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Ted Aadland once dreamed of going to barber school to earn enough money to move to Norway, his family’s homeland. The first employment opportunity to present itself, however, was the very American, back-breaking work of resurfacing cement with a hand grinder.

When a supervisor asked if he knew how to run a jackhammer, Aadland didn’t think twice before lying to get the promotion. He pulled an all-nighter to learn how to operate the machine.

“Believe me, there was nothing I couldn’t do if it was easier than what I had been doing,” said Aadland, whose can-do attitude has opened many doors during his 40-year construction career.

Born in Oakland, Calif., in 1945, Aadland remembers growing up with few luxuries but with a great sense of closeness with his parents, two sisters and brother.

“I don’t think we had much in my family, but we never knew it. My mother was a master at getting dinner on the table and making it exciting. We might have beans and hot dogs for dinner, and she would call it a cowboy dinner and turn it into an adventure,” he said.

Aadland played basketball and football at Oakland’s Fremont High School before being drafted into the Vietnam War in 1965. As a combat engineer, he built road and bridges and cleared hilltops where camps for the senior officers were set up.

He came home in 1967, married his wife, Judy, and attended Heald Engineering College in San Francisco and the University of California at Berkeley under the GI Bill. He was working at Hensel Phelps Construction in San Francisco during the late ’60s when he met Frank Ward, a colleague who would become a professional partner and personal mentor.

The pair co-founded F.E. Ward Inc. in 1979. Their first corporate headquarters was in Aadland’s house, where Ward did the estimating at a desk in the Aadlands’ bedroom, Judy did the bookkeeping in her sewing room and Aadland, as the head of operations, worked out of his pickup truck. Ultimately, Aadland and Ward grew the company to occupy a 4,000-square-foot office and employ 150 people.

Aadland went on to become chief executive officer of David Evans & Associates, and is now chief executive officer of Portland’s Aadland Evans Constructors Inc., a subsidiary of David Evans Enterprises. Aadland Evans, which will celebrate its third anniversary in April, led the Eagle Creek Bridge Emergency Repair and was on the project team for Interstate MAX and the Threemile Canyon wind farm near Boardman.

Next month, Aadland will take office as president of the Associated General Contractors of America. His primary goal is to get members more involved in advocacy.

“Our past presidents and staff have done a wonderful job. Now it’s time for the membership to get more involved in legislation and environmental issues that impact our industry. We need to stand up and lead the way toward economic recovery,” said Aadland, a previous president of AGC’s Oregon-Columbia chapter and an AGC SIR Award winner.

“My year is going to be about re-energizing the members and saying, ‘Get off the sidelines and get into the fray.’ I’d rather be a leader than a bitcher,” he added.

And, while he enjoys visiting family in Norway every few years, Aadland seems pretty content in America. “I think the most wonderful thing about this country is that, if you work hard, you can succeed at anything you want to do.”

Who was a mentor who helped shape you into the person you are today? What did that person teach you?

“Frank (Ward) was really the one responsible for pushing me and encouraging me to go back to school. He believed in me. And we had great trust for each other and really complemented each other.”

Tell us something about yourself that most people might not know.

“I love people, I love to entertain and I love to cook. Cooking is like contracting – you have the pre-planning and the preparation, you have to make sure everything gets done at the same time, and then you get to watch people enjoy the end result.”