David Houchin was born in the family home in Edmonton, KY on May 26th, 1948 to Paul and Noma Houchin. Shortly after, the family moved to their farm outside of Brownsville, Ky. He met his wife, Margaret, during high school and they have been married for over 50 years. They have two children and four grandchildren.

Mr. Houchin attended the University of Kentucky as a transportation scholarship student. Upon graduation he started his career as a soils research engineer with the Kentucky Department of Highways. After his time with the transportation cabinet, he became a sales engineer for ARMCO Steel Corporation and later its spinoff company Contech Construction Products. He earned his Professional Engineer license in 1975.

Once established as a respected engineer and leader in the Kentucky highway construction industry, Mr. Houchin’s entrepreneurial instincts took hold. He went on to hold executive management positions, board membership, or majority ownership in over a dozen companies. Outside of construction, he has been involved in industries ranging from livestock to thoroughbreds to real estate.

In 1991, Mr. Houchin founded Intech Contracting, a Kentucky-based construction contracting company that specializes in bridge repair and restoration and bridge inspection support. The company has restored more than 600 bridges spanning over 400 projects. This includes projects in 104 of the 120 Kentucky counties and in eleven states outside Kentucky. Intech has either repaired or supported inspections on all the highway crossings of the Ohio River in Kentucky and has completed steel repairs on nearly half of Kentucky’s long-span highway bridges. Intech has also helped preserve several historic bridges, such as the Roebling Suspension Bridge and half of the remaining wooden covered bridges in Kentucky. The firm is notable for painting the John F. Kennedy Memorial Bridge in Louisville. Intech became one of the largest bridge painting contractors in the industry, painting landmark bridges around the country. Intech has been ranked by Engineering News Record as a Top 600 Specialty Contractor and a Top 20 painting contractor nationally as well as a top regional specialty contractor in the Midwest and Texas and Louisiana regions. The company was named a Top Player in Infrastructure Coating by the Journal of Protective Coatings and Linings.

Mr. Houchin has maintained deep personal involvement in the UK College of Engineering throughout his career. As a co-founder of the Industrial Advisory Council for the construction option of civil engineering, he played an important role in establishing the construction management concentration within UK’s civil engineering major. He is also a past chairman of the Civil Engineering Industrial Advisory Committee and is a University of Kentucky Fellow. He is a past president of the Kentucky Engineering Foundation, former president of the Blue Grass Chapter of the Kentucky Society of Professional Engineers, and is a long-time supporter of the Leadership PE program. He also served as a longtime board member of Kentuckians for Better Transportation.
Mr. Houchin was awarded KSPE’s Engineer of the Year in both the industrial and construction divisions. He received the UK Construction Management Founders Society Lifetime Achievement Award and in 2019 was inducted into the UK College of Engineering Hall of Distinction.