Pulling together architecture, engineering, and design, Cushing Terrell “designs systems and spaces that help people live their best lives,” says its website. In practice, the firm serves a variety of market segments from commercial and government to education, retail, healthcare, infrastructure, and residential with a team encompassing more than 30 disciplines.

It is that breadth of specialization that truly makes Cushing Terrell stand out, and it has been embedded in the business from the beginning.

The company was founded in 1938 in Billings, Montana. Architects Ralph Cushing and Everett Terrell—with Cushing possessing significant engineering expertise—joined forces with the core belief that a multidisciplinary, integrated design practice would deliver the best results for their clients. That is exactly what they achieved with their first project in 1938: the construction supervision of Billings Senior High School.

It was unique to have multiple disciplines under one roof in 1938. Cushing Terrell’s Director of Sustainability, Ashleigh Powell, believes in the vision of the founders and notes that it is still unique to this day.

“With our structure, all disciplines can be at the table early in a project, collaborating around strategies right at the onset, where you can make the biggest impact. It was our foundation from day one, and it continues to define how we build teams and deliver services,” she says.

It is not just in the execution of a project; Powell points out that when the firm is considering projects, this multidisciplinary structure allows the team to develop more creative solutions for proposals.

Today, against the backdrop of decarbonization efforts, sustainability is one of the most rapidly growing segments of the business, and this area of focus is yet another example of the company being ahead of the curve. It started in 1975—before most people or businesses were thinking about sustainability—with the introduction of the firm’s energy conservation practice.

It is also what attracted Powell to the company. “When I moved to Austin in 2005 to pursue my masters of sustainability at the University of Texas School of Architecture, Cushing Terrell was the only company that mentioned sustainability in their job posting. It was a differentiator; it grabbed my attention.”

Powell learned through the interview process that the firm had already established an internal green advocacy council, so it was an easy decision to join.

In the ensuing years, its sustainability practice gained momentum through the U.S. Green Building Council, which launched its first LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program in 2000. With more than 100 LEED-accredited professionals in the early days, Cushing Terrell’s sustainability practice grew, certifying green building projects in all its specialties.

Around the time of the pandemic, Powell saw a notable shift in the approach other companies were taking to sustainability. “More companies were getting more serious about developing their own sustainability practices in alignment with their Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) commitments and/or decarbonization objectives,” she shares. “So we’re now doing more work with clients to develop custom sustainability standards or to design within their existing standards.”

In sharp contrast to the doom-and-gloom tone that dominates much of the news related to environmental sustainability, Powell sees positive changes taking place behind the scenes. “It’s really interesting to be able to peek behind the curtain. These companies’ commitments are closely tied to their corporate structure, and it’s a top-down commitment. In some cases, even CEO compensation is tied to meeting those goals.”

She notes that the early decisions about the structure of Cushing Terrell positioned the company for this work. “We need everyone at the table to help companies with those wide-reaching goals. We couldn’t be as effective if we didn’t have the multidisciplinary team that we do.”

The team is also geographically diverse, with employees living and working in many parts of the United States. The rapid expansion of remote work through the pandemic was part of it, but once again, Cushing Terrell was ahead of the trend.

“I remember as far back as 2008, the president of our firm was talking about remote work. He said it shouldn’t matter where you sit, and that has allowed us to attract the best people to our team, regardless of where they are,” says Powell.

The firm counts some very large companies among its clients—Google in California, Texas, and Washington, and Dell, for example—but when a sustainable future is the objective, businesses of all sizes have a role to play, and Cushing Terrell can help.

“Right now, we’re helping a local company inventory their Scope One (direct) and Two (indirect) greenhouse gas emissions. For the company, it translates to energy efficiency and resilience but it’s really about alignment with the imperative to decarbonize their operations.”

Powell points to two projects that are particularly notable for the company, in that they embody the full range of Cushing Terrell’s capabilities.

Ten years ago, the team led the design and construction of the visitor center at the Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge in Nevada. With upgraded insulation, daylight harvesting, geothermal heating and cooling, and onsite solar generation, the facility was on track for net-zero energy consumption. After its first year of operation, energy data showed that it had exceeded that by a wide margin. In fact, it was feeding twice the amount of energy back to the grid than it consumed, and it has done so for the past decade.

The other project that Powell highlights is Romney Hall at Montana State University, a project that called for modernizing the building constructed in 1922. Ultimately, 17 new classrooms were added along with centers for math, writing, veterans, and students with disabilities. This structure is now more accessible and more energy-efficient, all while preserving the character as well as the embedded cost of the materials already used in its original construction.

Projects like these reflect why Cushing Terrell has been widely recognized with industry awards. The Romney Hall project received recognition for adaptation and reuse. Interior Design Magazine placed the company in the top 100 firms in its inaugural sustainability category of the ‘Interior Giants’ ranking, and in 2023, it was given the prestigious ‘Mountain States Design Firm of the Year’ designation by Engineering News-Record (ENR).

It may be a cliché but, in Cushing Terrell’s case, the company’s success is truly about its people.

“I’ve been with the company for 17 years,” says Powell. “It’s unique in the industry to have that kind of tenure, but not here. A lot of our people have been with the practice for a long time. There’s a really strong sense of community and family. We celebrate our mission, vision, and values, and there’s a personal alignment in our commitment to the communities where we live and work.”

That commitment manifests, in part, in the pro bono work Cushing Terrell does. The company has always done pro bono work, but two years ago, it organized that practice. Nominations are gathered from staff and the community at large, submissions are vetted, and a deserving project—typically a charity or non-profit organization—is selected.

This kind of integrity is one of the company’s values and also shows up in the way it makes the same commitments to sustainability as its clients do. “We’ve taken the approach over the years that if we’re going to sell a service, like green building certification, we should experience it ourselves and certify our own offices,” says Powell.

The company’s Billings office was thus LEED-certified in 2002, which was very early for that designation. That ‘walk the walk’ commitment continues to this day. The company is a signatory to multiple emissions-reduction commitments, and its Boise office was the first in the United States to be platinum-certified in the LEED v4.1 commercial interiors rating system.

After 85 years of being one step ahead, what is next for Cushing Terrell? More of the same, starting with a more data-driven approach.

“We’ve created a post-occupancy research group. They’re conducting onsite analyses after the completion of projects, surveying the occupants, measuring acoustics and daylight values in the space, and more. That helps us complete the learning, bringing feedback back to the design teams about how those designs are working and being used in the real world,” Powell explains.

Naturally, Cushing Terrell’s integrity is also a big part of the company’s future. “We’ve been focused on operational energy in our sustainability practice; now, we’re looking more holistically at the embodied carbon footprint of the materials used in the building. Our commitment to a sustainable planet also extends to people. We’re getting involved in the Design for Freedom movement, which aims to reduce the forced and slave labor that goes into the manufacture of many building materials.”

Learn more about Cushing Terrell and its sustainability practices by visiting https://cushingterrell.com/.

The post Ahead of the Curve in Sustainable Building Practices<p class="company">Cushing Terrell</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

“The winters are getting shorter,” Scott McConnell says with a laugh. Scott is co-owner of the company, along with his brother Rob and brother-in-law Chris Hanson. “There’s more to do; we have a full schedule.” McConnell & Associates now employs about 100 people through the winter. That number spiked to around 180 this past summer, the largest headcount in the company’s history.

That history dates back to humble beginnings in 1960.

Scott and Rob’s grandfather Burton was a superintendent for an excavation company, and their father Troy worked for him as a bulldozer operator. They began moonlighting together for another company which was a pioneer in refined tar pavement sealers.

Although these sealants had been used for years in roofing applications, a company based in Ohio—the ‘cradle’ of sealcoating, according to Scott—was using them in low-traffic pavement repair. One of its franchises was owned by an entrepreneur named Patricia Lorenz, and in 1962, she hired the two McConnells—Burton and Troy—to operate the business.

It is a unique origin story. “You wouldn’t necessarily think of a woman in the road oil business in 1960,” Scott says, “but she ran that business really well. Dad always spoke fondly of her; he looked up to her.”

In 1965, a few years after the McConnells joined Ms. Lorenz, she decided to exit the business. Rob picks up the timeline from there: “The story goes that our dad and grandfather went to every bank in town to get the money together. It finally worked out, and the business did well. A short time later, they were able to pay the loan off.”

Pavement maintenance was the foundation of the company, but in the late 1960s and early 1970s, it started working on sport surfaces. Tennis was the craze, and new courts were in demand.

McConnell & Associates’ path is not uncommon in the industry. “When we go to the American Sports Builders Association (ASBA) conference,” says Rob, “there are always people in the room like Scott and I, whose dads and grandfathers started the same way: one running a sports business, the other running pavement. They were at the right place at the right time.”

Growing up in the family business was a natural fit for the brothers. ”We both always knew that we were going to come into the business; it’s what we knew,” says Scott. After college, both moved into the business full time, moving from field work into estimating and sales and, ultimately, into leadership.

Today, the business not only has sports and paving divisions; it also manufactures the pavement coatings that its crews apply. It sells the products it makes to other pavement maintenance contractors through four retail outlets.

“There’s a lot of crossover in our business,” Scott explains. “With the services we provide and the trades we perform, there are natural bolt-on services to create more value for our customers. The businesses are run as different segments, but they complement each other.”

McConnell & Associates’ market segments cross over as well. Its customers include property and business owners as well as churches, but school districts, colleges, and parks and recreation departments are also ideal fits. “With schools, there’s potentially a need for everything McConnell offers. They’ll have a parking lot but also a running track; we can help with both. Similarly, a park might have exercise trails but also need a parking lot.”

For schools and civic departments, the cost of installation can be steep: a few hundred thousand dollars, up to half a million in some cases. These clients cannot risk a poor quality installation eating into their tight budgets.

With specialized and highly trained staff, McConnell & Associates offers end-to-end service. “We have the capability to help an owner design their project,” Scott says. “We have tennis court builders and track builders on our team, certified through ASBA. An architect or general contractor may not have the expertise, and we save them money and time because it’s a specialty project.”

And the surfaces are getting more specialized all the time. While many contractors can create asphalt surfaces, McConnell & Associates also competes with a smaller number of companies that install rubberized surfaces. “It’s a premium product, and those are specialty contracts,” says Rob. “The technology originated in Germany, and there are fewer companies here doing it.”

Rob underscores how McConnell & Associates builds trusting relationships with its customers. “The partnerships are something I’m really proud of. Our project manager will look at every school in a district, for example. We’ll evaluate each of the properties and give the facilities manager a plan: what needs maintenance this year, what can wait, and how much they should budget. We just take care of them; we give them a good experience.”

One unexpected dynamic about McConnell & Associates’ business surfaced in early 2021, when COVID emerged. At a time when businesses of all kinds were uncertain about what the pandemic would mean, the company’s phone started ringing.

“We heard from customers about work they wanted to do,” Scott remembers. “Schools were closing, so what better time to resurface the parking lot or rebuild the track? We went to our people and let them know that they didn’t have to work, that their job would be there for them no matter what. But everyone came in, and we got to work.”

Scott believes that it was a healthy thing for the employees. “For our community of employees, it was a good thing. We were able to work outside and be safe, and it helped to maintain a sense of normalcy.”

That dedication to looking after employees factored into a big decision leading into 2022. “The conversation started four or five years ago,” Scott says. “We started entertaining what succession planning looks like, but we wanted to be intentional about it. We have a strong management team; some of them have been with us for 15 or 20 years. We knew that they’d have to be a part of any succession plan.”

With consolidation happening in the industry, the owners did consider a sale to a private equity buyer. That is not what they chose.

“We think that this brand is worth continuing. We have a lot of very loyal customers; we have children that are going to come into the business, and we feel strongly about the management teams we have in place. So we looked at the options, and an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) just made sense to us.”

Companies everywhere strive to increase the level of ‘ownership quotient,’ hoping that employees will act with the same enthusiasm and dedication that an owner would. It was an easy decision for McConnell & Associates to create employee-owners in name, because it was an extension of what was already present in the business.

“ESOP made sense because we’ve got people who come in and do their jobs like they own the place already,” Rob says.

“It’s a lot more work,” Scott acknowledges, “but it’s worth it. We don’t have other business interests. We wanted to stay here and give the next generation of leaders the mentoring they need so they’ll be ready when it comes time for us to retire.”

Planning for the future also means putting additional structures in place. The competition for labor has become fiercer, so McConnell & Associates hired a full-time recruiter. “It’s tough to find people,” Scott shares. “Staffing is always a challenge; it’s a job that’s never done. We need that recruiter to strategically go after and hire the best people. To make sure our departments have the human resources they need.”

The company has also hired two people—one a new hire, the other someone who has worked with McConnell & Associates in different positions—into business development positions. These two are the first dedicated salespeople the company has ever had and will focus on the sports construction segment and the pavement maintenance and civil segment, respectively.

All of these elements working in tandem position the company well for the future. After nearly 60 years in operation, McConnell & Associates has an emerging cohort of committed leaders in place, a sense of true ownership among all its employees, and a broad range of loyal customer partnerships.

The post Quality Surfaces—and Quality Beneath the Surface<p class="company">McConnell & Associates</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

Brookfield Place—the tallest building in Calgary’s skyline—also boasts Igloo Erectors’ product in the top floors of the tower. The ICE Tower in Edmonton is another showcase project for the company, with ACM panels starting at 400 feet and going up the wall to 800 feet, as well as work in the lobby area.

Igloo Erectors also operates closer to ground level, with marquee projects like the Telus Spark Science Centre, the Calgary Airport Casino, and numerous automotive dealerships, schools, hospitals, malls, and even high-end homes rounding out the project list.

Richard Nesbitt is General Manager of Igloo Erectors. He entered the industry in 1980 and joined Igloo in 1998, and has seen dramatic changes in the construction industry, in both the work and the materials, in the decades since.

“We do a lot of standard siding, but a lot of custom panels as well,” he says. “In addition to ACM panels, we install phenolic panels, which have a wood grain appearance, as well. We’re also one of only a few approved applicators for Kalzip, a product we import from Europe.”

What sets Igloo Erectors apart from much of the competition is its fabrication capabilities. “We fabricate our own flashing, subgirts, and panels,” says Nesbitt. “We have our own standing seam roof machine, so we can produce panels on site.”

Up until now, Igloo Erectors has only had this fabrication capability in its Calgary location, but that’s about to change. “We’ve got another CNC machine on order,” Nesbitt shares. “We’ll be installing that machine here in Calgary and the one from here will be moved to our shop in Edmonton, so we’ll be able to cut and form material there as well.”

The technical capabilities of the company extend beyond fabrication. “With an ACM panel project, everything is cut to fit that project, so everything has to be measured. With scaffolding and man-lifts, it takes forever. With the digital building scanner we recently purchased, we can measure from the street in a few minutes.”

The company, and the industry in which it works, has come a long way from its initial form. The current owner, Dennis Hayden, began working in construction in Ontario with his father-in-law, installing metal roofs and walls and architectural cladding products.

When that company landed work on the Sheerness Power Plant in Hannah, Alberta, Dennis Hayden moved west to handle the job. And he never looked back.

“When Dennis was working on the project,” says Nesbitt, “he saw what Alberta was, how different it was from Ontario, and he decided that he wanted to stay once the project was finished.”

Hayden started his own company in 1987, and Igloo Erectors was born. Nesbitt joined a number of years later. “I was first introduced to Dennis around 1993. It took about five years, but Dennis convinced me to leave my job and come over to join him.”

When he joined the business, the company was just completing work on the BHP diamond mine in the Northwest Territories and in 2007, work started on the Snap Lake diamond mine. These were the last of the company’s major industrial projects, as he was hired to move Igloo Erectors into the supply and install business on commercial and Institutional projects. The company rented a small shop, began fabricating its own architectural panels and flashing, and business took off.

Earlier, with what turned out to be a stroke of foresight, Hayden had purchased a parcel of land near Calgary downtown. Igloo Erectors built its current head office and fabrication plant there, opened a second office in Edmonton, and the business continued to grow. Currently, the company takes on projects in Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, and the Northwest Territories.

When Hayden relocated from Ontario to Alberta, he was used to working with unionized trades and was a union member himself. It was his decision to form Igloo Erectors as a unionized business. When the recession in the early 1980s caused many of the businesses in the industry to become non-union, Igloo Erectors chose to buck the trend. It remains a unionized business to this day.

“We are the only unionized contractor in our trade doing commercial work,” Nesbitt says. “Every one of our competitors is non-union. Dennis has a lot of passion for the guys working out in the field. He wanted to give them something at the end of the day—pension, benefits, better pay.”

It’s challenging competing against so many non-union companies. Margins, already squeezed for every business, can be even narrower for Igloo Erectors. But the focus on more than just profit is what drew Nesbitt to the company in the first place. “Dennis has always been more concerned about providing a quality product that the owner and contractors are happy with than making all the money on every project. I liked that.”

On this arguably unbalanced playing field, however, the business competes effectively. The secret weapon: its people.

“We’re able to compete because we attract better workers and we keep them. Lots of our employees have been with us for 15, even 20 years and longer. Most companies in the industry can’t say that. We take pride in having so many long-term employees. They’re loyal, and they work their butts off.”

It’s not just the unionized status of outside workers that attracts and retains talented employees; Igloo has created a culture that expects people to do good work, trusts them to do so, and supports them when they need help. “We bring people on board, we give them freedom and the opportunity to learn and grow. We don’t hold their hands, but at the same time, we’re a team. Nobody’s ever left alone to solve a problem,” says Nesbitt.

Of course, the nature of the business itself has changed significantly over the course of three decades, and builders push to get work done as quickly as possible, putting pressure on every company involved in a project.

“Schedules are so condensed. What used to be a year has turned into six months. And we can only go as fast as the trade in front of us. If they’re delayed, the end date never changes. We have to make up the time at our own cost.”

Competition for the work is also more intense. For a job which, at one time, would have seen four or five bidders, Nesbitt says, Igloo Erectors is now one of 13 or 14 companies competing for the work. And many of those competitors are ‘truck and ladder guys,’ he says, without the foundation and facilities that Igloo Erectors has built.

All of these challenges are compounded by the fact that business is far less personal than it used to be. “We used to be in our customer’s face; we’d go to their office and spend time getting to know them. Now, everybody’s behind their computer. We don’t always know who we’re dealing with, and it’s harder to develop relationships.”

Supply chain challenges and skyrocketing costs in recent years have taken their toll as well. “We’re locked in on our prices. When we first quoted some jobs pre-COVID, we could buy material for $X per square foot. In the end, we had to buy it for 250 to 300 percent more per square foot,” Nesbitt shares. “We lost money on some jobs, but we managed, and we’re coming out of it.”

Igloo Erectors has 60-plus employees at present, and in the company’s words, a ‘growing arsenal of young talent.’ This is critical for the company because there are some transitions underway already, and more to come.

For instance, the company’s long-term field superintendent retired last year. And while Dennis Hayden remains involved in the business, he’s partially retired and no longer involved in the day-to-day operations. His son Scott Hayden, currently Operations Manager; Barry Bohane, Project Manager; and Carla Giebelhaus, Branch Manager in Edmonton, will take the reins at that time. Nesbitt plans to retire next year as well.

The company has been intentional about developing the capabilities of its young talent, though, and there’s a cohort that Nesbitt says is eager and ready to take on management roles.

Even Nesbitt acknowledges that he won’t be quite ready to leave the business entirely behind after so many years. “We’ve got a great up-and-coming team, but old talent doesn’t disappear. This is my baby. So even when I retire,” he chuckles, “there’s still going to be some ‘young old blood’ kicking around.”

The next generation of leadership is well-prepared to continue Igloo Erectors’ 37-year legacy. And an honest legacy it is.

“We stay focused and true to what our beliefs are. We never give up. We never walk away from a job. We stay with what we know, because we’re good at what we do. We won’t do something if we’re not 100 percent sure we can do it, and do it well.”

The post Building the Next Generation of Leadership<p class="company">Igloo Erectors </p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

Shaw Industries, a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., first entered the synthetic turf market through acquisition in 2009. The acquisition of Southwest Greens—rooted in the golf market—shortly thereafter brought Shaw into the landscape market. Shaw then created another brand, Shawgrass, which further solidified its market position in synthetic turf for the commercial and residential landscape markets. A fourth market-facing brand, Watershed Geosynthetics, manufactures a secure landfill closure system with synthetic turf on the surface.

Shaw Sports Turf, with offices, manufacturing, and distribution facilities in northern Georgia, makes synthetic turf for sports fields: baseball, softball, football, soccer, lacrosse, and field hockey. Its portfolio of installations—over 3,500 to date—includes an impressive list of sports franchises and venues: the Baltimore Ravens, Indianapolis Colts, Arizona Diamondbacks, Texas Rangers, Tampa Bay Rays, Ohio State University, Vanderbilt University, and more.

Chuck McClurg has been with Shaw Industries since 1992, and is Vice President of Shaw Sports Turf.

“Shaw really is a great place to work,” he says proudly. “We’re a people-first organization. We’re the fastest-growing area of the company today, and that growth provides opportunity. We’re part of a large, stable, financially-sound organization, and at the same time, as a division, we’re entrepreneurial in spirit, and growing at a rate where we have to innovate. We get the best of both worlds.”

As McClurg notes, the company is growing quickly, with gains throughout all four market-facing brands in the three verticals they serve.

“Synthetic turf is a growing market,” he says. “All manufacturers in the space have experienced increased demand, because there’s an overall increase in the use of synthetic grass. As of this moment, all the channels we participate in are growing, and that allows us to be diversified.”

The same pandemic that created challenges for many businesses has in fact contributed to that demand. “COVID didn’t create new trends, but it did accelerate existing trends,” says McClurg. “One of those was the use of synthetic turf, especially around the home. People were working from home, they had money to invest in their homes. And they’ve chosen this product.”

While the use of synthetic turf initially became popular in the sunbelt states, the market is expanding to all parts of North America and to Europe, as people are becoming more aware of the need to preserve water resources.

Amidst this growth, innovation is what sets Shaw Sports Turf apart from the crowd. The company has had dedicated research and development facilities in place since its inception, with one goal in mind: providing the best possible surface for customers and the athletes that will play on them.

“A lot of people looking from the outside in would be amazed at the technology that goes into our R&D process,” McClurg says. “We want to make sure the product we’re putting on the ground is the best it can be.” For Shaw Sports Turf, the key is playability. The company has dedicated itself to studying the athlete-to-surface interaction and the ball-to-surface interaction to offer the best playing experience for the athletes.

Each playing surface Shaw makes is designed specifically for the sport to be played on it. “We design our product by sport,” McClurg explains. “What we would recommend for football and baseball are totally different; for example, baseball is all about ball roll and ball bounce—the angle in and the angle out. Football, on the other hand, is more about traction and cleat release.”

Shaw benchmarks its products’ performance against a very high standard: a well-manicured natural-grass playing environment in a best-in-class sports venue.

“Our products are designed to be the best playing surface for each sport,” says McClurg. “Not the best grass surface, or the best synthetic surface, but the best playing surface. That’s the benchmark.”

The company is doubling down on that commitment to research and development with a new innovation lab to be opened soon. “We’re going to build on the playability testing we’ve done and go much deeper on the player-to-surface interaction. We want to understand the movement, the biomechanical aspects, better. The lab and the tools we have there will allow us to understand that at a much deeper level.”

For Shaw Sports Turf, the research and development doesn’t stop when the player takes the field. In 2022, the company won two awards from the Synthetic Turf Council (STC): one for Innovation and the other for Sustainability. Shaw earned STC’s Innovation award in recognition of its GAME ON product, which solves a key challenge for venues: field integrity. Traditionally, synthetic turf is installed and then cut so that inlays can be glued in for lines, numbers, and other markings. GAME ON changes that.

“We have an advanced tufting asset that allows us to tuft field markings directly into the field,” explains McClurg. “Whether it’s football, soccer, or lacrosse, regardless of the line package, we can tuft that into the field.”

For customers, fewer seams in the field means a stronger, more durable playing surface, with less maintenance required.

“GAME ON also gives us better design capabilities. Large logos for the field, end zones, those elements are tufted together in one run, and it elevates the design aspect.” Currently, McClurg says, Shaw Sports Turf is the only company in the world with this technology.

The second STC recognition was the Sustainability award, given to Shaw Sports Turf for another product, the NXTPlay performance shock pad. This product, according to McClurg, is one of the ways Shaw is responding to challenges by creating an opportunity.

“When you consider the number of fields that went in eight or ten years ago,” he says, “now they’re coming out to be replaced. One of the big opportunities is at the end of a field’s useful life. We have the ability to bring that field back, mechanically recycle it, and turn it into a shock pad that’s used under the next generation field.”

A similar opportunity exists in the landscape channel, and the numbers are significant. According to the company’s website, this process has diverted more than 2,500 tons of artificial turf from landfill. The company has put that material back into use, incorporating it into over 3.5 million square feet of NXTPlay performance shock pad.

For McClurg, these kinds of innovations are built into the way Shaw Sports Turf does business. “Our brand identity is really around innovation. GAME ON, NXTPlay, the playability research we do; it’s how we go to market today. We’re very innovative and very different.”

An upcoming event will provide the opportunity for the company to showcase that innovative drive to a very large audience: Shaw has been chosen as the official synthetic turf sponsor for the College Football Playoffs. “We’re really excited,” says McClurg. “This event will give us the opportunity to elevate our brand through sports and through the association with CFP.”

According to the official announcement released in September, Shaw Sports Turf will be showcasing its diverse range of products throughout the event spaces, through to the national championship game on January 8 at Houston’s NRG Stadium.

With significant innovations already under its belt—and big events on the horizon—what’s next for Shaw Sports Turf?

For McClurg, the answer is clear. There’s always a way to make things even better, so there’s always a reason to keep innovating. “For us, it all comes down to research. What does our client need? What are the problems that, if solved, will change the way we do business? That’s the fundamental innovation question.”

The post Taking Innovation to the Field<p class="company">Shaw Sports Turf</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.