Rich History Shapes Aristeo
Aristeo was founded on September 6, 1977 with only $10,000 and a truck. Today, Aristeo has grown into a full service general contractor supporting major investments and milestones for globally recognized customers. As we finish celebrating our 45th year of business, let’s reflect on the momentous events, projects and relationships that shaped who Aristeo Construction is today.
Throughout our 45 years, we’ve built a reputation in the automotive sector through strong performance, first with Ford Motor Company, then GM, Stellantis, Toyota and numerous other OEMs, then taking our expertise across the manufacturing, power & energy, industrial and commercial sectors.
Major Customers, Projects & Sectors
In 1979, Aristeo had its first big break with a concrete demolition project at Ford Motor Company’s Sterling Axle Plant. Since that first project, we’ve become a top supplier to Ford. We’ve pioneered multiple delivery models, such as construction commodity management (CCM) and facility management. We’ve also supported countless new program and vehicle launches and are helping lead the transition to electrification. Aristeo’s success with Ford resulted in us becoming Q1 certified, an ABF supplier, and a three-time World Excellence Award recipient.
Soon after our initial work with Ford Motor Company, we also began working for General Motors. Over the last four decades, we have performed countless projects, particularly strong design build programs spanning GM’s manufacturing, research & engineering and commercial sites.
As a trusted contractor for Stellantis since 1991 and a Chrysler QE certified supplier, Aristeo has provided high quality services for hundreds of Stellantis projects. Most recently, we were a key partner for the $1.6 billion investment in the Detroit Assembly Complex to repurpose two former engine plants. Formerly known as the Mack Engine Plant, Aristeo completed work at this site in the 90s and then came back 30 years later to expertly manage the 2.5 million SF body and general assembly renovation across 1.3 million work hours.
From our first project with Toyota nearly two decades ago to working in nearly a dozen facilities across the U.S. supporting their biggest investments, Aristeo is grateful to be the 2022 Outstanding Business Partner Award recipient. As Toyota’s top indirect supplier, we’re proud to help lead their electrification efforts with the construction of the Toyota Battery Manufacturing North Carolina (TBMNC) plant.
Over the last three decades, we have served over half a dozen major utilities and industrial customers. We’ve managed and self performed a wide variety of projects in power and energy construction, including renewable energy projects generating nearly 2 GW of energy, as well as fossil generation facilities, central power plants, transmission and distribution locations, corporate facilities, and operations and maintenance centers. Aristeo has received multiple customer and industry awards for our outstanding work, such as DTE Energy’s Exceptional Supplier Award and AGC Build Michigan Award.
Skilled Trades Evolution
From 1977 to 1990, Aristeo primarily offered civil/concrete services to our growing client roster. Aristeo acquired Kaufmann Construction in 1991, bringing with it a new suite of steel fabrication services and an expansion to our team. This acquisition allowed us to expand our customer portfolio and Livonia headquarters with the construction of our steel shop.
Aristeo’s suite of services also expanded to include steel erection in the early 90s. Since then, it has become an integral self perform service offering, providing customers with increased quality and safety, schedule control and enhanced value on their complex projects. Today, we self perform steel erection as an AISC Certified Erector and a five-time winner of the AISC Safety Award in the Erector Category. We specialize in everything from structural steel to miscellaneous and specialty steel, helping our customers accomplish their goals with mission-critical projects.
Evolution of Safety & Quality Practices
Aristeo’s award-winning safety program prioritizes safety over every other phase of operations. That’s why we won our first AGC of Michigan Excellent Safety Award in 2000 and went on to win 40+ more safety accolades over the years. We have a unique level of control over safety onsite thanks to our commitment to safety leadership and our strong heritage in knowing how to safely self perform tasks across numerous trades.
We encourage all eligible field leaders to become Safety Trained Supervisor Construction certified, which fully prepares and empowers field leaders to advocate for safety and proactively plan for a safe project. We also prioritize leadership engagement via our cross-functional safety committee, which focuses on sharing information across all Aristeo trades, improving subcontractor safety and further standardizing and sharing best practices.
Aristeo began implementing metric-driven quality processes in the early 90s, resulting in multiple quality certifications with our customers and industry organizations, such as Ford Motor Company Q1, Chrysler QE, ISO 9001:2015 and AISC Certified Steel Erector. Our rigorous quality standards today are internally developed by our team of experts and imbued with lean practices. We plan and maximize quality from the start, focusing on optimizing the whole, minimizing waste, creating efficient processes, generating value and continuously improving.
Thank you to our customers, our team and our subcontractors and suppliers for 45 great years, and we look forward to what’s to come in the future!