Ed A. Wilson, Inc. was founded by Fort Worth native Ed A. Wilson, Sr. Mr. Wilson entered the home construction business in the 1940s. In 1956, Mr. Wilson incorporated his business as Fine Homes, Inc. As the focus of the business shifted to commercial construction Ed A. Wilson, Inc. General Contractors was formed. Mr. Wilson was soon joined in the business by his two sons, Ed, Jr. and Jerry, who are the current majority owners of the firm. Ed, Jr., who received his BS in Architectural Engineering from Texas A & M and an MBA from TCU, became President of EAW, Inc. in 1962. Jerry, who received an Architectural Engineering degree from the University of Texas at Austin, joined the firm as Vice President in 1967. Between the Wilson brothers and minority owner Mel Burdorf, the principals represent more than one hundred years of general contracting expertise.

Any business that has survived and thrived for five decades can look back at a legacy of hard work and having done many things well. EAW, Inc. is no exception. Three significant traits characterize Ed A. Wilson, Inc.’s fifty years in business: reliability, resilience, and resourcefulness.

Reliability
Perhaps more than any other trait, our firm’s reliability for providing quality construction services at a fair price has given us the opportunity to complete hundreds of projects for our public and private clients. We are privileged to have done repeat work for many of these clients over the years, including more than twenty years for the General Services Administration, DFW Airport, and the USPS. Reliability is also reflected in the longevity of our staff. In addition to the Principals, the Division Managers, General Superintendent, Superintendents, and many of our office and field personnel have been with the firm for more than ten years.

When an emergency arises that requires immediate response, owners will call upon their most reliable contractors. Within a week of the landfall of Hurricane Katrina last year, we had crews in southern Louisiana coordinating the construction of temporary postal facilities in a perimeter around New Orleans. When the Ringgold (Texas) Post Office was destroyed by fire in early 2006, the USPS awarded our firm an emergency contract to replace this facility. We have also completed emergency contracts for the cities of Grand Prairie, Kennedale, and Saginaw, Texas.

Resilience
Over a fifty-year period, any business will face many challenges. We are proud of our ability to adapt to changing economic conditions, legal requirements, technology, and market conditions. As a result, the main thrust of our business has gradually evolved over the years. From constructing custom homes in the 1960s to becoming a commercial building contractor in the local construction market in the 1970s and 1980s, Ed A. Wilson, Inc. now concentrates on two specific sectors of commercial construction. The Federal Division focuses on remodeling and renovation projects for federal agencies across Texas and the adjoining states. In order to accomplish this they have opened satellite offices in Austin, San Antonio, and Houston.

Borne out of our extensive experience in the area of concrete sitework, the firm started a branch of the company specializing in civil construction. As a result, the Civil Division was created in 1994. The goal was to address two primary aspects of concrete sitework construction. The first was to perform new paving and sitework projects in the continually expanding Metroplex economy. The second was to address the growing need for repairing and maintaining concrete streets, drainage structures, bridges, etc. The aging of our public infrastructure has been well documented by the American Society of Civil Engineers and others. In response to this increasing need, the Civil Division also specializes in concrete rehabilitation projects, such as full depth concrete repair.

Several visible examples of our resilience can be seen in downtown Fort Worth and are as prominent today as when they were installed in the 1980s. These include the exterior renovation of the Tarrant County Courthouse, the brick streetscapes on Main and Throckmorton, and the inlaid granite star at the intersection of Main and 9th Streets.

Resourcefulness
We are proud of the hundreds of ‘routine’ construction projects that we have completed over the last fifty years. In addition, Ed A. Wilson, Inc. has a resourcefulness that is reflected by many projects requiring specialized technical or managerial expertise. Examples include drilling seismic test holes for the USAF at a remote west Texas facility, building a telescoping radar test building at General Dynamics, constructing a whooping crane tower in a remote location in the Aransas Natural Wildlife Refuge, the technical concrete foundation for the General Dynamics Anechoic Chamber, and refurbishing the exterior of the Tarrant County Civil Courts Building as a façade for muralist Richard Haas.

As we complete the first half century of Ed A. Wilson, Inc., we look forward to new challenges and opportunities to build upon in the future.