Ward Electric Company, Inc., was incorporated on Feb. 27, 2005, as the vision of electrical industry veteran Mike Ward and his wife Joyce. Mike, a Journeyman Lineman, served as Ward Electric’s General Foreman, while Joyce served as the company’s president, bookkeeper, and financial secretary. Early on, the Longmont, Colorado-based electrical contractor operated out of a spare bedroom with just three field employees. The company’s fleet consisted of six units – a bucket truck, digger, pickup, homemade pole trailer, framing trailer, and one wire trailer.
One of Ward’s first contracts was with San Isabel Electric starting on March 14, 2005. By October of 2005, the company had grown to include 10 Journeymen Linemen, three Apprentices, six Operators, three Groundmen, and an office assistant. This workforce allowed them to have four crews working at San Isabel, which included a combination of overhead and underground work. The office later became a double wide trailer, and eventually a free-standing location. By 2010, Ward Electric employed over 65 employees. In 2012, two of Mike and Joyce’s six sons, Mark and Matt, purchased the company. Mark served as the company’s CEO, while Matt was named vice-president. Joyce remained on as the company’s president, while Mark and Matt focused on growing the footprint.
In mid-2018, Ward Electric opened a Midwest office in Sioux City, Iowa. The Midwest office, which offers a full spectrum of services, expanded Ward Electric’s footprint as well as its capabilities and response time. By late 2019, Ward Electric had once again outgrown its home office and it moved into its current location at 9586 E. I-25 Frontage Road in Longmont. The new facility was 20 times larger than the previous space. It included over 26,000 square feet of shop space, 7,290 square feet of office space, 2,031 square feet for tools, and a 1,244 square foot safety room. It also featured a large conference room and multiple breakrooms.
Joyce, company president and the matriarch of the Ward family, passed away on Feb. 29, 2020. She was known for her values of faith, family, simplicity, resilience, and love. She poured those same values into Ward Electric Company. She was adamant that family was everything and that everyone at Ward felt like family. She started a tradition of giving each employee a hand-written card and a token of appreciation on their birthday, a tradition which lives on today.
Later that same year, Matt was promoted to president of Ward Electric and the company continued to specialize in all aspects of power with an emphasis on high-voltage (transmission, distribution, substations) and renewables. Its range of work also includes commercial, industrial and residential capabilities.
Little has altered the family approach to running the company. However, the “family” has grown from those three field employees to north of 360 and all but one of the six original pieces of equipment have been replaced by a fleet of nearly 900 units.
In 2022, the company opened a power infrastructure facility in central Iowa. That facility now resides in Victor, Iowa. The continued growth has allowed the full-service, family-owned electrical contractor to bid and complete projects which crisscross the United States. Praise has come from organizations such as Engineering News-Record (ENR), the Denver Business Journal and BizWest, just to name a few. The company which was once operated out of a spare bedroom has earned ColoradoBiz Magazine’s Top Company and Best of Colorado praise. It was also named one of Colorado’s Top Family-Owned Companies by ColoradoBiz , one of the fastest-growing private companies in Northern Colorado by BizWest and one of the fastest-growing private companies in America by Inc. Furthermore, Ward Electric has regularly been named a Best Place to Work by the Denver Business Journal and also received the NECA Recognition of Achievement in Safety Excellence in two out of the last three years. While Ward Electric Company continues to thrive with each passing year, it never waivers from the values engrained by founders Mike and Joyce. Our motto, “On time, on target, with quality” continues to ring true and propels Ward Electric into the future.