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March 10, 2025
FOND DU LAC – Beginning operations 145 years ago in 1880, Ahern – a mechanical and fire protection contractor – has expanded to 22 offices in the Midwest and continues to be a player in protecting people and businesses behind the scenes.
Headquartered in Fond du Lac (855 Morris St.), Ahern is led by President/COO Tony Ahern, who said he has been with the company for 32 years.
“At the highest level, I try to explain what we do in simple terms,” he said. “General contractors build the building everybody sees. Most of what we do, you don’t see – but you know if it’s not working.”
Tony said examples include heating, ventilation and air conditioning.
“You would know if your heat isn’t working in the winter or your AC doesn’t work in the summer,” he said. “You also know if your plumbing isn’t working properly. We do the things that make the building work, which provides comfort, safety and well-being.”
In more detail, Tony said Ahern performs contract plumbing, HVAC, pipe fabrication, fire protection and building controls and services for all of those systems.
“Our core purpose is to create and maintain systems that save lives, improve the environment and ensure personal comfort and well-being – that’s why we exist,” he said.
Tony said the Ahern team takes that core purpose to heart, and extends it beyond the company’s services to customers.
“We take our growth, purpose and responsibility seriously because it’s not just our employees we think about – it’s their families, too,” he said. “When you multiply (1,700 employees) by an average of four, you’re talking about a lot of people – maybe up to 7,000 people we feel responsible for. We need to provide a good, safe environment for our employees to work, whether they’re in our shops, our field or our office. We need to treat them with the respect and kindness they deserve.”
Recent recognition
Tony said Ahern is not only well known throughout the state and Midwest, but also across the country.
The company recently came in with a No. 77 ranking in the Top 600 Specialty Contractor list for 2024.
“That’s based on overall revenue (nationwide),” Tony said. “I don’t want to take that No. 77 (national) ranking lightly, but breaking it down further, we’d be the largest mechanical and fire protection contractor in Wisconsin. When you look at the ENR (Engineering News Record) in the Midwest, we’d be in the mid-20s.”
Tony said ENR – a weekly magazine offering news, analysis, data and opinions for the global construction industry – highlights that Ahern ranks No. 77 nationally.
However, he said when focusing specifically on fire protection, Ahern ranks No. 3 in the country.
Tony said the two companies ranked above Ahern are publicly traded, making Ahern the largest privately held fire protection contractor in the United States.
“People know us for fire protection, because we touch so many more facilities compared to the mechanical contracting side of the world – of which we touch a lot of facilities, but they wouldn’t always be top of mind,” he said, noting that fire protection makes up less than half of the company’s business.
More than a century ago…
Ahern originally began as D. Ahern & Son 145 years ago when Tony said his great-great-great-grandfather, David, began the company.
Tony is the fifth generation Ahern to lead the company, with his brother, Tripp, also still active in the business.
Tony said the story behind how his great-great-great-grandfather, an Irish immigrant, started the business is interesting in itself.
“He landed at Ellis Island, came over this way and first settled in the Sheboygan area before coming to Fond du Lac,” he said. “He worked for the City of Fond du Lac, and one of his jobs was making sure the gas lights were lit at night because there was no electricity.”
With electricity eventually coming in, Tony said David found himself unemployed.
“At that time, plumbing and heating were starting to become more commercialized or available, so he took a shot and started the business as a very small residential plumbing and heating company,” he said. “Today, we still own the original building he started the business in – it’s in downtown Fond du Lac. We’ve done a good job over the years of preserving the history of the company.”
Since its founding in 1880, Tony said Ahern has significantly expanded its markets and product lines.
According to the company’s website (jfahern.com), Ahern formed its fire protection division in 1981 and began fabricating piping for external projects the following year.
“In total, we have about 370,000 square feet of fabrication/manufacturing space,” Tony said. “We pretty much focus on commercial and industrial – that goes from hospitals to wastewater plants, manufacturing, food and beverage and even aviation. There’s really not a vertical I can think of we do not participate in.”
Tony said Ahern has always been opportunistic to achieve steady growth.
“What that means to us is, if a current customer has a need that might be outside of our current skill sets, we would figure it out, get it done and then stay in that market,” he said. “We really don’t focus on residential, but we do some larger, multi-family work as well.”
Training and beyond
To achieve 145 years, Tony said Ahern has always taken its learning, training and development “very seriously.”
“It (starts in) the high schools,” he said. “We do school-to-work programs with local high schools, principally here in Fond du Lac – though we also do it in Appleton where our manufacturing fabrication spaces are. We want to start at a young age with juniors and seniors and introduce them to the trades and office work, but it’s principally trade-based.”
Tony said the company also has a robust training program for its employees.
“We offer a myriad of training opportunities,” he said. “Some employees want to come in and do their jobs very well, and that’s great, but many employees want to continue to advance in their careers. We have the tools and the resources available for them to take the training we offer, both inside and outside of the company. We spend a lot of time, effort, energy and resources on employee development and training and mental well-being.”
Tony said every two years, Ahern measures its employee’s level of engagement.
“We do that through a third-party survey process, and then we always look for areas where we can continue to improve employee morale and engagement,” he said.
Community give-back
Like many other companies in Northeast Wisconsin, Tony said Ahern does what it can to give back to the community.
“One of our core values is what we call unbreakable values and beliefs – people and community are at our core (of those),” he said. “We want to make sure we’re good corporate citizens in the cities and towns where we have offices. I can’t tell you how much time our people donate and the millions of dollars we’ve provided back into the communities.”
Tony said Ahern focuses heavily on donating to kids and education.
“We’re happy to do it,” he said. “When we look at institutions that are trying to better their facilities, we’ve partaken in some large capital campaigns for people. An example would be a hospital if they need new maternity wards or new cardiac – things like that. We try to be participative as best we can in those types of givebacks.”
With 145 years in the company’s toolkit, Tony said Ahern looks forward to tackling new opportunities and continuing to serve the communities in which it works.
