Michels Corporation

Michels is one of the country’s larger heavy-civil and utility contractors, based in Brownsville, Wisconsin and founded in 1959. The company builds and rehabilitates roads, bridges, pipelines, power and communications infrastructure, and deep foundations, self-performing much of the work with its own equipment fleet. Michels Road & Stone, its transportation arm, holds a package on Wisconsin DOT’s I-41 expansion between Appleton and De Pere, part of a roughly $1.2 billion widening of the Fox Valley’s busiest freeway. With thousands of employees and a national footprint, Michels handles the kind of infrastructure that runs for years and can’t shut down while crews work.

Michels remains family owned and operated across three generations; brothers Pat, Tim and Kevin Michels have led the company since 1998. It began in 1959 as Michels Pipeline Construction, founded by pipeline welder Dale Michels, and was renamed Michels Corporation in 2001 to reflect its broader scope.

The company is headquartered at 817 Main Street in Brownsville, Wisconsin, where its yard houses one of North America’s largest fleets of construction equipment. Michels now operates more than 50 offices with work across the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, Europe, Australia and the Asia Pacific region.

Beyond roads and pipelines, its family of companies covers electric power, underground cable, trenchless and horizontal directional drilling, deep foundations, and marine and dredging services. In 2024, its Michels Trenchless operations in Germany and Australia earned ISO certification for quality, environmental, and health and safety management.