Conan "Doug" Craker

Doug Craker worked for Charles Pankow, Inc. (CPI) from 1963 to 1980. Hired as an accountant on MacArthur Broadway Center, the company’s first project, Craker subsequently served as assistant controller and controller.

Prior to joining CPI, the Michigan native had worked four years for the Comstock Construction Company in Traverse City. At the behest of his wife—the couple had married in February 1962—the Crakers relocated to Oakland, California, the location of the MacArthur Broadway Center project and the home of Craker’s sister and brother-in-law. MacArthur Broadway Center was a joint venture with South Bend, Indiana-based Sollitt Construction Company, Charlie Pankow’s father’s firm. Sollitt’s John Stuart, who kept the books for both CPI and Charles Pankow and Associate, the joint venture entity, hired Craker.

After working as accountant on Las Flores Area, Camp Pendleton, the second, and last, project completed by Charles Pankow and Associate, Craker moved into the Altadena (corporate) office of CPI as assistant controller under controller Jim Body.

Craker became CPI’s controller in 1974 when Body transferred to Hawaii to become controller for Charles Pankow Associates, the company’s Honolulu-based subsidiary.

In 1980 Craker took a job with Brownlee Construction Company in Knoxville, Tennessee, so that his wife could care for her grandparents. In the wake of the 1982 World’s Fair, however, the Brownlee firm fell on hard times.

In 1985 Craker took a job with Decatur, Georgia-based Thacker Construction Company and relocated to Atlanta. Launched by Floyd Thacker in 1970, Thacker Construction was a minority-owned contractor that had established itself through the U.S. Small Business Administration’s 8(a) program, which faciltated minority contractors’ access to noncompetitive government contracts. When the SBA graduated the company out of the 8(a) program in 1983, Thacker turned to the municipal sector and took advantage of minority set-aside programs to win contracts. Two years after Craker joined the company, however, Floyd Thacker died of a heart attack.

In the wake of Floyd Thacker’s death, Craker sought work with another company. He landed a job as controller at Aviation Constructors, a wholly-owned subsidiary of one of the largest electrical contractors in America. As Craker describes in his interview, Aviation Constructors undertook a number of large airport projects during his time with the firm.

In 1996, a heart condition forced Craker to retire. He lives with his wife in Duluth, Georgia, a northeast suburb of Atlanta.