The PCL family of companies is a group of independent general contracting construction companies in Canada, the United States, Australia and the Caribbean. PCL has headquarters in

Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city an ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest T ...

, Canada, with the United States head office in

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the ...

History

PCL began operations in 1906 as Martin and Poole Construction, founded by James Martin and

Ernest Edward Poole Ernest is a given name derived from Germanic word ''ernst'', meaning "serious". Notable people and fictional characters with the name include: People *Archduke Ernest of Austria (1553–1595), son of Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor * Ernest, ...

(October 18, 1883 – March 12, 1964) in

Stoughton, Saskatchewan Stoughton is a town in Saskatchewan, Canada. In 2011 it had a population of 649. Stoughton was originally called ''New Hope''. The tiny settlement of New Hope was barely three years old when the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) arrived in this p ...

. Poole and Martin both returned to their homes on

Prince Edward Island Prince Edward Island (PEI; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is the smallest province in terms of land area and population, but the most densely populated. The island has several nicknames: "Garden of the Gulf", ...

for the winter of 1906–07, and Martin decided to remain and retire. Poole continued the company upon his return to Saskatchewan in spring 1907, and he changed the company name to E.E. Poole Contractors. In 1913, Poole renamed the company to Poole Construction Company Limited. In 1932, the company was moved to its current corporate headquarters in Edmonton, Alberta. In 1975, the company opened its U.S. head office in Denver, Colorado. Ernest Poole's sons, John Edward (1917–2007) and George Ernest (1921–1997), sold the company in 1977 to their 25 senior managers and Great West Life. Poole Construction Company Limited changed its name to PCL Construction Ltd. in 1979.

Controversies

In March 2018, the company settled a $10.53 million lawsuit stemming from an incident in July 2017 which resulted in the loss of electrical power to more than 10,000 customers on Hatteras and Ocracoke Island. While performing construction on Bonner Bridge, a steel casing was driven into an underground transmission cable, requiring a mandatory evacuation for visitors and resulting in much of the two islands being without power for 9 days.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Construction and civil engineering companies of the United States Construction and civil engineering companies of Canada Companies based in Edmonton 1906 establishments in Alberta Employee-owned companies of Canada