Audley Construction is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year, marking seven decades of building and maintaining the roads, bridges, and toll plazas that carry New Hampshire forward. If you’ve driven through Concord, crossed the Connecticut River into Vermont, or paid a toll along the Everett Turnpike, there’s a good chance you’ve traveled on Audley’s work. From its earliest projects in the 1950s to today’s large-scale infrastructure upgrades, the company has become a fixture in the region’s built environment.
From a modest start with a single logging truck to $1 billion worth of bonded projects across New England, the company has grown steadily while remaining firmly rooted in family leadership. Today, CEO Ryan Audley represents the third generation to guide the business, following in the footsteps of his grandfather Robert and father Sam. Each transition has brought new challenges and opportunities, but the family thread has ensured continuity of values and approach.
Robert’s story is the foundation of the company. Leaving the Navy at 22 after serving in the Second World War, he began hauling timber into Boston. By the mid-1950s, as the Eisenhower administration prepared to launch the Interstate Highway System, he saw opportunity. “He sold his logging truck, bought two dump trucks, and that’s how it started,” Ryan recalls. The shift to heavy civil work proved prescient. By the 1970s, Audley Construction had expanded into bridge construction and toll plazas, setting the stage for a long relationship with the New Hampshire Department of Transportation.
Family milestones shaped the business as much as industry change. Sam Audley took full ownership in 1996, steering the company into a new era. He was known for his hands-on approach and his ability to balance technical know-how with the relationships that underpin successful contracting. Ryan remembers a conversation in 2012, when his father was overseeing work on a Hampton-area toll plaza. “He goes, ‘This is the third time I have worked at this exact toll plaza. The third time around, it’s time to retire.’” Sam stepped down a few years later, and in 2015 Ryan assumed leadership, bringing fresh perspective while honoring the company’s legacy. That family continuity—grandfather to father to son—remains a defining element of Audley’s identity.
Today, Audley Construction operates through three core divisions. The heavy equipment division focuses on excavation projects for both public and private clients, tackling the earthworks that prepare a site for everything that follows. The structures division handles bridges and concrete works, including toll plazas, where durability and safety are paramount. The subsurface division specializes in permanent and temporary supports, allowing projects to be completed safely in challenging ground conditions. Together, these capabilities make Audley a full-service heavy civil contractor able to deliver complex projects with its own crews, equipment, and expertise.
That breadth of capability has enabled the company to maintain strong relationships with clients across the public and private sectors. Its largest client remains the New Hampshire Department of Transportation, spanning both the federal highway and turnpike programs. Public works departments, private developers, and Manchester-Boston Regional Airport round out a client base that reflects Audley’s versatility. The ability to balance large-scale public infrastructure with private development gives the company stability and resilience in a cyclical industry.
Several projects highlight both the company’s technical expertise and its collaborative approach. In Londonderry, Audley is handling site work for The Village on Technology Hill, a hundred-acre live-work development led by North Branch Construction. The community integrates industrial offices, a 60,000-square-foot build-to-suit industrial building, 400 apartments across nine solar-powered residential buildings, and retail amenities including a childcare center and bus stop. “It’s an incredibly impressive project for the state of New Hampshire,” Ryan says. Working in hilly terrain requiring blasting and excavation, Audley’s crews coordinate closely with other trades to ensure infrastructure is delivered in sync with the broader development. “It requires a great deal of collaboration with other trades to deliver all these buildings concurrently,” he explains. The project showcases not only technical skill but also the ability to integrate with partners and deliver at scale.
On the F.E. Everett Turnpike, the company is tackling multiple contracts tied to a 12-mile corridor between Nashua, Merrimack, and Bedford. Built in the 1950s, the highway is being widened from two to three lanes, with bridge replacements and safety improvements along the route. Audley has been responsible for several sections, including segments from Exit 8 to Exit 10 and from Exit 12 to Exit 13. Another contract involves converting the Bedford toll plaza to all-electronic tolling, with laser equipment to read license plates and integrate with E-ZPass. That work is scheduled to wrap up by fall 2027. For Audley, these projects highlight its long-standing expertise in tolling infrastructure and its role in upgrading New Hampshire’s most critical corridors.
In Lebanon, crews are in the fourth year of a five-year, $42-million rehabilitation of the I-89 Connecticut River bridges, which connect New Hampshire and Vermont. Temporary work platforms were built in the river to support cranes and equipment while traffic continues across the span. “We’re maintaining live traffic the entire time,” Ryan emphasizes. The project includes new decks, girders, steel, and paint, along with a two-lane temporary bridge to allow safe demolition and rebuilding. By 2026, the upgraded crossing will provide six lanes and wide shoulders to accommodate future traffic flows. It is a complex, multi-year effort that demonstrates Audley’s ability to manage logistics, safety, and engineering under demanding conditions.
The company employs nearly 150 people as of mid-2025, up from 135 the year before, and growth continues. While its history gives it credibility in winning contracts, leadership is careful to expand in a measured way. “It’s continuing to add quality clients to our business, continuing to provide our services and to grow in a measured kind of way,” Ryan says. Growth for growth’s sake is not the goal; rather, the emphasis is on building sustainably, ensuring the company can maintain its standards while meeting increasing demand.
That measured growth comes at a time when New Hampshire is experiencing strong in-migration and economic expansion. The state’s housing shortage presents challenges, but once addressed, Ryan believes it will unlock further opportunities for distribution, services, and construction. “There’s a lot of opportunity in the marketplace, and we’re just trying to meet that demand. That’s really our chief goal.” For Audley, the outlook is one of cautious optimism, balancing opportunity with responsibility.
As the company reflects on its 70th anniversary, the sense of continuity is palpable. From Robert’s leap of faith in selling his logging truck for two dump trucks, to Sam’s decades of leadership, to Ryan’s current stewardship, each generation has carried the business forward. The projects may have grown in scale and complexity, but the principles remain the same: deliver quality, build relationships, and invest in people. For seventy years, Audley Construction has been building the structures that connect New Hampshire’s communities. From its early days of dump trucks and logging hauls to modern toll plazas, bridges, and mixed-use communities, the company’s story is one of continuity and adaptation. Guided by three generations of family leadership and supported by a growing team, Audley Construction continues to drive forward, building infrastructure that lasts while preparing for the demands of tomorrow.
