Historic Projects and Iconic Comebacks: Steve “Bergie” Bergerson looks back on 40-Year Career

After 40 years in the construction industry with one company, you’re gonna develop a reputation. That of Steve Bergerson, or “Bergie,” is twofold: as a superintendent with the snappiest comebacks in Duluth, and as a hardworking, dependable leader when the going gets tough. As Bergie looks back on his decades-long career at Kraus-Anderson, he imparts the lessons he’s learned along the way.

Photos above: Bergie’s more recent headshot; A less recent photo of Bergie (leftmost) at the 5 year anniversary of KA’s Duluth office in 2004.

Let’s start with your history; How long have you lived in Duluth?

BERGIE: I’m from Hibbing, Minnesota originally. I moved to Duluth when I was in seventh grade, so I consider myself more a Duluthian than an Iron Ranger. I attended vocational school in Eveleth to learn carpentry, then went to West Palm Beach Florida to do framing for houses. I returned to Duluth shortly after and joined KA in 2002 as a project superintendent. I’m fortunate that I’ve been able to spend my whole time since working at KA. I’ve never been further away than Lutsen.

So after spending 40 years in this industry, your whole career, I wonder, does construction run in your family?

BERGIE: My father had an architectural background, wound up getting into a company that did sales, and actually he ran the Pella window store here in Duluth, which is now Northern Door and Hardware here in town. And I grew up working, putting windows together, doing all those kinds of things, as did my brothers. My dad was always building stuff, and we were always helping him. There’s three of the four boys in our family that are carpenters, so I would say carpentry is in our family, definitely.

I got to visit your offices in Duluth a few weeks ago, and saw how they did the masonry to replace some of the old parts from the original bank building. It was really impressive.

BERGIE: Yeah, that’s a neat office there, thinking that was an old bank. And I actually was part of tearing out the old safe, which is now the new bid room. That was kind of fun, different stuff than usual.

I associate you specifically with some really great historic buildings that we’ve worked on. Our office is one of them, but also Glensheen and the Duluth Armory, the Zenith project. Some superintendents really love diving into old historic buildings, but I know they also are fraught with problems.

BERGIE: You know, those old historic buildings, yes, they do come with multiple challenges, but I kind of thrive on that. I consider myself pretty fortunate to be able to be part of projects like that, because especially in Duluth, the Glensheen mansion in particular, there’s a lot of history there… And there’s really no road map, so you’ve got to do a lot of head scratching and thinking. It’s fun to be part of that, and then to see how the community and everybody takes it in when you’re done and how wowed they are.

The Zenith project, that was built in 1889, it was built as a school. You start building those, working in the history, and you start learning it because you’re there. They built that building, which is huge, for $500,000 back in the day, which was a lot of money. There was old steam boilers and the old electric systems, stuff stamped from the 1800s where the patent was pending, and I’m excited to be part of all that.

The other specific project I’d like to talk about is the Duluth International Airport. It won national awards. What jumps out at you when you think about that project?

BERGIE: Oh, that was a long one. As far as memories of challenges, one of the biggest challenges was just, we’re going to build a new airport right in front of the existing airport, and keep the existing airport up and running… With like, planes landing and stuff. Basically, what we did, real quick, was we came in there and built all the new parking lots way out on the other side of a field so people could park there. We actually made these tunnels, metal buildings with roof and heat and everything, so people could walk around our construction site and get to the airport to under luggage in the shelter. And you had all the airlines you’re dealing with, the baggage handling system that was a job in its own way, security measures. I was learning every day. Not everybody gets to do an airport.

And then I know we also did Canal Park Lodge…

BERGIE: We removed huge rocks to build that building, because it’s right down on Lake Superior. There were these huge blast rocks, I mean the size of Volkswagens, we were digging out and removing because we couldn’t get our pilings in to hold the building. Lot of challenges down there. That’s still one of my highlight projects.

I got to tour the Zenith project and one of the sales guys said, “Yeah, Bergie did a great job of helping us with this and saving this.” So, it’s not even just your work, but people remember you and what you contributed.

BERGIE: It’s very humbling, to tell you the truth. I take a lot of pride in any job I do. And that’s just my nature. I’ve always made it one of my goals to make sure that the subs that come on know, we need them just as much as they need us. I want every person that walks on this job to come back and say, “I would work on another Kraus-Anderson project” or “I would work with Steve Bergerson again.”

I think maybe part of your charm with people is that, you take the work very seriously, but you don’t seem to take yourself too seriously. There’s a lot of Bergie-isms, kind of self deprecating remarks, you’ve come up with over the years. Where did you collect those pearls of wisdom?

BERGIE: It’s just the voices in my head.

I love it. One of my favorites is, “I need people with all their marbles and also no holes in their pockets.”

BERGIE: You know, you’re always kind of trying to survive as a sup. You might have 100 guys from different companies, everybody’s got problems, everything comes to your office, you’re the guy, you know what I mean? My way of getting through things is having comments and enlightenment to kind of turn around a tough situation, like, okay, we’re going to get through it happy, and let’s move on.

I can see why you have become something of a legend. I don’t know if you would consider yourself a mentor to somebody like [KA Project Manager] Paul Noll, but the little bit that I have observed I believe that the two of you have quite the chemistry together.

BERGIE: Yeah, we did the Cooper Elementary project together, and he was fresh out of the box. That’s where he’d see me in action and doing stuff, and he just paid attention. We had a lot of fun working on projects. And the Duluth office, I mean, they’re like family. It’s not like going to work, it’s just like hanging out with part of your family.

Is there anything you want people to know about your job or your career?

BERGIE: I think that we’d want them to know that, superintendents, we have a lot of responsibility on the job, and we’re handling a lot of people. We’re just trying to get through the day just like everybody else, and do the best we can, and we’re not perfect, we can make mistakes, but at the end of the day, I’m trying to help you as much as I can.

That’s kind of the nature of the work that you’re doing there as a leader, when you’re always working in a space that’s not quite big enough for everybody.

BERGIE: You just gotta be confident; show confidence, but also instill to the people that are working for you the confidence that, you got this, we’re going to build this, it’s one day at a time. Because people get overwhelmed. Somehow you just gotta talk them through, we’ll get through it.

And they do get it done. I mean, you guys do little miracles, or big miracles, every day.

BERGIE: It’s so easy to have a negative attitude, and it can drag a whole job site down. Attitude is everything. I’m always trying to keep that positivity, you know, my little comments, stuff like that, make people laugh. But I’m not on a pedestal either. I’m no different than them. One of my favorite lines is the, ‘Hey, boss’ as they come in. The first thing I say is, ‘I’m not the boss. I was dumb enough to show up for work just like you.’ You know what I mean? Because it just puts them at ease. I’m not the boss, I’m just the guy that you’re asking the question to, and I’m going to try to help you.