When Steve Chanen joined Chanen Construction in 1991, he had already succeeded outside the family business in careers as an attorney, investment banker and owner of a 532-room hotel, among other ventures.

That entrepreneurial spirit that Chanen exhibited might well have been inherited from his father, Herman, who founded the Phoenix-based contractor in 1955 with $1,000 borrowed from a construction industry friend. The company grew to about 30 employees and was operating successfully with key projects such as Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and the Arizona Title Building, which was the state’s first high-rise office structure. But Chanen had suffered some health issues and asked his son to step in for about one year while he recovered.

It was an interesting opportunity, but not one that the younger Chanen, who had studied film production and direction in college, had planned to pursue.

“It wasn’t that I didn’t like the business,” he says. “It’s that I had seen the toll it had taken on my dad. I mean we never had an uninterrupted family dinner ... every one was interrupted by a phone call, and they were typically serious calls.”

Chanen built Dr. Arthur G. Dobbelaere Hall at Midwestern University in Arizona.
Photo courtesy of Chanen Construction

Chanen’s goal in agreeing to run the business temporarily was to be “an effective caregiver,” he says, even moving his investment banking firm into the construction company office to run both more easily.

Much to Chanen’s surprise, his interest in the business had grown and his goals had shifted by the time his father returned—with both agreeing to run the business together.

“My goal had become how do we drive growth in the business?” he says. “How do we improve all of our practices and procedures? How do we implement best industry practices? All of those are the things that were driving me.”

Herman Chanen retired in 2010, but his son continued to pursue those objectives, which has paid off for the firm. It reported revenue of $500 million in 2024 compared with $12 million when Steve Chanen joined. In 2021, the company, which now employs 550, was acquired by Dick Anderson Construction with Chanen continuing as president and CEO.

In over 70 years in business, the firm has completed major projects for a range of clients including Intel Corp., American Airlines, Howard Hughes, McDonnell Douglas, Boeing Helicopter Co., Warner Bros. and Phoenix Newspapers Inc.

Chanen Construction built the $450-million Talking Stick Resort in Scottsdale, Ariz. It includes a hotel, gaming operations and a spa.
Photo courtesy of Chanen Construction

It also opened offices in Nevada and Illinois and took the lead on other projects including the $4.2-billion University of North Carolina Program of Bond and Non-bond Projects at 16 campuses statewide, a $32-million expansion of the Phoenix Theater, the $450-million Talking Stick Resort in Scottsdale, Phoenix Sky Harbor Terminal 4, Univision Channel 33 Television Studio and construction of Midwestern University, a private medical and professional school with campuses in Downers Grove, Ill., and Glendale, Ariz.

One way Chanen drove the firm’s growth was by better targeting its efforts to attract business and weighing the costs and benefits.

“The immediate change I made was to try to [understand] how much it cost us to pursue work and [ask] how do we capitalize or monetize that cost?” he says. “How do we use data to drive us to make better decisions about what clients we want to work with?”

The company reduced employees on the administrative side of the business.

“We had way too many people on the administrative side who didn’t really contribute to the bottom line, but they made things easier to accomplish,” he says. “So we shifted that to have no more than five or six people on the administrative side and have all the rest in the field working on projects.”

More importantly, Chanen started going after larger projects.

“We were doing $5-million projects, then $40-million projects and then half-million-dollar projects,” he says. “At some point in time we decided to concentrate on larger work as a construction manager.”

Chanen is most proud of the company’s more than 30-year construction relationship with Midwestern University.

“There are few general contractors who have the incredible experience of building an entire college campus from scratch—every building on the Glendale campus, which covers 225 acres,” he says. “In Downers Grove, I think there is now only one preexisting building. That, to me, gives an enormous sense of pride.”

University President and CEO Kathleen Goeppinger says Chanen’s imprint on the school, which has grown from 900 to more than 7,000 students over 30 years, is indelible.

Flanked by Kathleen Goeppinger and Arthur Dobbelaere, Steve Chanen receives an award for his work at Midwestern University.
Photo courtesy of Chanen Construction

The contractor has built student housing, clinics, labs and classrooms as well as barns, stables, corrals and a large animal clinic for students in veterinary medicine.

After working with Chanen on the Arizona campus, Midwestern’s faith in the firm was demonstrated when it was hired for work on the Illinois campus.

“Number one, I could trust” the company, Goeppinger says. “Number two, the quality of work was excellent, and number three, it was a [team] that understood the value of a partnership with a university.”

She says Chanen understood that it “wasn’t going to be doing buildings that were getting awards as a Taj Mahal, but rather it would build buildings that were practical for medical, pharmacy and veterinary students and all of the various things we teach.”

Goeppinger appreciates that Chanen’s leadership is forward-thinking, which has helped the university overcome various challenges, including supply chain obstacles.

“Once we scope out a building and know what we are going to build, we’ll go out and preorder what we need whether it is steel or masonry,” she says. “Steve has been very effective at that. He’s very instrumental in saying, ‘Let’s look forward.’”

Another longtime client is the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community for whom Chanen built the Talking Stick Resort, a 15-story hotel, spa, gaming and convention center in Scottsdale, Ariz.

When the idea to build Talking Stick surfaced about 18 years ago, the community had limited funds and did not know how to reach the point of being able to build the resort.

“I said, ‘Let me show you how we can build a large gaming enterprise for you, starting with $5 million,” Chanen says.

The company built a temporary structure on a concrete slab and furnished it with plumbing and electrical, which allowed the community to begin offering gaming and generating revenue, eventually allowing it to build the permanent resort.

Chanen also helped the community navigate a difficult public approval process for the project. “It was controversial because of its height,” Chanen says. “We put up weather balloons so we could show the exact height of what the resort would be and how it would impact views from different places.”

A referendum was approved to allow the building height, “which was a major accomplishment at the time,” Chanen says. “I think it was all worthy of a nation that uses hospitality and gaming to help its economic development.”

Chanen’s drive and creativity in leading the building at Midwestern University and the Talking Stick Resort is reflective of his approach to the firm’s work, which is client-focused, says Jim Walters, vice president of construction operations, who has worked at Chanen since 1998.

While all projects have challenges, Walters says “Chanen does not run from them—he has a can-do approach that he conveys to all firm employees. We meet challenges, we greet them and we see how we can take on those challenges with all of our different abilities,” Walters says.

Steve Chanen earned an MBA from Harvard University in 2022.
Photo courtesy of Chanen Construction

While Chanen’s professional background is not in the construction industry, Walters says he is not afraid to ask questions. “He’d rather say, ‘I don’t know. Show me what you’re talking about,’” Walters says. “Embarrassment isn’t even in his language. He just wants to know so that he better understands the situation.”

Chanen, who has three grown daughters with his wife, Jeanne, and a newborn grandchild, says he likes the tangible rewards of being in the construction industry.

“All the hard work doesn’t just yield a stack of paper,” he says. “It yields something that allows people to live, work and play at high levels of comfort and efficiency. These are things that you can drive by and see and that your children and grandchildren can see.”

Chanen’s broad business experience has benefited not only his company, but also the wider community. He has served in various roles including president of the Arizona Motion Picture and Television Advisory Board. Along the way, he has always continued learning, including earning an MBA from Harvard University in 2022.

Looking back on his career, Chanen says he owes his success to trusted employees, some of whom have worked at the firm for 30-plus years. Coming from a business background paid off when he took a path he had not expected into the construction industry.

“I always approach the business like it’s our first year,” Chanen says in marking the firm’s 70th anniversary in 2025. “We need to expand our backlog and renew our processes. No complacency allowed.”