About Shoretech
Owner-operated, on the water, for 40+ years.
Shoretech Marine brings commercial and industrial marine discipline to waterfront construction across Texas and Louisiana — and the man who answers the phone is the man who walks your shoreline and builds on it.
Who We Are
A different approach to the waterfront.
Shoretech's roots run through petrochemical, industrial and commercial marine construction — where the wrong substructure is expensive to undo. That discipline shapes every project, from a luxury boathouse to a municipal pier.
Plenty of lake contractors build the way it has always been built on that lake. Shoretech starts with the site instead: water depth and how far it moves through the year, soil and what it will hold, backfill pressure, exposure and fetch, corrosion, access for a barge, and what the finished thing has to do. Those decide how a structure performs over decades, and none are visible in a catalogue.
The result is residential beauty on commercial substructure — boathouses framed for the loads a storm puts on them rather than for a calm-day photograph, bulkheads designed around the pressure behind the wall instead of the face of it, and dredging that restores usable depth.
What separates one waterfront structure from another is nearly all in the parts nobody sees once the job is done. Rather than repeat it here, we wrote it down: Built to Last sets out the decisions — embedment, connections, material, drainage — that decide whether a structure is still working in twenty years.
Who Runs the Work
Dave Thomson, owner.
Working in land and marine construction design and engineering since the late 1970s. The phone number on this site is his.
Dave started in the piping and structural divisions at Brown & Root on the Houston Ship Channel and became a well-travelled piping and pile-support designer. Pile support is why a Shoretech substructure gets designed rather than copied from the boathouse next door — how a load reaches the ground was his day job long before it was his trade.
That work took him to Alaska in 1987, where he spent six years with Fluor Daniels and H.C. Price along the Aleutian Islands and the North Slope. Building things that hold together in that environment sets a permanent floor under what counts as adequate detailing everywhere else.
In 1993 he was hired by Martech Engineering. Two years later Martech built a marine division and asked Dave to run it — first as Superintendent, then as Marine Division Manager. Crews, barges, equipment and schedules became routine at a scale most lake contractors never reach, which is why a marina, a POA or a municipal client is dealing with someone who has run work of that size.
The last twenty years have been back on the shorelines of Texas. In that time the Shoretech team has been involved in the design of over 250 boathouses and over 850 shoreline and marine construction projects across the lake systems of Texas and Louisiana.
How We Got Here
The name is newer than the work.
Shoretech Marine Construction was incorporated in 2013. The local design-build ownership behind it goes back a lot further.
The company started in 1996 as a deck builder called Heck of a Deck. The work moved out to the water in 1999, when it was hired to build a large shoreline pier and Waterside Construction was formed in Trinity County, Texas. Waterside grew to more than 35 employees on 15 acres and was sold in 2011. Shoretech Marine Construction was incorporated two years after that.
Worth saying plainly, because a 2013 registration can look young beside a competitor's founding date. The registration is young; the shoreline it was built on is not. A good deal of the work Dave is asked to look at today went in under an earlier name.
40+
Years on the water
250+
Boathouses built
850+
Projects completed
TX & LA
Texas & Louisiana waterfronts
What Guides the Work
Not just built. Thought through.
1
Engineering-informed building
Field judgment shaped by structural understanding — and coordination with engineering firms when stamped calculations are warranted.
2
Heavy-duty marine methods
Stronger substructures, full-dimensional timbers, and load paths designed for storm conditions rather than for a calm-day appearance.
3
The right material for the site
Steel, vinyl, FRP composite or heavy timber — chosen for the water, soil, exposure and expected lifespan rather than forced into one solution.
4
The cause named before the scope
Anchors, drainage, embedment or corrosion — which one failed gets established before anything is priced. Rebuilding into the same conditions is how a structure fails the same way twice.
How We Work
One person, from the first call to year three.
Dave takes the call. Dave walks the site. Dave works out the scope and prices it. Dave is on the water while it is built, and Dave is who you call in year three. Shoretech is deliberately small enough for that to be literally true rather than a slogan — which is also the trade: no salesman with a tablet, no estimator who has never seen your bank.
It means we say no, too. A wall with real life left in it gets told so, even when a replacement would be the larger invoice — a contractor who will not say that is one whose recommendations carry no information.
And there is a line we do not cross. Shoretech builds; engineering firms stamp calculations when a project warrants it. Being explicit about that boundary is more useful than blurring it — on a job that needs a seal, you want it from someone whose profession that is.
The guarantee, plainly: our guarantee typically runs 2 to 5 years on the large Texas and Louisiana lakes and up to 10 years on private ponds and small lakes, with the terms set out in your agreement for the job.
Where the Work Is
Based in Trinity, on Lake Livingston.
Forty years on the same water is different knowledge from forty years of building. Dave has watched these lakes take structures apart.
Service area
- Texas and western Louisiana waterfronts
- Private ponds and small lakes
- Subdivision, association and commercial shoreline
- Dave travels as far as the work requires
Authorization, not completed work. On Lake Lewisville the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had stopped permitting shoreline reinforcement after years of walls failed. Shoretech is currently the only contractor they permit to build steel or heavy timber bulkheads there, through the end of December 2027. It does not make permitting automatic — an individual shoreline still has to qualify.
What We Build
Full-scope waterfront construction.
Residential and commercial, from the boathouse to the bulkhead to the bottom of the slip.
Boathouses
Custom entertainment boathouses, lifts, and year-round waterfront living.
Boat Docks & Piers
Boat docks, swim piers, fishing piers, and covered slips on full dimension timber pilings.
Seawalls & Bulkheads
Steel, vinyl, FRP, and timber shoreline walls — seawall and bulkhead are the same structure.
Precision Dredging
Boat slip, shoreline, and subdivision depth restoration.
Marinas
Marina construction and renovation for resorts, POAs, and municipalities.
Commercial Marine
Restaurants, ship channel properties, municipal sites, HOAs, and developers.
Decks & Boardwalks · Timber Bridges
Ranch, trail, and pile-supported crossings.
Seawall & Bulkhead Repair
Diagnosis first: what a leaning wall actually means.
Questions We Hear
About Shoretech, answered.
Who actually shows up when I call Shoretech?
Dave Thomson, the owner. He takes the call, walks the site, works out the scope and prices it, and he is on the water while it is built. That is the practical meaning of owner-operated: no layer between the person who promised something and the person who has to deliver it, and nothing lost in the handoff because there is no handoff.
How long has Shoretech been building on the water?
The name dates from 2013, but the work behind it is older. Dave has been in land and marine construction design and engineering since the late 1970s, and the local lineage runs from a deck company started in 1996, to Waterside Construction formed in Trinity County in 1999 and sold in 2011, to Shoretech. Across that span: more than 250 boathouses and over 850 marine projects.
Which lakes has Shoretech completed work on?
Lake Livingston, Lake Conroe, Houston County Lake and Lake Nacogdoches, plus private ponds and small lakes. Those are the waters with completed Shoretech work behind them. The service area is wider, and Dave travels as far as the work requires, so a lake not named there is a scheduling question rather than a closed door.
Does Shoretech do the engineering, or does someone else?
Shoretech builds, and coordinates with engineering firms when stamped calculations are warranted. Dave's background is in design and engineering support rather than sealed design, so the field judgment is informed by it without pretending to replace it. On a project that needs a stamp, you want it stamped by someone whose profession that is.
How long does the Shoretech guarantee run?
Our guarantee typically runs 2 to 5 years on the large Texas and Louisiana lakes and up to 10 years on private ponds and small lakes, with the terms set out in your agreement for the job. The difference is not arbitrary: a private pond is a far gentler place to keep a structure than a managed reservoir with a moving pool, open fetch and constant boat wake.
Start With a Conversation
Let's talk about your waterfront.
Marine projects are highly site specific. The best first step is a conversation about the shoreline, the water, the soil, the access, and what the finished project has to do.