The McAlvain family and business have profoundly influenced Idaho’s built environment. Turn a corner in Treasure Valley or look down any street in Boise—the entirety of Front Street, practically—and you’re liable to see something McAlvain Companies, Inc., a Big-D Company, has built. 

Today, a $330 million group of companies providing construction management, design/build, general contracting, and concrete services—with roughly 350 employees led by Torry McAlvain, Junior (a third-generation family member as President and CEO), McAlvain is a far cry from the small family business it started out as.

From Humble Beginnings

McAlvain Construction was founded in 1980 by a husband and wife, Doug and Serena McAlvain, in Boise, where they built a solid reputation of honesty, integrity, completing quality work on time, and treating clients and employees right.

One of McAlvain’s early field hires in 1986 was Jack Shalz (retired in 2010), who said that at one of his first projects at Micron, “Doug wanted to know if anyone had experience working on bridges or overpasses. [My supervisor] told him I did from my prior job, so that’s when I became a superintendent.” Shalz oversaw the Cole Overland Overpass (his personal favorite), Black’s Creek Rest Area on I-84, and the Flying Wye Bridge—a difficult and complicated job that received national recognition. 

Another key early hire in 1990 was Bret Gibleau—one of a handful of current employees who worked for all three McAlvains (the self-proclaimed OGs). Wearing many hats over 35 years (today, equipment manager), Gibleau said, “We’ve done some important jobs, such as the Capitol Street Bridge, Grove Hotel and Bank of America Centre (now Idaho Central Arena), Ada County Courthouse, and Idaho Water Center.”

Senior Superintendent Brian Murphy, who has been with the company since 1991, said, “McAlvain never did the same thing twice. I would build a Carl’s Jr., a prison, Roaring Springs, a Lowe’s, a bank, then a bridge. We were very versatile in that we could build anything.”

Tammie Newman, director of preconstruction commercial, a McAlvain OG employee since 1997, said, “The McAlvain family was never afraid of a challenge or to take on something they’d never done, like pouring the concrete for the ice hockey rink. They just figured out a plan.”

Senior and Junior Grow the Business

In 2004, Doug and Serena’s son, Torry McAlvain, Senior, took over the family company with a different vision. He wanted to run the business his way, taking it to new heights. Senior brought on Chuck Graves to oversee operations, and the company dove headfirst into the design/build project delivery method in May 2005 with the Caven-Williams Sports Complex for Boise State. 

“We designed and built the 100,000-square-foot indoor practice facility in seven months,” Graves said. “Nothing had ever been done that fast in this valley. It raised the bar of what could be achieved and opened everyone’s eyes to what McAlvain can do.”

In 2019, Big-D acquired the successful family company, with control staying within the walls of McAlvain. As part of the buyout, Senior agreed to stay on for a few years, but he and Graves had already begun grooming Junior to take the helm. After graduating Boise State in 2012, Junior spent roughly nine years learning the McAlvain ropes in accounts payable, estimating, project management, and operations, before rolling into a leadership position, officially becoming president in May 2023.

Just like his father, Junior wanted to do it his way. “I had the DNA and principles my dad and grandparents all had, but how I was going to do it would be completely different,” he said. 

Junior is proud of the leadership team he built, which includes Vice President Tyler Resnick, who joined in 2009 as project engineer. 

“Junior and I are focused on ensuring we uphold the foundational values Doug and Senior established in this organization,” Resnick said. “We believe strongly in those values today, and we’ll carry them with us all the way through.”

To become a $600 million company by 2030, the leadership team is strategically focused on company culture—only hiring people who want to be ‘LIONS’ [Leadership, Integrity, Ownership, and Never Quit]—a direction the OGs fully support. “Junior and his team are doing a great job of getting the next generation in,” said Newman.