Florida contractor Nelson elected 2024-2025 ARTBA Chair  

Jeff Nelson, president of David Nelson Construction Company, has been elected 2024-2025 chair of the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA). The announcement was made at ARTBA’s national convention, held Sept. 22-25 in Amelia Island, Fla.

Nelson has been with Palm Harbor, Florida-based David Nelson Construction Company (DNCC) since the early 1970’s, working for the family business on weekends and during school breaks in any role necessary, from laborer to foreman. He joined the company full-time in 1990 as a project engineer after graduating from the University of Florida.

A heavy/civil and vertical general contractor, DNCC gave Nelson the chance to manage construction activities on everything from airports to zoos to interstates, toll plazas and landmark streetscape projects. He was named president in 2008.

For a quarter-century, Nelson has been an ARTBA leader, serving as senior vice chair, first vice chair, southern region vice chair, board director, Strategic Planning Committee co-chair, Contractors Division president and first vice president, Environmental Committee chair, and Surface Transportation Advisory Council member. He is a 2005 graduate of ARTBA’s Industry Leader Development Program. He was also elected 2007 chair of the Florida Transportation Builders’ Association (FTBA).

During the convention, Nelson outlined key issues that ARTBA will focus on in the year ahead. Among them:

· Helping secure the fiscal year 2025 highway and public transit investment levels called for in 2021’s Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act (IIJA).

· Continuing to advance the industry’s IIJA policy priorities, such as meaningful project delivery reforms and a collaborative approach to Buy America expansion, to maximize the impact of federal-aid highway and public transportation improvements.

· Building the case for the next multi-year surface transportation program renewal, scheduled for 2026. With more than 60 new members of Congress expected to take office in January 2025, Nelson said there was a ripe opportunity to educate them about the value of current highway and transit policies, such as robust investments and formula-based distributions of funds, and the opportunity for reforms in the next bill.

· Ensuring federal policies, including potential immigration reform, prioritize the protection and expansion of the transportation construction industry’s workforce.

Nelson has served on the joint Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT)/FTBA committee that sponsored the state’s first “Construction Career Days.” He is also a frequent guest lecturer at the University of Florida and was recently inducted into its School of Construction Management Hall of Fame.