Restoring Hillsides and building Strong Foundations

30 y ears of l essons l earned, o wner of a lpha structural, d ave tourjé p roves that c reativity, passion & Hard Work

Build rock s olid Foundations that l ast by the time the 1980s rolled around, he was the go-to hillside foundation contractor in LA working on complex, dangerous and expensive projects. This expertise led him to repair as well. “Foundation repair jobs are horrible to do but can be profitable. In the 1980s, I thought that since nobody else was doing them and because it was a nonexistent trade, ‘I’m going to do it.’ I am one of the primary pioneers of the foundation repair trade in Los Angeles,” Tourjé shares.

A tough kid from the hardscrabble hills of Northeast Los Angeles credits his blood, sweat, and tears with earning him the unlikely title of a pioneer. Dave Tourjé began practicing his trade in the late 1970s and has slogged away at it every day since, sometimes laboring more than 100 hours a week at back-breaking work nobody else wanted to do.

Tourjé is the CEO and Owner of the 140-employee Alpha Structural, Inc.; the leading structural engineering and construction firm in LA, specializing in hillside, foundation and structural rehabilitation. And they are celebrating his company’s 30th anniversary and that’s just part of the story.

The dynamic 62-year-old father of three is also an acclaimed artist whose work is known as a “contemporary hybrid of low and high art, reflecting his real-life immersion in surf and skate, the LA punk scene, graffiti, and other subcultures that thrived in the 1970s and 1980s.” He founded the Chouinard Foundation in 1999 and the internationally renowned California Locos in 2011, which also includes PV legend john Van Hamersveld as well as Chaz bojórquez, Norton Wisdom and Gary Wong.

The charismatic and influential business owner is a family man who has grown what he calls his unique “lifestyle” alongside his wife Linda Tourjé, Alpha Structural’s other Owner and Chief Financial Officer. She helped start the business decades ago when it was only Dave, his truck and his tools. Clearly, the couple is thriving, a testament to the fact that Tourjé loves what he does and never gave up.

He says that the hard knocks in life taught him that his journey was at times, more about suffering than struggling. “You start the morning struggling and end the day suffering.” Sounds crazy? Tourjé believes it’s true and says that loving your trade is the only way to endure it and that having this passion will always eventually win out.

“I have a love/hate relationship with construction. underneath everything, I love it. I’m a tradesman. I’m a carpenter and formsetter. I pour concrete. It’s what I did to feed my family and it’s physical and satisfying. It kept me driving around the city to different places and is a lifestyle that has allowed me to reach my goals in Art as well,” he says.

Tourjé was born in Glassell Park, growing up in Eagle Rock, Highland Park and Mount Washington, where he made his friends. “We were surfers and skaters. We were musicians and artists, and we did construction work. Those were the guys I learned from, and I liked it. Construction on hillsides is different from construction on flat ground. We were building decks and doing things outdoors on the hillsides, which led me to hillside foundation work, a very advanced form of foundation work for structures. That always fascinated me from the beginning,” he says.

When he was not working with his buddies in the hills, he was working conventional construction and remodeling while earning licenses in three categories.

“i’ve been a general contractor since 1988 building hillside homes. i’m also a concrete contractor and general engineering contractor. that’s the highest-level license in california and allows me to build any structure in the state, including bridges and skyscrapers. that all came out of the fact that i became very good at hillside foundation work at a very young age,” he explains.

Alpha Structural brings a genuinely experienced team to tackle the most advanced and complicated structural work. Tourjé says that his company is likely still the only one in Los Angeles and Orange County authorized to do both engineering and building of their specialized work. Alpha Structural is a one-stop structural company and Tourjé says they can fix anything. Along with his expertise in construction, he brings both an art and design background to his work.

The award-winning artist, filmmaker, musician and pioneering businessman is also the author of his own personal business methods. His impressive, bound writings are broken into nine volumes of Alpha Structural policy.

“beginning in 1989, I started writing everything down that I was learning. I went through the whole company organically and wrote down everything. I learned about things beyond my trade like scheduling, marketing, promotion, personnel issues; then, all the finances of working in the field, which ends up being 1,700 pages. It’s my ‘how-to’ on Alpha Structural.”

Tourjé requires every employee to read and understand the volume pertaining to their job. “It’s a mandate to read and use 10 pages per week. For instance, somebody is in finance and reads the finance volume every week and demonstrates that he/she knows how it works by doing it,” he comments. “When the employee finishes a volume, they get a bonus. Then, they repeat the process over and over for as long as they work for me.”

Like the people working for him, he is constantly mastering new things. After the Northridge earthquake in the early 1990s, the demand for foundation repair soared. Tourjé opened a second office in Orange County and expanded in other directions, taking on new projects in the hillsides of Palos Verdes. “Once you’re in Palos Verdes, it’s like you’re in heaven, but with foundation problems. There is a lot of stuff to do there – a lot of hillside issues and structural difficulties. We find that different civic agencies have slightly different personalities, so we adapt and collaborate with them, and Palos Verdes is a place we like to go. We do some very high-profile jobs in PV,” says Tourjé. Alpha Structural is leading the way from foundation replacements to seismic retrofits to hillside collapses, large retaining walls, foundation underpinning and bridges. All the while, owner/CEO Dave Tourjé continues to foster a collaborative culture around him, creating art, coaching, guiding and inspiring others.

2023 marks the 30th anniversary of alphastructural Today, Alpha Structural is proud to be an awardee on the Inc. 5000 list multiple years in a row, a Los Angeles business journal “Fastest Growing Private Companies” award winner, an Angie’s List “Super Service” awardee multiple years in a row, and more, as well as having received city proclamations and awards for their service and longevity in Los Angeles and surrounding cities. Alpha Structural also leads in construction company culture as the winner of 2021 “best Contractor to Work for in Construction” Award.

They attribute their success to its hardworking staff and crews whose combined technical experience totals over 850 years. They also attribute our success to the byword of quALITY being top priority at Alpha. For more information about Alpha Structural or to request an inspection or estimate:https://www.alphastructural.com or call (323) 300-2192