Barnard Construction Company, Inc.

Barnard Construction Company is a heavy civil contractor founded in Bozeman, Montana in 1975. The employee-owned firm builds dams, tunnels, pipelines, water and wastewater plants, marine structures and mining infrastructure across North America, and it is one of a short list of U.S. contractors qualified for federal dam safety work. In March 2026 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded Barnard the $735.7 million construction-phase contract for the Whittier Narrows Dam Safety Modification Project in Los Angeles County, where the firm had already been on site since 2021 under an early contractor involvement arrangement. That delivery model, bringing the builder into design years before major construction, is now standard on high-risk Corps dam work.

Fifty years separate Barnard Construction Company from its first job. Tim Barnard started the firm in Montana in 1975 with a thousand dollars and a couple of hand tools, took a sewer contract for the U.S. Forest Service in the northern part of the state, and finished it more than two weeks early. The company still runs out of Bozeman, at 3520 Royal Wolf Way, and it still chases the difficult work.

Barnard organizes around six areas: heavy civil, hydro and renewables, power delivery, underground, oil and gas, and environmental. In practice that means dams and reservoirs, hydroelectric plants, tunnels and shafts, oil and gas pipelines, utility and water infrastructure, power transmission, and environmental remediation. The firm sums up its delivery model in a single line, that the team which bids the work builds the work, with estimators heading to the field to construct what they priced.

The project list traces the growth. In 1988 the company completed the Shoshone Municipal Water Supply Project, then the largest public works job in Wyoming, and moved into the top ranks of national utility contractors. In 2005 crews placed 18,608 cubic yards of roller-compacted concrete in a single day at the Saluda Dam remediation. In 2012 Barnard reversed its usual role and took out the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams in Washington’s Olympic National Park. Keeyask Generating Station on Manitoba’s lower Nelson River, built in limited partnership with Bechtel and EllisDon, pushed the company into billion-dollar contracts in 2014. Its first transportation tunnel followed in 2015, twin bores under downtown San Francisco.

Geography runs across North America. Recent and current jobs include Chimney Hollow Reservoir in Larimer County, Colorado; the West of Devers transmission upgrade in Redlands, California; and the Silicon Valley Clean Water gravity pipeline in Redwood City. Crews have bored tunnels in British Columbia and built reservoir capacity in South Florida.

Recognition followed the technical work. The Blue Lake Expansion in Sitka, Alaska, which ended the borough’s reliance on imported diesel, took the Associated General Contractors of America Grand Award in 2016. West of Devers earned the company its sixth Marvin M. Black Partnering Excellence Award after energizing five months ahead of schedule. Barnard reached its fiftieth year in 2025 and marked it with a gathering of employees and families in Bozeman. Inquiries go to info@barnard-inc.com or 406-586-1995.