Michels Corporation  Michels Corporation is an international energy and infrastructure contractor based in Brownsville, Wisconsin. With more than 8,000 employees and more than 40 permanent offices and yards from coast to coast, Michels is the largest construction company in Wisconsin and among the largest in the United States. Michels owns more than 14,000 pieces of heavy construction equipment and self-performs most of its work. Michels is involved in various areas of energy and infrastructure construction, including pipeline, electrical power, transportation, horizontal directional drilling, deep foundations, communications networks, pipe rehabilitation, and sewer, water and tunnel construction and rehabilitation. Michels has been involved in design-build and EPC projects, including transportation and power delivery. Michels Corporation was founded as Michels Pipeline Construction, Inc., but changed its name in 2001 to better reflect its utility construction services. As of 2019, Michels Corporation was ranked No. 27 on the Engineering News-Record Top 400 Contractors list. In 2013, 2014 and 2015, Michels Directional Crossings won Project of the Year honors from Trenchless Technology magazine in the new installation category for its notable horizontal directional drill projects. Dale Michels founded the company in 1959 as a gas pipeline construction company and provided services to Wisconsin utilities. In 1963, Michels began providing outside plant construction and installation of buried telephone cable systems. The company expanded again in 1970, forming a Sewer, Water and Tunnel Division. In 1976, Michels began producing crushed aggregates to supply materials for various road and building construction projects throughout eastern Wisconsin. The next year, 1977, Michels began constructing rural water distribution systems throughout the Northern Plains. As part of this development, the company constructed water mains, laterals and residential water service. Michels branched out into fiber optic cable systems in 1983. The company built customized equipment, including the design and fabrication of rail-mounted cable plows. In 1988, Michels began a new method known as horizontal directional drilling to construct underground utilities. The company expanded on this when it designed and manufactured the most powerful directional drilling rig to date in 1996. The rig was called "Hercules-1200" for its 1,200,000 pounds of push/pullback. Michels acquired Superior Electric Company of Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1997, and changed the name to Michels Power. The company also established Michels Directional Crossings Co. in Canada. Two years later, Michels acquired Redmond, Washington-based Pilchuck Contractors, Inc., to add to its West Coast capabilities.