In the high-stakes world of national construction, where billion-dollar firms vie for dominance in booming sectors like data centers and healthcare, a strategic leadership change can signal a pivotal shift in a company’s trajectory. For Fortis Construction, a major player with a growing international footprint, its recent appointment of Andrea Weisheimer as its new president is more than a change in leadership; it is a clear and calculated declaration of its ambition to accelerate growth across the United States. This move underscores a deliberate strategy to leverage seasoned leadership to navigate the complexities of national expansion and solidify its market position.
A Strategic Leadership Change Signals Major Expansion
The decision to bring Andrea Weisheimer into the presidential role is a cornerstone of Fortis Construction’s plan for its next chapter. This is not a routine executive shuffle but a targeted action designed to harness the company’s recent momentum and channel it toward significant domestic expansion. The appointment signals to the industry that Fortis is preparing to scale its operations, moving from a position of regional strength to one of national prominence with a focused and systematic approach.
This strategic pivot comes at a crucial time for the firm. Having established a robust foundation in key sectors and a strong revenue stream, the company is poised for growth. The leadership change is intended to provide the operational expertise necessary to manage this expansion effectively, ensuring that as Fortis grows, its reputation for quality, client partnership, and intentionality remains intact. It is a proactive step to build the internal framework required to support a larger, more geographically diverse portfolio.
Introducing a Veteran Industry Leader
Andrea Weisheimer brings to Fortis an impressive track record built over two decades in the competitive construction landscape. Her career is distinguished by significant tenures at some of the West Coast’s most respected firms, including DPR Construction, Webcor Builders, and Lease Crutcher Lewis. This extensive background has provided her with a deep understanding of the intricacies of large-scale construction projects and the operational demands of top-tier contracting companies, establishing her as a seasoned and credible industry leader.
Her most recent position as the national Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) integrations and operations leader at DPR Construction is particularly noteworthy. This role demonstrates her expertise in harmonizing complex systems and standardizing processes across a national platform. This experience in operational integration is a critical asset for Fortis as it seeks to replicate its success in new markets without diluting its core values or operational excellence.
A Clear Mandate for Intentional Growth
In her new capacity, Weisheimer is tasked with a clear and ambitious mandate: to build upon Fortis’s foundational philosophy of “growing with intention.” This guiding principle emphasizes deliberate, strategic expansion over opportunistic, rapid growth. Her vision involves taking the company’s established success and amplifying its impact on a national scale, ensuring that every step toward expansion is both sustainable and aligned with the firm’s long-term goals.
Driving National Expansion
A primary objective for Weisheimer is to spearhead Fortis’s push into new geographic territories across the United States. This involves identifying promising markets where the company’s expertise can meet growing demand, particularly in its specialty sectors. Her leadership will be instrumental in establishing a physical and operational presence in these new regions, effectively expanding the company’s national footprint from the ground up.
Strengthening Client Relationships
Central to the company’s growth strategy is the cultivation of deep and lasting partnerships with clients. Weisheimer will focus on strengthening these relationships nationwide, ensuring that as Fortis expands, its commitment to client collaboration remains a core differentiator. This approach aims to create a network of repeat business and trusted alliances that will fuel sustainable growth and solidify the company’s reputation in new and existing markets.
Supporting Divisional Expansion
To facilitate this targeted growth, Weisheimer will also play a key role in bolstering the firm’s Geographic Markets division. This involves providing the strategic oversight and resources necessary for the division to effectively manage and execute projects in diverse locations. By strengthening this internal structure, she will ensure that the company has the organizational capacity to support a more distributed and complex operational model.
The Right Leader at the Right Time
The appointment of Andrea Weisheimer represents a uniquely synergistic match between a leader’s expertise and a company’s ambitions. Her deep background in operational integration and scaling complex systems aligns perfectly with Fortis’s current strategic inflection point. As the company transitions from a regional powerhouse to a national competitor, her ability to create cohesive, efficient processes across disparate locations will be invaluable.
This move is particularly timely given the challenges that often accompany rapid growth, such as maintaining cultural consistency and operational quality. Weisheimer’s proven experience in implementing national standards and leading integration efforts provides Fortis with the precise skill set needed to navigate these hurdles. Her leadership is poised to ensure that the company scales not just in size, but also in capability and efficiency, making this a pivotal strategic decision.
Fortis Construction’s Strong Market Position
Fortis enters this new phase of expansion from a position of considerable strength. The company reported an impressive $2.2 billion in revenue for 2024 and secured the 57th spot on Engineering News-Record’s Top 400 Contractors list for 2025, cementing its status as a major force in the U.S. construction industry. This solid financial performance provides a powerful springboard for its national growth initiatives.
Beyond its domestic success, Fortis has also cultivated a formidable international presence, with $516 million in international revenue in 2024 earning it the 13th rank among top contractors working abroad. This global experience, anchored by offices in Portland and Singapore, is complemented by recent domestic expansion, including the opening of a new office in Draper, Utah, in 2024. This existing framework for growth demonstrates the company’s capacity for successful market entry and operations.
The company’s expertise spans several high-demand sectors, most notably data centers, healthcare, and education. Its portfolio showcases a proven ability to deliver complex, large-scale projects, such as the Oregon Zoo Education Center, the PDX01 data center in Oregon, and a major data center campus for Meta in Wyoming. This specialized experience positions Fortis perfectly to capitalize on the ongoing construction boom in these critical markets.
Reflection and Broader Impacts
This leadership change is a significant milestone for Fortis, signaling a clear commitment to evolving into a truly national entity. By bringing in a leader with a specific mandate for structured growth, the company is proactively addressing the operational challenges of expansion while capitalizing on its strong market position.
Reflection
The appointment of Andrea Weisheimer is a clear strength, leveraging her extensive experience to ensure that growth is managed methodically. However, this path is not without challenges. Navigating the unique regulatory and labor landscapes of new markets will require careful planning, and maintaining a cohesive company culture across a distributed workforce will be a critical test of leadership. Success will depend on the ability to integrate new teams while preserving the core values that have defined Fortis.
Broader Impact
For the wider construction industry, this move by Fortis highlights a growing trend of strategic specialization and expansion, particularly within the booming data center sector. As demand for digital infrastructure continues to surge, contractors with proven expertise, like Fortis, are uniquely positioned for growth. This leadership change reinforces the company’s status as a key player in this space and signals its intent to capture a larger share of this lucrative national market.
Charting the Course for a New Era
The appointment of Andrea Weisheimer as president marked a deliberate and strategic move by Fortis Construction to accelerate its national growth. Her clear vision, rooted in the principle of “growing with intention,” combined with the company’s solid financial foundation and market expertise, created a powerful formula for expansion. This new leadership was set to build upon a legacy of success, navigating the complexities of new markets while strengthening the very client relationships that fueled its rise.
Ultimately, this strategic shift was designed to transform Fortis from a regional heavyweight into a dominant national player. With a seasoned leader at the helm and a clear course charted, the company was positioned to not only expand its geographic footprint but also redefine its impact on the American construction landscape for years to come.
