History

It began as an idea born during a frozen Montana winter. The year was 1946. World War II was over. Harry S. Truman was president, and Martinez-born Joe DiMaggio was still tearing up the American League. Wayne Willis, then electrical superintendent for Bechtel Corporation, was sent to Sunburst, Montana to supervise a project. "I almost froze to death," recalls Wayne. "When I got back I told my wife, 'the heck with this. I'm going to start my own business.'"

By the end of the year, Wayne and partner Reave Teague, who also worked for Bechtel, had purchased Sutton Electric from Loren E. Sutton, then doing business at 631 Estudillo St., Martinez. "It was just a sliding door leading to the back of a warehouse behind a shoe store," says Wayne.

By 1948, when Wayne bought out Reave, the company's inventory consisted of used furniture, miscellaneous material and one 1936 Ford Pickup truck.

By 1952, the business had relocated to 615 Escobar St., Martinez. We were growing. Chevron's Richmond Refinery was supplying Contra Costa Electric with a lot of work, and in 1949 we had completed electrical work on one of the country's first atomic energy plants in Livermore for California Research, a Chevron subsidiary.

The business had expanded to the paper industry, with much work coming from the Fibreboard Co. a division of Louisiana Pacific, Antioch and Pittsburg. CCE also began to do some residential and commercial work. In 1959, partly because of the tremendous volume of work we were handling for Chevron, we opened the first branch office in Richmond, at 124 Florida.

Henry Dias who had joined the company in 1951, was the branch manager there from 1959 to 1979. In fact, the main offices were in Richmond, as they outgrew and closed the Martinez facility. There was also a Benicia office from 1967-82.

"We were on Escobar until 1966 and by that time it had really grown," says Henry, who is married to Wayne's daughter.

"By 1958 we had reached a peak of 175 men working out at Chevron alone. We had a lot of refinery work with Shell and Tosco that was then known as Flying A, and we were doing quite a bit of work for Fibreboard. Our residential and commercial work increased. The future looked pretty good."

In 1960, CCE made a dramatic leap forward, doubling its size. While primarily in Richmond to service Chevron's needs, Henry was successful in developing the commercial and instrumentation end of the business throughout Contra Costa and Alameda counties.

In 1964, Henry and Frank Johnson (a neighbor and former Western Regional Manager for the Container Division of Continental Can) purchased the business from Wayne, with Henry as majority partner.

In 1979, CCE closed the Richmond office and relocated back to Martinez. CCE was truly a family affair. Henry, along with his sons, Dave and Michael and daughter Laurie, poured heart and soul into the company. In 1986, a branch office located in Bakersfield, California opened.

Under the direction of President and CEO Henry Dias, we became the largest privately held company in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. As reported in Engineering News Record Magazine 1989, CCE was placed as the 41st largest electrical contractor in the nation.

The family ownership of Contra Costa Electric came to an end when JWP purchased the company in March 1991. CCE then became one of the Dynalectric Companies owned by JWP. This purchase provided the bonding and additional capital for us to continue to grow and provide the additional services needed in our electrical industry.

In 1994, JWP underwent reorganization and the new holding corporation became EMCOR Group, the largest electrical and mechanical contractor in the United States.

CCE's broad range of expertise encompasses the design, installation. start-up, testing and maintenance of electrical power distribution systems, utility substations, power plants (co-gens) and overhead line systems, high voltage cable splicing, process instrumentation systems, process control wiring, electrical energy management, low voltage systems, fire alarm, security, telecommunication and fiber optics.

Projects have included work in commercial, educational, health care, petro-chemical, paper mills, wastewater treatment, compressed gas facilities and manufacturing installations. Presently the company is doing $114 million in sales annually.

Michael Dias is now leading the way as president, and has brought CCE to ISO 9001 certification. With his passion for this company and the vast financial resources of EMCOR, we are going nowhere but up!

Pretty good for a company that began behind a sliding door!

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