Everyone knows that a building’s longevity—and the safety and comfort of those who use it—depends on the strength of its foundation. With so many moving parts on any given project, it is specialty subcontractors like NEFCO Geotechnical Contractors who provide the essential groundwork and engineering for success, ensuring that even the most complex projects in New England stand strong for generations.
True to its name, New England Foundation Company (NEFCO) Geotechnical Contractors is rooted in the very market it serves. Drawing on deep technical expertise and decades of regional experience, the company is uniquely positioned to navigate the area’s distinct climate, soil conditions, and construction challenges, delivering reliable solutions that build confidence from the ground up.
As President Deirdre O’Neill explains, “Outside maybe a 15 or 20 mile radius from Boston, you commonly have glacial till or rock close to the surface, and shallow footings bearing directly on those competent materials can support a reasonably large building. Once you come into the basin of Boston, ground conditions completely change. And then on top of that, you can be confronted with environmental issues and the potential cost of removing contaminated soil, et cetera.” This is why having a geotechnical engineer/contractor like O’Neill involved in projects to help optimize the foundation selection can be so critical.
NEFCO’s multi-generational expertise is second to none. A lean and focused operation, the company is large enough that it has the capacity to take on projects of grand scale, size, and complexity—and this team, with its highly skilled and dedicated field crews, is always up for a challenge.
Building a reputation
New England Foundation Company has been serving the region as a drilling company for more than a hundred years, but it was in 1985 when Eric O’Neill took over that the company flourished, thanks to his unmatched reputation as an engineer and his pioneering ability to introduce new ideas and applications to advance the deep foundation construction industry.
At 60 years of age, Eric O’Neill jumped in with two feet. From going to Italy to acquire a custom-designed, low-headroom rig that enabled drilling underneath the highway, to the design and manufacture of more agile pressure injected footings (PIF) rigs, he substantially broadened the scope of NEFCO’s products, vastly enhancing the potential solutions to foundation problems. Prior to and after acquiring NEFCO, Eric had been on the frontlines of effecting change in the way work was done in the region, a legacy that is upheld to this day by his daughter Deirdre, the rest of the NEFCO team, and, more recently, his son Brian.
“He had such enthusiasm for doing the work that nothing about the whole situation daunted him at all,” says Deirdre. “He just powered forth. He figured out the design, he figured out the equipment, he figured out the people, and he made the world move because he saw what was coming at the time with the Big Dig [in Boston]. He saw that we needed to grow to get to the size where we could actually get involved at that level.”
One job at a time, completing them on time and on (or below) budget, often working with congested, sometimes precarious, site logistics, with the foremost commitment to safety, quality, and service, NEFCO’s reputation continued to grow, as did its portfolio and reputation—which enabled it to secure high-profile jobs, just as Eric O’Neill intended.
Piling it on
When it comes to respecting project construction schedules, NEFCO Geotechnical Contractors brings energy, equipment, and technical expertise, which is why its portfolio is full of high-profile projects such as the seating expansion project at Fenway Park’s famed Green Monster. Home to the Boston Red Sox, this was a drilled micro pile (DMP) project that pushed the limits, bending time as it were, to meet a hard deadline.
NEFCO field crews worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week with three drill rigs to get the job done in an extremely short timeline, during less than ideal, frigid temperatures and weather—especially for a water-based operation—but they got the job done ahead of schedule.
“They decided on the final design somewhere at the end of January, beginning of February, and it had to be ready for opening day (early April), which meant the DMP needed to be complete in four weeks to give time for construction of the rest of the structure,” Deirdre recalls. “That was the dark side of Fenway. After 10 o’clock in the morning you were in shadow from the Green Monster, and the wind would just tear up the place. It was cold and that’s a water-based operation; there was water and then ice everywhere. It was a nightmare, but we got it done.”
The project entailed the installation of 140 drilled mini piles that supported 25 columns carrying the weight of the steel frame superstructure. “We got it done, and the NEFCO team, along with the other subcontractors involved in the construction, were also the first people to sit in the Green Monster seats. It was supposed to be the Mayor, but that opening day game got rained out so it was all ours the next day—it was awesome,” Deirdre shares.
One would think that iconic projects like these would be few and far between, but the reality is, NEFCO Geotechnical Contractors doesn’t back down from a challenge, which means it has some very impressive projects under its belt.
NEFCO applied its value engineering technical expertise to identify a secant pile wall as the optimal support of excavation solution to protect an existing, early-1900s, brick and masonry building. The project was on Martha’s Vineyard, which Deirdre jokes was “probably one of the closest projects that was somehow the farthest away,” given the lengths the team had to go to reach the work site. With a rented barge and a hope and a prayer, NEFCO got the 180,000-pound drill rig and a crane of equal weight to the project, drilled the secant piles and soldier piles, and installed the timber lagging, all of which prevented settlement of the old building on its sand dune while a new basement was dug right beside it. The old building is still standing but today is next to a brand new addition, owing to the team’s expertise and commitment to devising the best possible solution to meet the client’s needs.
As another example of the company’s value engineering capabilities, Deirdre tells us about a client who reached out for assistance because “they were in a situation where there was a certain budget and the cost of the building was substantially over that budget, so we came in, worked with the design team to understand the building loads and soil profile, and made a recommendation for a foundation using the PIF in an innovative way that, at the end of the day, was significantly less than the original cost of the foundation as previously designed.”
This unconventional solution got the job done within the owner’s budget and proved to be another instance where Deirdre’s expertise set the tone for the project. As Vice President Brian O’Neill explains, “Some of these contractors and owners just reach out to Deirdre directly now because they know that she’s going to come up with the best design at the lowest cost.”
“If you give me a call and tell me what the parameters are, I can work with your engineers to find out exactly what loads are being applied and where, match them with the ground conditions and specific aspects of construction, and verify that all the design team’s concerns are being addressed,” says Deirdre of the back-and-forth that ensues while she works to identify the best possible solution for the project conditions.
A legacy in action
Under the leadership of the O’Neill family, NEFCO Geotechnical Contractors has become a one-stop shop, equipped with the specialized knowledge of a variety of disciplines to design the optimal solution for any project’s complexities and specifications. With an array of products including Pressure Injected Footings (PIFs), drilled micro piles, drilled shafts of various sizes, belled caissons, soldier pile and lagging walls, secant pile walls, and more, the team at NEFCO can isolate what will address a client’s needs in the most efficient and cost-effective way.
Like their father before them, Brian credits his sister’s work ethic and the intimate role she plays on all projects. “She’s deeply involved in so many aspects of a particular job,” he says. “This enables a level of creativity that can oftentimes change the way the designers or the geotechnical engineers or the owner or her clients will look at a job; often, Deirdre and her experienced field personnel come up with a solution that is significantly different from what they had originally imagined they were going to do, and often that ends up being significantly cheaper.”
This depth of engineering knowledge and the ability of our dedicated, expert field crews to execute time and again regardless of “bad ground, bad weather, or bad luck,” is why NEFCO does “big work in a small, familial sort of way,” says Deirdre. “We roll with the punches,” she says, a sentiment that is echoed by Brian.
As such, the company has not only strengthened its reputation in the New England market; it has fostered the development of a culture of excellence, a culture of safety, and a culture of pride in a job well done and the legacy each project represents. Its performance speaks for itself.
The O’Neills tell us that when renewing their insurance this year, the agent said that they have never seen a company be claim-free for five years straight. This is because each year, the team is trained in rigging, fall protection, crane signaling, First Aid, CPR, and other safety efforts to ensure that this trend continues. “Our guys just do it the right way… just do it right and make safety the most important thing on a job site,” Deirdre says of NEFCO’s commitment to safety and quality.
Digging deep
The best indicator of success is demand, and that is certainly the case for NEFCO Geotechnical Contractors. The company is extremely busy, and for good reason. Speaking with Deirdre and Brian, you quickly get a sense that the expertise and experience across the board of NEFCO personnel is so deeply rooted that it is second nature.
Together with the rest of the NEFCO team, the O’Neills are working to not only grow the company but to advance the industry in terms of what is possible, believing that each project is an opportunity to level up. The company aims to elevate value engineering through enhancements and the utilization of foundation elements to not only support projects’ physical weight of but also their sustainability goals.
“I’d like to move forward on the use of foundation elements for sustainability initiatives like geothermal technologies, a whole different avenue that I would like us to focus on,” Deirdre tells us. “Every time I see a massive cast-in-place concrete thing going into the ground, I just think, ‘that could be equipped, connected to a system, and you could be getting some energy out of it.’ That’s the goal,” says Deirdre, who continues to tirelessly help clients get the very most out of their projects, spending less and achieving more through value engineering and the specialized expertise of NEFCO Geotechnical Contractors.
