The story of B&B Wrecking and Excavating begins with CEO Brian Baumann’s family, the creators of the brand. The Baumanns were originally in the greenhouse business as far back as the 1950s. Although the initial operation was large and family-run, the market around it eventually crashed because natural gas providers convinced the greenhouse industry to switch to coal post-World War II, leading to gas prices skyrocketing.
As a result, the Baumann family began going after state demolition contracts for neighborhoods in Ohio to make way for the new and incoming American highways and, as Business Development Director Nikolaus Filippi tells us, once original CEO Bill Baumann got the taste for demolition, he loved it.
Beginning in the 1960s, the growing demand for specialized demolition services prompted Baumann’s business to expand into residential and industrial demolition throughout the Cleveland area, carving out a new niche in a changing industry. The Baumann family has long been deeply rooted in both the B&B company and the broader Cleveland community. In the decades that followed, Bill Baumann’s wife and brother joined the operation, bringing their expertise to management, accounting, and finance, which helped drive the company’s continued growth.
Bill’s son, Brian, who had worked as a laborer and dispatcher during his college years, eventually took over the reins in a smooth and deliberate transition. Named successor by his father, Brian has now served as CEO for 25 years and, as colleague Filippi notes, remains increasingly hands-on with each passing year. “Without the people around me,” Brian Baumann says, “B&B would not be what it is today.”
Brian Baumann says that B&B makes use of every single high-quality machine, attachment, and tool that can go on an excavator—meaning nearly 400 pieces of equipment in a fleet of 45 excavators and 35 trucks. The value of this equipment is approximately $20 million, and the fleet includes tools like a firetruck and dust-suppression machines for jobs requiring dust clearing. Filippi explains that typical projects today (such as a line change-out and plant gutting) use a crew of around 15 to 20 workers, half operators and half laborers. The company has embraced new technologies and the many advantages they bring over the decades, and the resulting marriage between skilled labor and smart technology has paid dividends in both efficiency and worker health and safety.
With hazards everywhere in the demolition industry, it can be daunting to manage everyone’s safety experience on the job, so the company sets its team up for success with extensive site prep work to ensure the safety of employees and anyone else around the job site. Leadership looks for the approach that will keep its people the safest while keeping to the customer’s schedule. The first answer, Filippi says, isn’t necessarily the right answer, and B&B will look at all the options and weigh all stakeholder concerns to find the best path forward for every project.
Filippi tells us that, in his 15 years with the company, he was able to work closely with the former Director of Safety, Don King, who instilled the importance of safety in both Filippi and the overall company culture and is remembered as a legend of safety. As the company’s Safety Manager, Filippi understands the importance of talking about safety constantly. He and others work hard with B&B’s superintendents to give them time to focus on safety, conduct weekly safety meetings remotely, and get excited about new safety developments. To that end, B&B has instituted a monthly incentive program which includes prizes and is meant to track who is doing the best job of getting the word out on a specific monthly safety focus, such as incident reporting, fire safety, and much more.
Collaboration is another strong value of B&B’s. The company now sports seven project managers, so it was necessary to invest in software platforms that give everyone the ability to communicate in the office and in the field. These technologies include ProContractor, an ERP (enterprise resource planning) software platform the company has used for the last decade which has helped to manage costs. B&B also makes frequent use of the Microsoft 365 suite and the cloud-based functions of both suites to track real-time progress on projects.
The company has even invested in providing crew leaders, truck drivers, and superintendents with cellphones and tablets so they can access this information at all times, and has built an internal web portal to provide employees with human resources information, safety forms, and company plans and policies, as well as employee credentials through the Safety Plus platform.
These myriad technological upgrades have allowed the company to be agile in navigating the red tape that often encompasses demolition, with all information easily accessible via QR codes, web links, and stakeholder portals so they can feel comfortable and ask the right questions at the right time so B&B can do its job. “We put tremendous focus on all of our relationships,” Filippi says, “They are the bridge that will push us forward.”
Within that spirit of collaboration, B&B is a proud member of the NDA (National Demolition Association). Filippi has been active in helping the Ohio chapter of the association pick up post-COVID thanks to successful outreach concepts in the pipeline. Thanks to industry partners like Company Wrench, Alta, and Columbus Equipment, the association has found great dealer support in Ohio. It will continue to provide localized training and to highlight the demolition sector as a great opportunity for young people and an engaging career opportunity.
To be sure, the current landscape is not free of challenges, efforts to recruit young people to join the sector chief among them. By maintaining a social media presence, B&B has found workers outside of its markets who want to be a part of complex projects and want to be more engaged in construction. Engaging with young people, and especially workers in the Cleveland and Ohio communities, are large focuses for the future. “Teamwork like this is the real message that is changing our organization and making us all better,” says Filippi.
Indeed, B&B proudly leans on its partners and vendors for support in its work, as every link in the chain is a necessary stepping stone to help meet customer needs and make every project a successful one. An ongoing job for W.H. Sammis Power Station in Stratton, Ohio (a power plant take-down begun in late 2023), for instance, could not have been undertaken without a team approach involving vendors. B&B ensures its suppliers are paid on time and engaged early in the process, making everyone’s job easier in the end.
Such a strong core of partners—and customers—allows B&B to be tremendously optimistic even through challenging times. Customers are facing their own challenges, managing the ebbs and flows of the economy while maintaining their workflow, so the B&B team puts itself in a position to solve their complex demolition challenges for them, supporting its customers through the ups and downs the industry brings.
Baumann explains that, while previous presidential terms in the United States saw more power plant demolition and excavation jobs, there have only been about four completed since President Trump’s first term due to a lack of interest in coal power plants. However, there has been an increase in the demolition and disassembling of windmills, around 200 in the last three to four years as older units need to be replaced by new ones. Baumann says that B&B will be in line to do another 150 windmill jobs around the areas of North Dakota and Minnesota this summer.
Filippi describes the company as being in a strong growth phase, with the team energized by its continued engagement in the industry—particularly in technology, innovation, and its active involvement with the NDA. A key focus of this growth will be increasing visibility, especially within the industrial and power plant sectors, where B&B’s expertise with large-scale equipment gives it a competitive edge and presents exciting challenges. According to Baumann, the goal is to grow steadily and sustainably. The company experienced its share of growing pains when it expanded to a $45 million operation in 2024, underscoring the importance of managing growth at the right pace.
The team at B&B Wrecking and Excavating lives to serve its northeast Ohio community and appreciates the opportunity to be a part of exciting new developments as Cleveland grows. The company will continue to nurture relationships with developers and general contractors in the city while taking on complex projects that further inspire the team. With a plan to continuously grow its network of customers, employees, and partners so that it can provide its services long into the future, B&B is building on its strengths and expertise as a demolition contractor serving the needs of its community.
