Ashtonco LLC’s founder, David Ashton, developed the company in response to urgent needs by clients who required skilled management to supplement and temporarily manage their own resources to rapidly accomplish product and service development, cost efficiently.
About David Ashton
David’s early opportunities have helped to shape him into the leader he is today. From his early days in elementary school he learned an entrepreneurial spirit selling magazines, providing yard care, and delivering newspapers. By the eighth grade summer, he was spending summers living on the family treefarm providing trimming and slash pile gathering functions for the family and working at the local gas station. Eventually he went to the University of California at Berkeley where he earned a degree in Political Economics of Natural Resources. During each summer while attending the University, he worked on tugs and barges in the Arctic region of Alaska servicing the oil industry. He also worked in a large steel fabrication and distribution facility.
Upon graduation from the University of California at Berkeley, he worked in the family business as a manufacturers representative in the commercial construction industry. As he became more experienced and weathered industry ups and downs, he found innovative ways to make his company and the companies that he represented more competitive, and address concerns of his customers by providing a more responsive company. He founded and got his construction company highly licensed becoming highly regarded throughout the country. He was granted licenses by the State of California as a General Contractor (B), Glazier (C-17), Sheet Metal (C-23), Ornamental (C-23) and Structural Steel (C-51) contractor. He continued to work in the commercial construction field for several decades until 2008 when he earned an opportunity to work in marine repair in a San Francisco Bay shipyard.
David has also spent his entire life working with his family managing a family timber farm in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Having planted 50,000 trees of Ponderosa Pine and Douglas fir, the family continues its stewardship of the land by helping reforest land once devastated by fire. From fire fuels mitigation to milling, the family practices forest conservation. His mountain pursuits beyond the timber farm often bring him to to local ski resorts, as well as hiking and fishing the entire area.
David brought with him to the marine repair business some of the business acumen that he learned in the construction industry over two decades. Although he hadn’t worked in the marine industry since college, he was able to bring the principles of project management and business management to the shipyard and was quite successful. Working on projects ranging from historic sailing vessels, to various tractor and conventional drive tugboats; articulated tugs and barges (ATB’s); military vessels; private yachts up to 127m; barges, and historic battleships; he continued to hone his skill. Everything from managing a workforce, to developing a Project Management Office and managing a fleet of project managers, then later developing the shipyards industrial side for non-marine related work. David has worked with some of the largest shipping operators in the world, to local small businesses; from industrial fabricators to high tech internet search engine companies.
Throughout his entire career, his focus has always remained steady. Customer first. It was a lesson his father taught him, as well as his father’s father before him.
Care for the customer however you need to and they will come back again and again.
The first project is important, but it’s more important that they want to hire you again and again because you have earned their respect.
Every aspect of the company must be geared towards customer satisfaction.
Care for your employees and teach them the importance of customer satisfaction.
Help teach the customer as they desire, and provide value to them as resource.
These principles are ingrained deep within David, as well as his company.
Today, David’s reputation as a leader in his industry is sound and unfoundering. His desire to do right by his customers is unrivaled in the industry. He continues to seek out opportunities to continue to learn and regularly seeks out educational opportunities from institutions like the University of California and Dartmouth. He is also a leader within his community having worked with his Boy Scout Council on the board and other capacities for well over 20 continuous years. He is devoted to his family as well.
With David, you get a leader with a unique ability to learn on the fly. Someone that can reach into unfamiliar realms and develop a sound management plan. Someone that can use time tested techniques and processes and apply them in an innovative way to accomplish something mundane or new. You will get a person that delivers, and will keep you abreast of all developments as you require.
Accreditations:
University of California at Berkeley, Political Economics of Natural Resources
University of California at Berkeley Extension, Certificate in Project Management: Awarded with Distinction.
Dartmouth College, Tuck School of Business: Certificate in Digital Excellence
Member Project Managers Institute (PMI)
Former member Port Engineers Society of San Francisco
Certified California Small Business
Bechtel Challenge coin
Mission Statement:
Our mission is to fulfill our commitments and promises to our customer(s) and to do so safely and with passion. We will do this in a way that is equitably fair with the goal of customer retention over many decades. Our methods will use modern technology from software to machines, with unrivaled technical and engineering prowess.
Core Values:
Provide customer value through:
Understanding our customers needs
Meet or exceed customer needs for budget, time constraints, and methods
Provide technically sound solutions
Consider safety in all solutions
Strong quality management
Provide value in every aspect