Rock, on the Skyway in Chico and moved all plant related operations to the Stony Creek site purchased from Kaiser.
October 24, 1978	Baldwin Contracting Company Inc., purchased Duncan-Mills property located next to the Stony Creek Plant.
April 6, 1981	Baldwin Contracting Company, Inc. purchased additional property from the Duncan’s located next to our Stony Creek plant.
1982	Harry Werner was elected President. Harry was originally with Rice Brothers and joined Baldwin Contracting Company, Inc. when it purchased Rice Brothers.
1982	After thirty-five years with the company and eighteen years as President, Chester Baldwin retired to become Chairman of the Board.
1985	The New York and San Francisco firm of Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts and Company purchased M&T Inc. in a friendly takeover. All stockholders of M&T Inc. received cash for their holdings. This takeover did not result in any change to the company operations and things continued as before at the Marysville and Chico offices.
December 15, 1985	Chester Baldwin retired from the Board of Directors.
December 31, 1985	Harry Werner retired as President, and Dallas Lewis was elected President. The company then dropped the Construction Division, which had become less profitable and concentrated the company’s effort on highway construction and the product of highway construction materials.
1988	KKR sold their interest in Baldwin Contracting Company, Inc. to PacTrust from Portland, Oregon. We now had a new parent company, and there were no changes in the operations of the Marysville or Chico offices.
January 1, 1989	Dallas Lewis became Chairman of the Board and James Gaumer was elected President. René A. Vercruyssen became Vice President.
July 1, 1989	Dallas Lewis retired as Chairman of the Board of Baldwin Contracting Company, Inc. René A. Vercruyssen became Executive Vice President.
June 6, 1989	Baldwin Contracting Company, Inc. purchased additional property next to the Pentz plant from Weeks.
1995	Baldwin started a recycle crushing operation in Chico at the Skyway location. At this time this yard started to be a yard for distribution of products manufactured at Orland and Pentz.
April 22, 1996	Knife River purchased Baldwin Contracting Company, Inc. from Pacific Realty Associates.
April 22, 1996	Wayne R. Dutra was elected Vice President of Baldwin Contracting Company, Inc.
February 14, 1997	Baldwin Contracting Company, Inc. purchased W. Jaxon Baker’s aggregate and asphalt concrete plant located at Orland, California. In 2000 this plant became the main supplier of aggregate and asphalt for Baldwin in the Chico area.
May 6, 1998	Baldwin Contracting Company, Inc. purchased Lincoln Asphalt Plant located in Lincoln, California from W. Jaxon Baker. The aggregate needs for this plant are furnished by the Hallwood plant, which was originally purchased from Rice Brothers in 1954.
January 1, 1999	James Gaumer was elected Vice Chairman and René A. Vercruyssen was elected President of Baldwin Contracting Company, Inc.
August 1, 1999	René J. Vercruyssen was elected Vice President of Operations for Baldwin Contracting Company, Inc.
December 31, 2000	After twenty-one years with the company; ten years as President and one year as Vice Chairman, James Gaumer retires.
April 19, 2001	Wayne R. Dutra was elected Executive Vice President for Baldwin Contracting Company, Inc.
March 31, 2002	Baldwin Contracting Company, Inc. and Porter Properties finalized a property exchange. A five-acre parcel with a new office, shop and yard located at 4509 Skyway Drive, Marysville, California was transferred to Baldwin in exchange for property owned on 6^th, 7^th, 8^th, and 9^th Streets in Marysville by Baldwin Contracting Company, Inc.
November 26, 2002	Baldwin Contracting Company, Inc. bought Hunt East in Glenn County, adjacent to the Orland plant site, for additional reserves.
2003	Baldwin moved the asphalt plant from the closed Stony Creek operation, to the Skyway location in Chico, to better service the growing Chico market.
2004	Baldwin Contracting Company, Inc sold its remaining interest in the Stony Creek property on Hwy 32 East of Orland to the Baker Family Trust to focus its North area construction materials operations at the Orland Plant on I-5 North of Orland. Also in this year, Baldwin Contracting Company, Inc. significantly increased its volumes at the Pentz plant, off Hwy 70 North of Oroville, through its affiliation with BCJ Sand Depot.
January 2, 2004	René A. Vercruyssen stepped down as President of Baldwin Contracting and Wayne R. Dutra became President. René J. Vercruyssen became Executive Vice President.