F.H. Paschen is a Chicago general contractor, construction manager and design-builder headquartered at 5515 N. East River Road. Its contact page lists the operating entities as F.H. Paschen, S.N. Nielsen & Associates LLC and FHP Tectonics Corp., with regional offices from Atlanta and Tampa to Dallas, Detroit and the Washington, D.C. area. The firm works in transit, aviation, heavy civil, education, healthcare, municipal and multi-family housing, and it runs a job order contracting division set up in 1985. The site doesn’t publish a headcount. Paschen is the contractor on the State/Lake Station Reconstruction in Chicago. It announced the award on January 7, 2025, and ENR puts the full project cost at $440 million with completion slated for 2029.
Job order contracting is the specialism, and 1985 is the date
Paschen presents itself as a general contractor, construction manager and design-builder, but the capability it leads with is job order contracting, and the dates are specific. The company established a dedicated JOC division in 1985 and describes itself as one of the largest and most experienced job order contractors in the nation, with training, processes and controls built around the method.
Its own explanation of why an owner would use it is the useful part: JOC is a fast-track delivery method that lets a client complete a wide variety of projects quickly and cost-efficiently through a single accountable entity, without extensive procurement times and without the overhead of multiple contracts and contractors. The target client is named — institutions and organisations overseeing several facilities, such as school districts and municipalities. Alongside JOC, the company lists design-build construction and construction manager as contractor among its alternative delivery methods, and it serves both public and private sectors.
Offices across ten states
The contact page states offices in ten different states, headquartered in Chicago, and publishes the regional addresses. Chicago headquarters is at 5515 N. East River Road, operating as F.H. Paschen, S.N. Nielsen & Associates LLC together with FHP Tectonics Corp. Regional offices follow at 1371 Southland Circle NW in Atlanta; 1 South Broadway, Suite 200 in Aurora, Illinois; 1283 Worthington Woods Boulevard in Worthington, Ohio for Columbus; 122 West John Carpenter Freeway, Suite 550 in Irving, Texas for Dallas; and 100 River Place Drive in Detroit.
Nine industry sectors are named: aviation, education, healthcare, heavy civil, multi-family housing, municipal, park and recreation, transit, and utilities and industrial.
Founding, family and the published commitments
Frank H. “Bud” Paschen, 1936 to 2016, founded the company, which dates from 1975 and which the firm describes as founded by a fourth-generation contractor. The wider Paschen family legacy is traced to 1871, the year of the Great Chicago Fire, and the company’s history page is careful to separate the two. Bud Paschen’s stated legacy is the core values and his decision to entrust the company’s future to its employees.
Two further commitments are published. The company maintains more than twenty LEED accredited professionals on staff. And it operates a long-standing programme around relationships with diverse businesses, with dedicated pages for safety, diversity and inclusion, and community involvement, plus a plan room and a subcontractor channel.
Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and X accounts are all linked from the company’s own pages. No headcount is published.
