With projects across three countries, the U.S.-based energy company has been providing on-grid and off-grid power solutions via its own small gas turbine generators (also called microturbines) and custom-fit heat exchangers for over ten years. In New York, FlexEnergy Solutions just came through one of its biggest challenges yet, proving to itself and the world that, yes, it can make it anywhere.

FlexEnergy Solutions’ products, including the patented Flex Turbine®, provide uninterrupted power distribution for industries like oil and gas, commercial, industrial, and multi-family residential facilities. That was attractive to the residents of the Sheffield Condominium building in Manhattan, who were looking for just that – a power source that would not fail, no matter what the conditions.

New York is the home of some extremely tough environmental regulations, and the Sheffield’s Board managers were looking to exceed those requirements. They were searching for a way to meet New York’s emission reduction targets and boost the efficiency of power generation. The Flex Turbine unit, complete with Flex’s heat exchanger, fit the bill. A single 333 kW combined heat and power unit is now powering critical loads for the forty-nine-story building. The full gas turbine solution brings an annual estimated energy savings of between $200,000 and $500,000 and a resulting payback in fewer than six years.

“We believe this will demonstrate to the state and city of New York what we can do about greenhouse gas and carbon reduction,” said Flex’s Chief Commercial Officer, Doug Baltzer. “Resiliency was a big driver for them. They wanted to be able to run through any disturbances in power and avoid what has been happening with outages throughout the U.S.”

One of those instances he is referring to is the major winter storm that occurred back in February, which took out much of Texas’ power generation capabilities and left most of the state without power. It should be noted that during that ice storm, Flex Turbines delivered power to Flex’s Texas customers without interruption.

“If you become dependent upon a source of power that’s not naturally reliable, you’re going to want to find ways to get through these types of power interruptions. We fit into what the Sheffield condo Board was aiming to do with combined heat and power for efficiency and carbon reduction.”

That project presented challenges, as most projects do. The only real available space Sheffield could offer was in a utility room in an underground garage. It was not the most spacious place for an ultra-modern power generation unit, but the company made it work. The unit, a GT333S model, had to be partially disassembled to be brought in because of some low overhead clearance issues. Also, the exhaust system, which typically runs out the top, was reengineered to fit within the condominium’s specifications.

“So, we had to design a side exhaust exit for our machine. That will become an option (for other projects) going forward, but it was a first time for this particular installation,” said Chief Executive Officer Mark Schnepel. “The exhaust will be fed into a heat recovery steam generator, so they’ll utilize the waste heat coming off the turbine, which will offset their boiler loads.

Baltzer commended the facility managers in that particular project for being so progressive. “Many of them are trying to get every last drop of juice they can from inefficient, unreliable, dirty equipment they bought in the fifties and sixties,” he said, “and here’s the facility’s ownership group, getting out ahead, asking how they can improve over the next decade or so. It’s really exciting for us to lead these forward-thinking groups in figuring out what is next in terms of energy.”

Schnepel said Flex is working with facilities and organizations throughout the globe to incorporate these methods of efficiency and carbon reduction.

Flex managed through the pandemic fairly well, all things considered, because it supplies critical power to industries that cannot shut down, such as medical, manufacturing, and oil and gas facilities. Baltzer said that the leasing side of Flex’s business did well through 2020 in spite of significant reductions to many customers’ capital budgets. When oil and gas took a severe dip in the last year—Baltzer still admits to being surprised at how low prices dropped—he said that clients appreciated that Flex could work with them through the difficult time. Flex’s scalable, clean power solution was what proved most attractive, he said.

“I think a lot of clients fail to really think about power until it’s absent. No matter how low the economy dropped, it would have cost our customers even more to shut completely down,” said Baltzer. “Budgets and expenses were cut throughout most of last year, but it’s coming back now.”

Schnepel said FlexEnergy Solutions was fortunate to have several existing orders that carried it through, with a great deal of inventory built up in preparation of those orders. But now, many businesses are back up in terms of capacity and have taken a lot of that inventory. A couple of years ago, Flex started designing, manufacturing, and selling heat exchangers in addition to its microturbines. Schnepel called this a “bright spot,” for business during the pandemic, because it helped the company maintain operations. He said many companies continued to invest in power generation, which kept Flex quite busy.

“We’re actually having to add labor now, because the turbine side is returning, and the heat exchanger side never really went away,” he explained. “A lot of investment is going into the next generation of power to run on hydrogen, and the pandemic seems to have accelerated this.”

So, business goes on.

“One startling thing has been the price of materials, like the increases in steel and copper and a lot of components,” said Schnepel. “We’ve seen some price increases that we’ve had to balance and stay on top of or else our costs would go up dramatically. It’s taken a lot of negotiation with our suppliers to make sure those prices remain at least close to where they’ve been in the past.”

Now, with the world beginning to see the end of the pandemic, Schnepel said companies are beginning to view energy in a different, more positive way and are adapting to using it differently, which is to Flex’s ultimate advantage. With a North American power grid designed in the 1950s powering twenty-first-century technology, things need to be done differently.

“I think what we’re experiencing in the market is growing sophistication with how businesses look at energy. It’s no longer just a utility bill, but is a substantial part of their operations,” he said. “That’s driving industries to get creative and to find savings through renewables or incentives, or combining everything into one system that can give them resiliency as well as an opportunity to reduce their carbon footprint.”

Baltzer said he is proud to be part of a company that offers new solutions to old technology. FlexEnergy Solutions helps companies and communities rethink what they have been doing with old, inefficient (dirty) power sources and introducing them to technology that helps reduce costs, improve performance, and provides more efficient operations.

“Customers are asking FlexEnergy for solutions that integrate with new renewable and clean energy sources and how we can become a part of the customer’s microgrid solution,” he continued. “This is how a lot of different sources of energy get combined into one resilient solution. Customers are being driven by the need for clean energy options – for the ability to tie in with wind and solar, and to maximize all sources available for a carbon-neutral solution.”

What that means is that with Flex’s technology, a company can optimize their power sources. They can access solutions to seamless connections to clean energy sources that combine microturbines, wind, and solar instead of strictly getting electricity from unreliable utility grids.

“We feel we can play into that larger picture with the customer who wants to use everything available, and we’re the ones capable of connecting all sources into one,” Schnepel added. “The way the world is going, energy diversity is becoming increasingly important – utilizing different sources of energy such as solar and wind power, battery storage, and generators to help maintain battery charge when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. This diversity will help companies and communities take advantage of different rates rather than just having to rely on what the local power company charges at any given time.”

In the area of power solutions, FlexEnergy Solutions offers services for on- and off-grid power, unique gases, and cogeneration, among others. The company sells and manufactures high temperature heat exchangers for a diverse range of end applications as well as for gas turbine recuperation.

The post Flexible and Sustainable Power Solutions<p class="company">FlexEnergy Solutions</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

Improvement in all facets of business is not just a goal but a way of life, says Christopher Anthony, Chief Operations Officer, and getting better is something everyone in the company stands behind.

“Mr. Emond coined a phrase around here: ‘Someday we’ll be a real company,’” he said. “I personally hope we don’t because my fear is, if we do, we’ll stop trying, and the goal here is to always get better.”

Emond mainly serves projects in Rhode Island, Southern New Hampshire, Eastern Connecticut, and its home state of Massachusetts with licensed tradespeople throughout those areas. The majority of the company’s work–about seventy-five percent–involves plumbing, and the rest is HVAC. It even created its own sheet metal construction department, which allows its clients to have one subcontractor for three major trades.

It all started with Don Emond Jr., who Anthony calls the ‘American Dream.’ When Emond started the company, he did not know anyone in the plumbing industry, Anthony says, but he liked to work with his hands, so he learned about plumbing. He was a guy in a truck, doing small jobs to get by, according to the company history. Now his company employs over 150 people in four states, and Anthony couldn’t be prouder.

“This all starts with [Don Emond Jr.], and he really cares about his employees. You hear the phrase ‘give him the shirt off his back,’ but I’ve actually watched that happen,” said Anthony. “This is a family company, and even though it’s gotten larger over the years, we treat everyone like family here, and if anyone needs help, I have yet to hear Don say no to anyone. He really cares.”

That caring was on display at the beginning of the pandemic last year. Anthony said the company kept going, kept the jobs going that it could, and kept communicating with employees, remaining honest and open. Some were scared and wanted to take a couple of weeks off, so they got that with pay. Others wanted to continue working, so they showed up every day, for which they were paid a little extra. Some even wanted to be laid off.

“People had different emotions, and we had to deal with it almost on a person-by-person basis and work through it with them,” said Anthony. “But it was really about working independently with each person and working through their concerns and trying to accommodate their needs. A lot were surprised that we would pay them even though they weren’t working, but we thought it was the right move at the time, in the interest of giving everyone a little bit of comfort at an awkward time.”

Today the company is “pretty much,” back to normal, and now dealing with the aftereffects. You may have heard about lumber prices going up and affecting contractors who need lumber. Although Emond doesn’t use much wood, it does use PVC piping, the price of which has risen by over forty-five percent. It is a concern that if that kind of price increase continues, the client may stop projects, Anthony says. Generally, Emond Plumbing & Heating might buy a million linear feet per year, and a price jump like the one that Emond material buyers have had to contend with is worrisome, to say the least. No one, Anthony added, is making any predictions about when those prices will go down.

But there is a silver lining. Jobs that were bid and slated to started last summer but were postponed due to the pandemic are now, for the most part, ready to go. When you have that enormous demand on people and products, factories that shut down do not have the inventory and are now trying to increase productivity, Anthony says. So Emond has begun to catch up, and that means business with many projects in the pipeline.

It is also impressive to look at some of its past jobs. Anthony says he is most proud of a residential complex called Cirrus Apartments in Ashland, Massachusetts. With almost four hundred units and a clubhouse, the size was challenging enough, but its construction schedule took workers over a couple of difficult winters. Working conditions were frozen in winter and muddy in spring and fall, but Anthony expressed his pride, saying that anyone seeing it now would be very impressed.

Other projects of which he and the company are proud include The Key, a 280-unit residential complex in Franklin, Massachusetts and a 270-unit complex in Framingham, Massachusetts. Emond has a certain criterion in project selection according to Anthony.

“We look for the size of projects, how many units in a building, and geographic location – that one is big because, if we can, we like to minimize our employee travel time,” he said. “Also, client relationships are very important and Emond believes in open and honest communication to alleviate any concerns for any partner involved with the project.”

The company mainly focuses on residential properties, which include multi-unit apartment complexes, assisted living facilities, and fifty-five-and-older communities. It also likes to work with contractors and companies that turn old mills and factories into living areas, and Anthony seems to have a particular liking for updating old manufacturing sites, professing a love of helping turn something old into something new.

“We manufacture exposed ductwork in our sheet metal facility (for these projects), and they make for some very unique and interesting buildings,” he said. “It’s nice to change a little bit of the history of those old mills that might be abandoned.”

He is proud that Emond helps to turn those old buildings into communities with gyms or basketball courts or outdoor living areas with resort-type features. Emond has even done this kind of project for itself. It bought an old facility in its hometown and created a new 20,000-square-foot fabrication plant along with approximately 10,000 square feet of office and training space.

Of course, like any trade-based business, Emond is not immune to the current labor shortage being experienced across multiple areas of business. One of the company’s solutions was to utilize the co-op program in which six to twelve students are brought in per year to explore working in the trades at its fabrication shop or helping with plumbing or HVAC installation. In that path alone, Emond has added six to ten people per year in the last few years, and Anthony considers it mutually beneficial for both the students and the company.

“We’ve been very successful in bringing in students to help them learn a trade and to work in a trade – it helps us with staffing and it helps them with an alternative to going to college and taking out student loans to do so,” he says “We’ve found that to be successful, we have a very good HR department that helps us tremendously to find good people all around, but it’s a challenge, it’s a full-time job finding the right people.”

The company also addresses industry-wide labor shortages by treating people fairly and taking care of them along the way. The company offers incentive plans and shared benefits. When the company does well, Anthony says he wants employees to do well.

That includes training. Emond takes its training programs very seriously, and constantly works to keep everyone safety trained and keep them abreast of the latest technology. That Anthony calls a challenge, but it is one the company always rises to meet.

The people of Emond are what Anthony is most proud of. “We have a phenomenal team from the office and project management to our foremen and younger apprentices. We just have great people who truly want to do the best work they can,” he said.

The future is looking bright. Emond has work to carry it forward into 2023. It will continue, Anthony said, by inviting new ideas from employees and by firmly believing that everyone wants to be better and wants to work towards improvement.

Maybe Emond Plumbing is a real company after all.

The post Moving Forward<p class="company">Emond Plumbing & Heating</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

Since 1973, Western Pacific has been servicing all aspects of the electrical construction industry for industrial, commercial, and utility clients through Western Canada. Specializing in large-scale commercial electrical projects and utilities, as well as service and maintenance, company representatives and employees have seen it all.

WPE Safety Manager Wayne Fettback said he is proud of the reputation his company has built over the years. Most of what WPE does is based upon word-of-mouth, and that reputation has been built by providing large general contractors across myriad industries with innovative, project-based solutions. Well-known for its proficiency in handling complex electrical needs, WPE can accommodate any scenario – from remote substations to hospitals, power distribution facilities, SkyTrain stations, and even major renovations to BC Place, home of the CFL’s BC Lions.
Do Fettback and the WPE crew have a favourite project? “Challenging ones,” he quipped. ‘No job is too large – or too intimidating – for us to handle,’ reads the company’s website, and Fettback agrees. “We do hospitals, convention centres, public transit; we’re proud of everything we do.”

He added that WPE was fortunate to have weathered the pandemic storm better than most. “Construction is an essential service and we were very fortunate to be deemed as such so our workers were able to continue to be employed and projects [kept] moving ahead. Construction is cyclical, of course. We would have been already starting projects by the time the pandemic hit… There are things we had to do to accommodate construction but it certainly didn’t stop.”

Of course, the company has had to deal with masks and testing, the same as everyone else because of COVID-19. But as Fettback looks back to what many consider to be a lost year, he said that 2020 was, in fact, one of the best years the company has had.

“We’ve been very blessed with the kind of projects we’ve done and with our staff. I’m proud of our safety program. It’s been recognized in Canada as one of the premier programs,” he said. “I think the company itself has an awful lot of accomplishments.”

WPE’s roots come from decades of building several significant industrial projects in British Columbia in the 1960s and 70s. It was established in 1973 by Ernie Moore and Dieter Fettback, Wayne’s father. In the 1990s, Wayne started as part of the managing team, along with his brothers, Ron and David. They serve most aspects of the electrical industry and have built some of the most prominent features of Vancouver and Western Canada. WPE crews have even done jobs in Ontario and Nova Scotia.

Fettback said he is grateful for the company’s people working, whom he considers a major asset. “We’ve been fortunate because the company’s biggest strengths are the people we have working for us. A lot of them are in the business twenty-five and thirty years,” he said. “We’ve been able to attract a lot of people, young people that are learning the trade, and develop them internally.”

He said, for the most part, although working with new and younger workers has brought challenges, they still keep moving forward, generation after generation. A big part of that is due to the company training programs.

“We’ve developed our own training, just so we can become more agile instead of using outside services,” he said. “Most of our safety training is done in-house, so we have better control over who gets what and how long the training takes.”

Fettback is an accountant by trade, but he realized decades ago that there is a direct cost relationship between the profitability and safety of a company. “I’m very much engrossed in safety in this province and Western Canada,” he explained. Keeping workers safe on the job is of the utmost importance, and with proper management of a robust safety program, accidents and claims can be drastically reduced.

WPE is owned by the MYR Grou, headquartered in Chicago, which purchased the Western Canadian company five years ago. In the half-decade before that, WPE’s average annual revenues had been approximately CAD 100 million and the reason for the acquisition was to expand and leverage MYR’s transmission and distribution capabilities in the region through WPE’s extensive substation experience in the electric utility sector.

MYR Group’s President and Chief Executive Officer Bill Koertner was quite happy at the time of the acquisition. In a statement, he said: “The addition of WPE to MYR Group strengthens our position in Canada with its experience and expertise in both the C&I and T&I market segments and further demonstrates the execution of our three-pronged strategy of prudent organic growth, acquisitions, and return of capital for our stockholders. WPE brings a skilled workforce, a strong management team and a culture that aligns with MYR Group’s own values and culture. We welcome the employees of WPE and look forward to a successful integration into our organization.”

Koertner noted in that statement that WPE has extensive experience in large-scale electrical projects and telecommunications for general contractors, commercial and industrial facility owners, local governments, and developers. Of course, Fettback already knew that, just as he knew MYR was getting one great company with which to work.

The projects in WPE’s portfolio are impressive, to say the least. WPE was recognized as a Vancouver Regional Construction Association Landmark Award Trade Contractor for its work on the BC Place roof replacement and facilities. Fettback called the BC Place project one of the most challenging yet best-run projects he has been a part of. The company built the Vancouver Convention Centre and the Whistler Sliding Centre, as well as the Nordic Track.

One of the company’s most challenging projects? Two HVDC Substations located outside Edmonton and Calgary. “At that time, we had close to five hundred people on those sites, and it was definitely one of the most challenging but also one of the best-run projects,” said Fettback. “That one, we had close to six or eight safety people working two shifts. It was tough, but we’re proud of that one too.”

The company even has a hand in education, building The Nest, a tower-like structure in the University of British Columbia Student Union Building that is a central hub for students to study, socialize, shop, and dine.

“Construction is looking pretty robust in Western Canada right now. It’s exciting times,” he said. “To see the next generation coming up, it’s exciting, at least for me it is, even though I maybe only have five or six years left, and I’m training people (to do) my job and getting them ready to walk me out the door.”

It happens when you have been in an industry for decades. At least Fettback can look back on his years with one of the most successful companies out of Western Canada with satisfaction. It is getting through a pandemic pretty well, and its past work shows it can meet any challenge head-on.

The post Up to the Challenge<p class="company">Western Pacific</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

We spoke with Paul Marchesani, General Manager of Panelized Building Solutions’, who explained that his company is in a position where it has to be careful about booking anything, schedule-wise. “It’s just crazy; in the first few months of 2021, for the first time ever, we booked out for the whole year,” said Marchesani. “Last year builders sold out all their units, and now they’re in a big rush to get their units built. In the last month or so, we’ve had to say no to a lot of jobs because we’re just so booked up.”

For six years now, Panelized Building Solutions has been providing pre-fabrication products to the homebuilding and construction industry in the Greater Toronto Area and recently has expanded into Ottawa. Owner and framing contractor Vince Leto got his start in the framing business in the 1970s and would eventually go on to become one of the province’s largest framing contractors.

Leto observed a shrinking skilled labour situation, a need for building speed and better quality. This, coupled with the rise of panelized systems in the construction industry, spurred Panelized Building Solutions to meet this growing need in the market.

“We then vertically integrated into panels and lumber,” said Marchesani, who is Leto’s son-in-law. “We go to builders, offering a full package which includes the supply of lumber, the manufacturing of panels and the site installation.” I’d say the vast majority of our traditional stick frame builders have now switched to a panel system.”

Built the right way
This is because the pre-fabrication involved in a panelized system means savings and quality are built right in. PBS’ process uses approximately 26 percent less lumber, takes at least 37 percent less construction time than conventional stick-built homes, and saves clients approximately 50 percent of waste bin costs, resulting in significant overall savings for builders.

By completing so much of the work in-house, PBS also maintains a tight grip on quality control. “Precision is paramount in the pre-fabrication process,” says the company, with materials being cut to exact lengths using an integrated computer-controlled measuring system. PBS is in fact the only Canadian panel manufacturer to use a single platform Design & Engineering Software. This level of precision, coupled with the company’s proprietary Wall & Floor Lifting System, creates a tighter and more efficient building envelope in the final structure.

PBS goes the extra mile by including design coordination, installation, and delivery using its own fleet of trucks and trailers. The PBS design team works with the builder, architects and structural engineers throughout all projects, and it is an exacting process. The team coordinates all mechanical, windows, doors, and stair openings with the contractor, supplies the wall and floor panels, trusses, and all loose lumber, including footings, bracing, roof load and rough-in, and offers complete installation services, with a highly skilled team of professionals and all the equipment required to put the panels securely into place, including a wide range of cranes.

This level of coordination between the different disciplines makes for a tighter process and a better end result for the client. “Our One-Stop Shop system just makes it so much easier for the site foreman, workers, engineers – really everyone. We’ve learned a lot over the years, and I think people have learned from us too,” said Marchesani.

PBS offers what he calls ‘the trifecta’ to a breadth of award-winning contractors and construction companies. The company provides the lumber and materials, builds parts of the structures in its huge facilities to be put together on a building site, and cleans up afterward, leaving virtually no waste and no soft costs associated with the work.

A wise investment
The results are impressive. With a panelized system, housing developments can be installed in mere days as opposed to weeks because the key elements – floors and walls – have been prebuilt in PBS’ facility in Maple, Ontario, just north of Toronto.

Marchesani says in some cases, this kind of system may prove to be a fraction more expensive, but when builders take into consideration the advantages, it evens out. “When you look at it all, there may be a $1.50 to $2.00 premium per square foot for a panelized system supplied to a site, but that doesn’t take into account the time, speed, wastage, lumber, bin savings, and most of all the safety… Most builders see the value.”

The process the PBS team uses means they can install structures faster, obviously a big selling point. And the company need not call for more materials – also big, with lumber costs through the roof. Some media outlets have reported as much as a two hundred percent increase in lumber costs since the pandemic took hold as people are staying home and choosing to make home improvements rather than go on vacation.

The result has Marchesani comparing the price of lumber to the price of gold, making his company try even harder to minimize waste by always using cut-offs and other wood scraps to minimize waste and cost overruns.

Exceeding client expectations
Panelized Building Solutions supplies its pre-assembled flooring and wall products to leading builders like Arista Homes, Andrin Homes, City Park Homes, Daniels Corp., Deco Homes, Poetry Living, and VanMar Constructors. One of Marchesani’s favourite duties is taking visitors on tour at the company’s 70,000-square-foot factory-warehouse in Vaughan, Ontario, Canada where he gets explain how the company builds a house in sections to get it delivered.

“We build the floors in panels and the walls in panels, and those get labelled; it’s almost like an Ikea system. The framers will look at the drawings, and they’ll build accordingly, like a jigsaw puzzle.”

Marchesani is most proud of his company’s efforts on midrise, six-storey buildings – which is the limit for wood-framed residential buildings in Ontario. The company does a lot of those, he said, because other framing contractors will back away from those jobs due to the difficulty. They take a lot of engineering, he explained, and a lot of contractors stay away from them. PBS welcomes the challenge, however. “We tend to gravitate toward them, from building them to getting them installed. It’s our niche.”

Looking ahead
One challenge PBS – like all companies industry-wide – has faced is labour shortages, with this year bringing extra challenges. “We are seeing that it will be an issue,” Marchesani shared. “We’re already preparing our customers because we do think there’s going to be some issue this summer with installers. New home sales have significantly increased and the pressure is on to get the homes built.”

That is because construction is yet another industry affected by, you guessed it, COVID-19. For years before the pandemic hit, a shortage of skilled tradespeople has been a factor in the industry. Now it is impacted even further because of travel restrictions. Ontario is one of the worst-hit areas for the virus, and workers who traditionally come across the border from Quebec are not coming. The same situation exists with workers who travel between the Prairie Provinces and British Columbia. Border closures have also put a strain on workers coming from abroad.

“With the shrinking labour force out there, we need to make the build simpler, quicker, and easier to install as well as more repeatable,” Marchesani explained. Fundamentally, these are the advantages underpinning a panelized system, so the company is in a strong position moving forward. “That’s what we try to achieve with our systems. We all believe that what we’re doing is the future.”

The post Prefabricating the Future<p class="company">Panelized Building Solutions</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

The Texas-based commercial waterproofing company has been telling those who will listen about the hazards of poor waterproofing since 1993. The team has many stories and has done work in a variety of facilities, and the message is always the same: poor waterproofing can lead to disaster for a building.

The company was founded in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, Texas when three guys knowledgeable in waterproofing, construction, and business experience decided to put their names on the building. Daniel George Cain added his middle name, Steven D Wilson added his middle initial and Steven Alan Frank added his middle name to form the banner of The George D. Alan Company.

The company hit the ground running, providing solutions in the areas of not just waterproofing, but also caulking, moisture protection, fire-stopping, and restoration. It now has five locations; Austin, Dallas, and Houston in Texas; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Its roughly 250 employees toil in work that many people just do not think about until something goes wrong. Cain said educating the consumer is an issue; most just do not realize the havoc that poor waterproofing can wreak on a structure.

He recalled one project George D. Alan did recently. A medical facility that was less than ten years old had more leaks than some could count. The project ended up costing about eighty percent of the original cost of building the facility.

“The skin had to be taken off the building – the windows, the brick, metal panels, everything outside the drywall, insulation – everything, and reinstalled,” he recalled. “All of this had to be done while the facility was still operational, so it was an interesting one. It is very important to install moisture protection work correctly the first time. Fortunately, we were not part of the original project.”

The company deals mainly with commercial and industrial clients, multi-family builders, educational buildings and other facilities. Target, Lowes and Walmart are on its client list, as are apartments, other healthcare facilities, and even jails.

“I’ve never done time, let me be very clear on that,” said the humorous Cain. “But jails are interesting to work on. They are done with epoxy sealant, so prisoners can’t hide dope and shanks in doorways and windows.”

Evidently, one picks up all kinds of useful information in the waterproofing game.

Of course, these days, we must talk about COVID-19. George D. Alan had its share of downtime, like everyone else, but the company is holding strong thanks to its bid process.

“In this business, often we bid on a job a year before we actually start working on it, so the pipeline was actually pretty full when the pandemic first hit,” said Cain. “We did okay at the beginning, struggled a bit in the middle, and we’ve had to take some extra steps, but we’re doing well now. In fact, I’d say our numbers in 2019 and 2020 are pretty similar.”

He added that as far as business during the pandemic, anyone building or repairing hotels or offices would get hit hard, but multi-family units, hospitals, and schools are still being built or serviced. It helps, he said, to have customers that know how to pivot, as does George D. Alan.

“The most challenging projects for us,” Cain said, “are the ones that are also challenging for our clients. Compressed schedules, incomplete or confusing construction documents, and other specialty trade contractors struggling can cause problems. Construction is a team effort and we must constantly focus on working as a team so we can all be successful together.”

Another aspect is a worker shortage, which has affected many construction-based businesses over the last several decades. The worker shortage has been going on for a long time, causing some companies to hire some less-skilled people who would eventually have to be managed more thoroughly or pushed out. Construction isn’t for everybody.

“That makes it bad for everyone,” said Cain. “We’ve had to train a lot more and terminate a lot faster – the available talent with an eight percent unemployment rate is much different from a three percent rate.”

George D. Alan’s solution to all this is to vastly improve its training programs. Recognizing that it serves such a small part of the construction industry, management created training modules in both English and Spanish that are not found anywhere else. Some in-house training is supplied, as well as online training.

“So now, after starting our focus on training, we probably do more training than anyone else in the industry. It reduces cost and claims and increases customer service and employee engagement,” he said. “A well-trained guy makes fewer mistakes than a guy off the street.”

Cain said it helps to be always learning. New technology has brought the company to a point of instant communication that, even a decade ago, might not have been possible. For safety and quality control, if it has workers in the field who discover issues that need to be addressed, it is far easier now to bring those issues to management’s attention, even if there is a language barrier between management and the employees.

“They can snap a picture and send it to us or attach it to a report, and within minutes, we are working on a solution. We know exactly what is going on and what needs to be done,” he said. “That’s incredibly empowering. It brings the guy in the field [into the solution], and we can show the client what is happening in the field, and that’s a process that ten years ago would have taken two weeks.”

At the moment, the company is seeing the most growth in air and vapor barriers. The science is out there in full force, showing that a vapor barrier needs to be an integral part of a building and cutting corners does not add up, especially when it comes to energy cost. If there is moisture in the air, Cain explained, it costs a lot more to heat or cool that air. George D. Alan has seen a major increase in this aspect of the job over the last few years.

“Waterproofing used to be one percent of a construction project. Now it has more than doubled,” he said. “There’s a definite long-term benefit for owners to own buildings that are energy-efficient, cheaper to run and maintain, and we’re there to help.”

Cain sees some struggles coming with chemical technology in the future. Manufacturers are pressured to bring new products to the construction market, he said, and it is difficult to have construction products with a ten-year track record in all different kinds of applications and configurations. As a result, a potential situation could arise in which George D. Alan could install a product that is promised to be of good quality, only to have it turn out to be used in a manner that it was not designed for. Management tackles this problem by testing some of the products that are being used in the field so they can tell what works and what does not. This will hopefully create a better-quality experience for everyone involved.

Like a lot of companies, George D. Alan has a charitable side to it, giving to local charities like the SoupMobile, a non-profit organization that feeds and shelters the homeless in Dallas. SoupMobile serves over 200,000 meals per year and provides shelter and sponsors residences for formerly homeless people, including veterans. The company also helps the Denton State Supported Living Center in Denton, Texas, which assists people suffering from severe mental and physical disabilities.

How George D. Alan helps charities is a little different than most. If a project comes along that is not in the company’s wheelhouse, or it would not normally tackle, it will take it on, but require the client to donate to one of its charities.

“If a client needs something done on his house, something we wouldn’t normally do, we’ll tell him that we’ll do the work, but we ask them to donate,” said Cain. “The nice thing about that is that organization gets the check.” The charities have always been gracious about the donations and most of the clients have been glad to be a part of the charity’s efforts.

The future looks good for George D. Alan. Cain said he and his fellow management team, as well as their employees, are focused mainly on customers and doing the work right.

“Money is secondary. If you run your business right, you’ll make money, and if you do it correctly, you’ll make more money,” he said. “But focusing on customers and doing the job right is how we do things, and we always will.”

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