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Rudolph and Sletten from the Ground UpAs with any good Silicon Valley start-up, Rudolph and Sletten started in the family garage. In 1959, Onslow H. "Rudy" Rudolph formed a small contracting company, O.H. Rudolph, General Contractor, based out of his garage in Los Altos, California. Starting with just a small amount of savings, a pickup truck and two employees, Rudy quickly built a business that became known for its ability to deliver the highest quality work, on schedule and within budget.
Ken and Rudy Join ForcesIn 1962, Kenneth G. Sletten joined the business as partner, and the company was renamed Rudolph and Sletten, Inc., General and Engineering Contractors. Over the years, the company grew and its reputation for excellence grew with it. The Rudolph and Sletten name became a guarantee of honest estimates, innovative schedules and an ethical way of doing business. Rudy came to California from Pittsburgh to attend San Jose State University. The son of a long line of builders, he learned the trade from his father and sharpened his skills in college. Ken Sletten first became involved in construction while attending high school in the Midwest. During summers he worked on construction jobs in Montana and Wyoming.  Inventing New Ways for Silicon Valley to Grow Faster
Together they invented a unique process that Rudy and Ken termed GMP, or Guaranteed Maximum Pricing. GMP facilitated fast-track construction and cut out the long and costly bidding process that was not conducive to Silicon Valley's burgeoning high-tech industry. This process allowed growing high-tech companies to cut the design-and-build cycle in half. “At that time the Valley consisted of mainly missile-space work, fruit canning plants and IBM typewriter factories,” remembers Rudy. “One of our first clients was Shirley Temple Black.” The child star turned ambassador needed a pool house. “Mrs. Black requested that the structure be painted bright blue,” Rudy continues, “and the Rudolph and Sletten trucks bare the identical shade, a reminder of our roots.” From pool houses to pools for whales, the company has been involved in unique, one-of-a-kind projects such as the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine at Stanford, and the George Lucas Postproduction Facility in Novato, California. Setting new Building StandardsThe goal of the company's founders was to build a quality-oriented construction organization. “It doesn't cost any more to build it right the first time,” was the company's motto. From the start they hired only the best people provided them with the best possible training and maintained the highest standards for every project.  The founders also realized that to maintain these high standards they were going to have to manage their own work. They knew that the early stages of a construction project—the structural excavation and the concrete and formwork—were what really controlled the project's schedule and in turn its overall quality. Thus Rudolph and Sletten became a construction manger/general contractor: a contractor who controls a construction project from the ground up. Only in this way could the company deliver its clients the best possible product with the highest quality workmanship, on budget and on time.
Due to the company's location in Silicon Valley, it follows that its growth paralleled that of the Valley. Rudolph and Sletten has grown from a small business to a vital corporation. After nearly 50 years, the company's corporate culture still clearly reflects the value it places on personal relationships. As a matter of fact, many of the company's current employees are second and third generation employees. Rudolph and Sletten is known for being innovative in its approach to building and for being ethical in its business dealings. Over 95% of its business is from repeat clients, a figure that is outstanding in the industry. In 2005, Rudolph and Sletten was acquired by Tutor Perini Corporation (NYSE:TPC), one of the country's largest construction services companies. The acquisition expanded Tutor Perini's geographic reach on the West Coast. In turn, being a wholly owned independent subsidiary of Tutor Perini Corporation brought Rudolph and Sletten the financial backing of an industry giant and the ability to take on larger projects and capitalize on Tutor Perini's reputation as a powerhouse builder in the hospitality and entertainment industries.  Building a Greener West CoastToday Rudolph and Sletten is one of the largest and greenest builders on the West Coast. With 38% of their staff already LEED Accredited, Rudolph and Sletten has the highest percentage of LEED APs in the country, but they're not stopping there. They have set a goal to have 100% of their managers LEED Accredited by 2012. The company practices what they preach; their own corporate headquarters in Redwood City is LEED Certified Gold, and its Los Angeles/Orange County office has a solar photovoltaic system on the roof, cutting conventional electricity usage by 25%. Nearly Five Decades of Building Innovation1960—1969Fairchild Semiconductor, Mountain View, CA
Alhouse-Sunnyvale, Sunnyvale, CA
Lockheed Missiles & Space Company, Sunnyvale, CA
All Saints Episcopal Church, Palo Alto, CA
Ferrari, Gray and Associates, Mountain View, CA
Memorex Corporation, Santa Clara, CA
ALZA Corporation, Palo Alto, CA
Burke Rubber Company, San Jose, CA 1970—1979National Semiconductor Corporation, Santa Clara, CA
Cutter Laboratories, Berkeley, CA
Vallco Park, Cupertino, CA
Hewlett-Packard Company, Cupertino, CA
Lockheed Missiles & Space Company, Sunnyvale, CA
Children's Hospital at Stanford, Palo Alto, CA
Digital Equipment Corporation, Santa Clara, CA 1980—1989Hewlett-Packard Company, Palo Alto, CA
Lockheed Missiles & Space, Sunnyvale, CA
Xerox Corporation, Palo Alto, CA
Syntex Corporation, Palo Alto, CA
Stanford University, Stanford, CA
Stonestown Development Corporation, San Francisco, CA
Bio-Rad Laboratories, Hercules, CA
LucasFilm Ltd., Nicasio, CA
Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey, CA
Rolm Corporation, San Jose, CA
Transpacific Development, Foster City, CA 1990—1999Sun Microsystems, Menlo Park, CA
Jay Paul Company, Sunnyvale, CA
Bayer Pharmaceuticals Corporation, Berkeley, CA
Genentech, Inc., South San Francisco, CA
Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey, CA
The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA
Genencor International, Palo Alto, CA
Stanford University, Stanford, CA
Tarbut V' Torah, Irvine, CA
Chiron Corporation, Emeryville, CA
R.W. Johnson Pharmaceutical Research Institute, San Diego, CA
Stanford University, Stanford, CA
The Money Store West, Sacramento, CA 2000—PresentChildrens Hospital Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
Microsoft Corporation, Mountain View, CA
Sun Microsystems, Santa Clara, CA
Cardinale Winery, Oakville, CA
Copia: The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts, Napa, CA
EarthLink, Inc., Roseville, CA
Jay Paul Company, Redwood City, CA
Stanford University, Stanford, CA
University of San Diego, San Diego, CA
McCuen Properties, LLC/Bechtel Corporation, McClellan, CA
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