In the half-century that Spokane specialty contractor Dix Corp. has been taking on unusual and risky construction projects, the only thing thats become routine at the company is family involvement.


Founded here 60 years ago by Peter Dix as a steel building contractor named Dix Steel Building Co., the company later became known as a problem solver, and increasingly took on unusual projectsranging from giant shipping cranes at seaports and the U.S. Pavilion at Expo 74 to fish-collection systems at dams and the floating green at the Coeur dAlene Resort Golf Course. All the while, its been run by a member of the Dix family, with Peters son, Patrick, taking over in the 1970s. Patrick co-owns the company with his brother, Peter Dix Jr., who runs Cobra Roofing Services Inc., of Spokane, which the brothers also co-own.


Now, Patricks sons, Mike, 30, and Kevin, 32, work as project managers at Dix Corp. with an eye toward keeping the family legacy alive.


Dix Corp., which has annual sales of about $25 million to $30 million, thrives on performing problematic jobs, usually of large scale.


We dont do a lot of repeat jobs, says Kevin Dix, who began working in the companys home office on Grove Road just west of Spokane about two years ago. A lot of our jobs have never been done before.


For example, Dix Corp. is in the midst of a two-phase, $4.2 million project that entails moving a huge section of the new, replacement Suavie Island Bridge, including the bridges superstructure, down the Willamette River from Portland on a barge and lifting the bridge section into place over the Multnomah Channel, he says.


In the first phase of its contract, Dix Corp. moved the 356-foot-long, 44-foot-wide bridge span onto a barge from the Portland pier where it was built by another contractor. Because the pier sat 20 feet higher than the deck of the barge, Dix used a combination of a skid system on the pier and hydraulic dollies on the barge to move the bridge span into position, where it was supported by four massive jacking towers on the barge deck, which had been jacked up so they were at the same elevation as the pier.


Dix jacked the 1,680-ton span up further to 80 feet above the barge deck so that when it reached its home, five miles away on the Multnomah Channel, it could clear new bridge abutments constructed for it by Max J. Kuney Co., of Spokane. Tugboats then guided the barge downstream and into the channel, on the southwest side of Suavie Island, where it was lowered into position on the new abutments.


This month, Dix Corp. will reverse that process in phase two by removing the old, 1950s bridge span located just downstream from the new span, and barging that 1,100-ton span upriver to the Portland pier, where Dix Corp. will sandblast and paint the old span to prepare it for its planned new life as a pedestrian bridge over Interstate 405 in downtown Portland.


Mike Dix, who has been with Dix Corp. for about four years, says the Spokane company recently completed another challenging job, under a $1.3 million contract, in which it installed whats called a spillway isolation system at Brilliant Dam, on the Kootenay River near Castlegar, British Columbia.


The project called for a system that would allow maintenance to be done on the dams seven spillway gates on the upstream side of the dam without lowering the level of Kootenay Lake.


Dix met the challenge by constructing a bulkhead system to isolate the spillway gates one at a time and allow them to be opened without spilling water from the reservoir. The system involved attaching a horizontal support beam to the concrete buttresses on the sides of each gate above the waters surface on the lake side of the dam. The bulkhead was made of a series of hollow metal columns that were filled with enough water so that they floated vertically and were attached to one another. The upper end of the bulkhead was attached to the support beam, and water pressure from the lake held the bottom and sides of the bulkhead against the upstream side of the dam, isolating the space between the bulkhead system and the gate.


The spillway gate was then opened to drain the water between it and the bulkhead, and work on the spillway gate was performed. Then the bulkhead was disassembled and moved to the next spillway gate. The process took about four days for each spillway.


The company currently is working on a big contract in Oregon. That $25 million job involves construction of a 270-foot-tall selective-withdrawal tower that will collect water from near the surface of Lake Billy Chinook, as well as at depth, and channel it into a turbine intake on the upstream side of the Round Butte Dam on the Deschutes River in Central Oregon, says Mike Ferguson, Dixs marketing and sales manager.


The project, being done for Portland General Electric and the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon, is intended to blend warmer water from the surface of the lake with cooler water from the lakes depths to maintain appropriate water temperatures in the lake near the dam and in the Deschutes River downstream, Ferguson says.


Among the problems Dix Corp. faces with the project is that theres little work space available at the dam, due to the steep canyon walls surrounding the lake.


We had to come up with a system that would allow us to build in a limited area, he says.


The selective-withdrawal tower is being assembled on a barge inside a framework of four 75-foot-tall jacking towers. The barge, which is 80 feet long by 60 feet wide, will weigh up to 1.4 million pounds. Its kept afloat with pontoons of sealed pipe that are 9 feet in diameter.


The tower is being constructed in four sections. The bottom section, which will attach to the turbine intake tunnel at the base of the dam, will weigh 700 tons and be as big as a six-story building, Mike Dix says.


Once the bottom section is assembled, it will be lowered through an opening in the barge and on down about 270 feet below the lakes surface to the intake tunnel at the base of the dam.


Because it would be difficult for divers to install the towers bottom end at such a depth, Dix Corp. will use remotely controlled underwater vehicles to secure the structure to the dam and to the bottom of the lake, Dix says.


Other sections of the intake tower will be lowered via the same barge-and-jack system, he says.


The project also calls for constructing a fish-collection system next to the tower at the waters surface. It will intercept fish attracted by the current created near the surface opening of the withdrawal tower, Ferguson says. There, fish managers will segregate migratory salmon and steelhead trout that should proceed downstream, from fish, such as bull trout, that should remain above the dam. The migratory fish will be transported around the dam and returned to the Deschutes so they can migrate downstream to the ocean, where they will grow on a rich marine diet before returning to the Deschutes later to spawn.


The project is scheduled to be completed next March.


Strategic adaptations


Dix Corps ability to innovate and to adapt to changing markets has helped keep it strong, Ferguson says.


The company gained widespread recognition as a problem solver in 1951, during construction of the Ridpath Hotel tower. At the time, there were no cranes in the Spokane area big enough for the 13-story project, says Patrick Dix. His fathers solution was to use one crane to lift another crane onto the fourth floor of the hotel and to use that crane to construct the remaining floors of the tower.


The company later built some of the most prominent structures in Expo 74, including the U.S. Pavilion and five of the new bridges in what is now Riverfront Park. In the late 1980s, the company began upgrading 1960s-era shipping cranes at seaports by making them taller, extending their booms, beefing up their lift capacities, and upgrading their controls.


In 1991, Dix Corp. built the floating 14th green at the Coeur dAlene Resort Golf Course. Known far and wide, the floating, 5.8 million-pound green can be moved within a circular path to allow play at various distances from the tee, says Marcus K. Ourada, a Dix Corp. vice president who was the project manager for the floating green. The floating green is designed to hold so steady in a 50-year peak windstorm that a ball wont be disturbed and roll just because the wind causes the green to move, he adds.


Because of our niche markets, we dont do standard projects that most contractors do, Ferguson says. We dont even touch churches and hospitals.


About half of the companys business today is related to crane installations, upgrades, and repairs, says Kevin Dix.


Dix Corp. employs roughly 25 year-round employees, including about 12 at its 6,000-square-foot office here and another 12 to 15 key supervisors working in the field. It hires additional workers for each job it does, but they are hired temporarily through local union halls wherever the companys jobs are based. For instance, about 30 workers were hired for the Round Butte project.


Hopes for the future


Although theyre grandsons of the company founder, Kevin and Mike Dix werent just handed their positions.


In part due to suggestions from their father, the brothers gained their initial job experiences at other companies after graduating from Washington State University with degrees in construction management.


Kevin had seven years of project management experience in Oregon and Western Washington before returning to Spokane. Mike Dix worked in commercial construction in Oregon for three years and managed Dix projects there for another year before returning to work at the home office.


Kevin Dix says he hopes the companys family legacy continues for at least another 60 years.


Thats our goal: To keep it going for the next generation, he says.


Contact Mike McLean at (509) 344-1266 or via e-mail at mikem@spokanejournal.com.