Bioesque Solutions has come up with a radical new alternative to traditional disinfectant solution. From its Southeast Florida headquarters north of Miami, Bioesque has created a new future in sustainable, nontoxic hospital-grade disinfectants.

The company has identified that its flagship liquid Disinfectant Solution, originally designed to kill mold, also effectively and easily kills bacteria and viruses including the SARS-CoV-2 virus on any surface. Bioesque is approved by the E.P.A to kill SARS-CoV-2 with only one minute of wet contact. Bioesque Solutions has strategically aligned with CDS Distribution and Supply to expand and service the Canadian market as exclusive importer and master distributor. Together the two organizations have formed Bioesque Solutions Canada.

Environmentally friendly
Less damaging and faster-acting than most traditional chemicals, Bioesque’s botanical liquid Disinfectant Solution is entirely plant-based. So it’s a much safer alternative to chemicals such as bleach, peroxide and some others.

The Disinfectant Solution’s primary active ingredient is Thymol, a component of thyme oil. Blended with Bioesque’s proprietary Thymox technology, the resulting blend is stable, highly effective, biodegradable in 14 days, non-toxic and non-corrosive.

The Disinfectant Solution arrives ready-to-use, with no dilution required, and will dry with no wiping or rinsing required. As for regulation, the disinfectant is fully approved and regulated by the E.P.A. & Health Canada.

Defying gravity
In addition to traditional spray bottles, electrostatic technology allows for rapid deployment for small or large areas.

Electrostatic technology charges the solution, attracting the molecules to surfaces such as counters, desks, doors, railings, light switches and other high contact touch points. The controlled mist with electrostatic sprayers will coat surfaces for the required wet contact without over-wetting. Charged molecules will constantly attempt to ground and therefore completely and evenly cover an entire surface, including hard to reach areas and contours.

“Imagine an airplane, classroom or a bus, and how long it could take to properly disinfect,” says Vince Cecala, Vice President of Bioesque Solutions Canada. Bioesque teamed up with electrostatic spray can properly complete the job in a fraction of the time without cutting corners.

In addition to speeding up disinfection, the electrostatic process allows the spray to reach inaccessible locations with little effort – places typically difficult to reach, such as the contours of faucets, office chair controls, doorknobs, railings and electronics are all now quickly and easily coated with disinfected solution.

Early success, segment shift
Bioesque’s disinfectant gained early success particularly with home restoration companies, which used the spray to eliminate mold colonies and repair damage after storms, fires and floods.

The company expanded its product line to include a heavy degreaser and odor neutralizer, gaining new success in other segments. But its flagship disinfectant spray remained its most popular item, due to its innovative technology.

The challenges of the 2020 COVID-19 outbreak have required products like Bioesque to support effective and thorough disinfection of schools, recreation facilities, health care facilities, transportation, restaurants, lodging, commercial properties and homes.

Sharing the good news
Businesses and consumers may acquire the disinfectant through any authorized Bioesque distributors. In Canada, there are authorized distributors coast to coast.

To those who use Bioesque Disinfectant Solution, the benefits are difficult to overstate. “To be able to offer a hospital-grade disinfectant with botanical technology, that’s where the innovation lies,” remarks Darrell Campbell of Bioesque Solutions Canada, and lead sales consultant.

“There are hospital-grade disinfectants that are chemical-based, which provide strong disinfection; Bioesque can match their disinfection capability with the environmental and safety benefits that come with being non-toxic, biodegradable and non-corrosive.

Peter DeSanto, President and founder of Peterborough, Ontario-based ISF Inc., is a loyal Bioesque supporter. By his own admission, DeSanto is deeply passionate about safer disinfection and educating the public in proper use. He too is highly excited about Bioesque’s properties and natural advantages in fighting COVID-19, as well as its wide-ranging versatility. “It’s fantastic,” he says. “We’re learning every day and we’re introducing this to many different markets.”

Disinfection applications
As part of ISF’s mandate, DeSanto and his colleagues provide hands-on applications for locations such as hotels, gyms and in particular, over 100 churches in Ontario. ISF has had additional success with disinfection application to Ontario’s Indigenous community, and is expanding its reach to Ontarian provincial agencies such as Children, Community and Social Services. “Now they’re excited about having something that’s safe for all their children in daycare centers.

Thanks to these efforts, institutions across Canada are learning the exact procedure of Bioesque’s use and, more importantly, how it can serve as the best disinfectant for SARS CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 illnesses.

As these distributors help Bioesque spread throughout the U.S. and Canada, the primary market is clear. Although the spray is available in small, single-quart bottles, it is also available in 1, 5 and 55-gallon drums for industrial application. For businesses and factories which require their equipment to be disinfected multiple times per hour, bigger is better.

But more importantly, Bioesque belongs with those who recognize its value as a step forward in the fight against COVID-19. “It’s important to realize that technology like this needs to be with people who are committed to health and safety through both proper disinfection using a product that is safe for surfaces and people,” Campbell says.

In particular, home builders are embracing the spray, a throwback to Bioesque’s earlier success with home restoration businesses.

“They’re disinfecting the houses before they give the keys to the new owners, and they’re giving them a bottle,” DeSanto reports. A small tag on the bottle itself gives simple instructions to users for best use, ensuring the average consumer can deploy the spray as effectively as a trained professional.

Bioesque’s distributors view the training as necessary to make the spray as efficient as possible. Bioesque Disinfectant Solution is effective for full disinfection in only three minutes, as opposed to other products taking up to ten minutes, and it is tempting to spray far too much. Proper training can reduce this waste of time and material, though, as well as assisting public understanding of the benefits of Bioesque.

Just routine
As Bioesque’s spray is distributed through new home sales, homeowners and renters can incorporate the spray into their daily routines and both protect their health and enjoy their savings – as Bioesque uses considerably fewer resources such as wipes, paper towels, and time.

More businesses and individuals are learning the benefits of Bioesque products and the company’s distributors see this as a way to get more involved in the fight against COVID-19. “We are the front-line people too,” DeSanto says.

With COVID-19 likely to be a part of everyday life for the foreseeable future, Bioesque’s necessity proves all the more apparent. Even a post-pandemic world, Cecela remarks, will have a different attitude. “I think the world is going to think differently about what ‘clean’ at work means,” he says.

With Bioesque’s products setting a new standard in ethical and practical disinfection, humanity now has a bold new tool in its arsenal.

The post Bringing More Safety and Less Work to Surface Disinfection<p class="company">Bioesque Solutions</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

If you have ever wondered who created the perfect whiteboard that helped shape these ideas, look no further than Egan Visual Inc. The company created the first whiteboard in 1967 and has never looked back since.

Egan Visual Inc. was founded 54 years ago by the late Jim Egan. The Egan story started with Jim pitching an unrelated product to a bank executive. This executive complained to Jim after their meeting that the presentation surface he used daily could not be “hidden” from guests coming into his office. Jim suggested a simple solution that included a closing cabinet to encase the existing surface. After Jim created a prototype, the bank ordered its first 100 Egan whiteboards enclosed in a cabinet. The rest, as they say, is history.

“From 1967 to today, Jim Egan and the Egan brand have sold over $1.5 billion worth of products throughout North America, and Egan remains recognized as the benchmark for quality and service in the industry today,” says Scott Newhouse, President and CEO.

Egan has evolved over the last 50 years, from only offering whiteboard and cabinets to now offering a full suite of visual communication products, including glassboards, lecterns, cabinetry, table dividers, Pro AV furniture, acoustical products and now a line of “COVID-19” related products.

Egan’s growth and innovation has made it the North American leader in quality visual communication products in North America, with the ability to custom design and manufacture to the client’s specific needs. The brand is highly regarded within the architect and designer community as its products easily integrate into existing office designs and other manufacturers’ case goods collections.

Instead of buying and branding prefabricated products, the company designs and manufactures all of its products in-house to guarantee that every item that leaves its facility performs at the level that an Egan product should. Egan’s core products are only made from materials sourced and produced in North America, not from offshore suppliers.

While the market is flooded with look-a-likes, the original Egan whiteboard still stands out head and shoulders above its competitors. In fact, its proprietary EVS whiteboard surface comes with a warranty that surpasses the basic guarantees of its replicas. The technology behind the EVS whiteboard surface is favoured by learning institutions and companies for its low-glare, low-sheen, high projectability, no “ghosting” and highly erasable properties that are further enhanced by its longevity and easy maintenance.

The warranty includes the integrity of the board’s structure, and it is guaranteed to return to its original bright white color when periodically cleaned with a basic isopropyl alcohol cleaner. “We have boards in service for over twenty years made with our EVS surface that are still functioning as if they were brand new,” says Chris Benavides, Vice President of Sales. The company also offers customization and branding options through Egan’s internal design and graphics assistance program, called Egan INK.

The company is a true collaborative partner for its customers when it comes to finding ways to best adapt its products to their space and ensuring that the solution addresses their needs. If a client is looking for custom sizes, branding, or any form of tailoring, Egan’s manufacturing team is ready for the challenge. “We’ve been through this process with most Fortune 500 companies. In one recent case, we literally went from concept to execution on a brand new, AVA compliant multi-media lectern in a matter of months. We are now shipping them around the world,” states Benavides.

Egan is also environmentally conscious. Its products are made from sustainably sourced lumber certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and are also Greenguard Gold Certified. “Our boards do not emit any toxic gases. When using one of our boards, the euphoria you feel is from using the board itself,” states Benavides, with a smile.

Egan is viewed as an aspirational brand and has been used by over 93 percent of Fortune 500 companies. Its custom whiteboards have been a hot commodity since the day the company started manufacturing them. Iconic brands like Apple’s iPhone and other all-time favourite devices were invented on these boards. Today, Nike’s Serena Williams building is kitted out with its boards in collaboration with a company named DIRT. “Literally every new design concept coming out of Nike’s new Florida design center will begin its life on an Egan whiteboard,” says Benavides.

Egan recognizes that due to COVID, the office layout will change as companies reimagine what the office of the future should look like. To achieve this, the company has continued to innovate, for which its brand is famous. It has added to its product offering to ensure that it can provide clients with all the protection and communication tools they need to succeed in a post COVID environment.

Some of the key changes will be to expand the average square footage per staff member, enclose more offices (versus the previous open office trend), and accommodate a hybrid of work from home and work from office scheduling, which will see a need for companies to build a more collaborative office environment. Egan’s products provide options for all scenarios. From low-cost adjustments to open office environments to a full collaborative renovation, Egan has the flexibility to do it all, and with antimicrobial materials.

“We know that during the pandemic, people were hesitant to go to offices. Egan developed a full suite of COVID products to define space and aid in social distancing. This product line includes such things as table dividers, mobiles, and room partitions [for] open office environments, to give employers tools to help their staff stay safe,” says Ahren Cadieux, Chief Growth Officer at Egan.

“Egan products can be cleaned with all of the same cleaning standards recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and we didn’t have to develop any new products to address this. These are proven, tested designs that we’ve had in our portfolio for a decade or more,” says Adam Bortolussi, Chief Operating Officer. Egan products come with a quality and consistency guarantee; this stands in stark contrast to substandard products flooding the market in a rushed response to the virus.

Egan Visual Inc. was purchased by Massey Capital in June 2017 from Jim Egan’s estate. “We see a lot more than just the brand. Egan has been well known in the corporate sector for fifty years. We know there’s a lot more we can do to leverage this brand into different product verticals,” says Newhouse.

Since Massey Capital acquired the company, it has added several other firms to its group. Working Walls supplies acoustic wall panels and Exact Office Furniture, a professional audiovisual furniture collection, offers height-adjustable desks and audiovisual collaboration furniture, complementing the Egan collection.

“At Egan, we do not view ourselves as a traditional manufacturer. Permeated throughout our culture is the mindset that we are a service company that just happens to manufacture a great product. We engage with every customer from concept through to receiving and experiencing their product,” says Bortolussi. This is all part of Egan’s strategic investment to build on what management refers to as the ‘WOW factor’ at each touch point within the customer journey.

Organizations looking to create unique and functional workspaces built to encourage collaboration amongst their workforce should look to Egan as the trusted brand in visual communication displays and that “silent” partner in that next great innovation that could change the world.

Egan Visual is truly Built to Inspire.

The post Built to Inspire<p class="company">Egan Visual Inc.</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

It was “a big deal because our industry is very seasonal. The winter is typically when our numbers are down, but the summer, spring, fall are the highest volume, especially summer,” recalls Marketing Manager Ethan Tucker.

Then, in March 2020, COVID-19 hit hard and, “rent volumes started going down, but not as much as we would have thought. We still ended up doing pretty well last year,” he continues.

Indeed, despite the virus, CBS Rentals remains determined to expand, adopt the latest technology, and increase revenue. The company is optimistic that recent investments in equipment, technology, and personnel will pay off in a major way.

It helps that the company is considered an essential business and has stayed open during the pandemic, supporting customers while working to keep its teams safe and business going. “We had a five-year plan going into 2024. [In 2020], obviously, things slowed down. However, I foresee 2022 being a huge year for everyone. By 2022, we will definitely have new locations,” states Tucker.

CBS currently has twelve branches and roughly 200 employees, versus 180 employees when Construction in Focus last profiled the firm in November 2019. Most branches are in Texas, with one in New Mexico and another in Kingsport, Tennessee which serves a chemical plant. Equipment is frequently shared between locations to make sure customers always get what they need.

The company’s clientele consists mostly of “large subcontractors. We do some work for general contractors; we do some for industrial manufacturing plants, and because we’re in Texas, [we do some for] oil and gas [operations]. But I would say the primary customer target would be sub-contractors – roofers, electricians, plumbers, framers.”

The most popular rental category consists of aerial equipment such as scissor lifts and booms. The company also does a brisk business renting out material handling equipment including telehandlers and forklifts and earthmoving gear including backhoes, bulldozers, and mini-excavators. Generators, sweepers, and air compressors are also available. It has a rigorous preventative maintenance policy and puts its fleet through frequent tune-ups to ensure everything runs smoothly.

CBS Rentals has purchased new equipment and embraced technological solutions to enhance accountability and reliability. For the past few years, the company has used telematics technology to monitor the performance of its equipment in the field and alert clients about maintenance issues.

Tracking units installed on the rental equipment “send information through the Internet of Things back to us. So, we’re able to see what’s going on with our equipment remotely and make decisions based on that,” Tucker explains.

He cites a recent incident in which a company service technician utilized telematics to avert a potentially expensive work slowdown. The technician received an alert indicating that the coolant level on a piece of equipment in the field was dropping for no apparent reason. The technician contacted the client, received permission to inspect the equipment, and discovered a tiny crack in the radiator. The customer did not realize there was a problem and was grateful when CBS swapped out their gear with minimal disruption to their schedule.

CBS Rentals has completed its telematics technology with a new online solution that consolidates multiple software programs into one system. It created the solution using advanced tools from the cloud-based software company SalesForce.

“We started connecting all our different applications, all of our different services, and we’ve made it an all-in-one system. Each department has its own dashboard, so when a salesperson logs in, they get a snapshot of the company but they also see their information, their tasks, their numbers, the metrics that matter to them and their branch,” says Tucker.

Such information is now available to anyone accessing the system. The new set-up “allows us to input all our company data, including telematics and contracts, and put it all into one big bucket,” he says. “When somebody calls, we have it all right in front of us.”

CBS Rentals continues to experiment with new software and digital solutions. “We’re using a new product by SalesForce called Field Service for dispatching. We’re testing a dispatching system that we’ve created,” Tucker says. “This is going to allow us to connect everything in our company.”

Among other things, the new system will simplify administrative duties. Drivers equipped with iPads will be able to photograph company equipment to check for damage, and then store the images on their tablets along with contractual information. An operations team can send data and details to drivers, via the same iPads. Customers will sign off on the iPad, eliminating paperwork.

The company has become so enthusiastic about technology that it recently launched a start-up called Rental Dynamics. The idea is to approach other equipment rental firms and offer them the kind of software solutions that streamlined operations at CBS. Tucker splits his time between the two.

“There are plenty of other companies like us throughout the country. If we can make them better, then great. We want to build a better industry,” he says.

For all these futuristic developments, CBS Rentals has not forgotten the importance of the human element. The firm practices values-based leadership to reinforce the core company values of integrity, service, innovation, and performance, while understanding and appreciating the actions of its workforce.

“We’re about two years into it. All our management have gone through the full program, and our branches have now gone through the full program. We still practice it and hold meetings where we go over [all the principles],” says Tucker.

A key tenet of values-based leadership is understanding that an employee’s actions represent “just the tip of the iceberg. It’s what you see,” he explains. A worker might be underperforming or in a foul mood because of a deeper issue, such as health concerns or problems at home. Values-based leadership encourages managers to look beyond surface actions to try to fully appreciate the reasons a worker might be behaving as they are.

The company is also dedicated to an initiative it calls “Women Leaders of CBS.” Elizabeth Loge is the firm’s Chief Executive Officer, and the company actively takes steps to encourage women to assume leadership roles. Female team members were recently flown to Sedona, Arizona “for four days together, doing leadership training and fun activities,” Tucker says.

Clearly, CBS is doing something right, given that Loge won the prestigious ‘CEO of the Year’ award from CEO Monthly magazine in 2020, in the rental industry category.

Loge also led the company’s response to COVID. When the virus struck, Loge and CBS Rentals’ owner Jason Herin hosted an employee-wide town hall, during which they outlined adjustments to keep everyone healthy and secure a profitable future for the company.

“Step one was making sure everyone was okay, starting with our own employees. Then it was ‘How do we take care of our current customers, vendors, partners, families?’ Then, we moved from there. ‘How do we change the way we do business?’ We leaned on our technology offering a lot. We leaned on people who had new ideas. In the end, we were able to turn around very quickly,” declares Tucker, with a note of pride.

The company’s sophisticated solutions also helped keep CBS flexible and able to adapt to new circumstances, he adds.

The company had planned to launch a revamped website in 2020. This was put on hold due to COVID but will proceed early this year. “It’s a complete redesign of the site and a complete redesign of the ordering process. We’re allowing our customers to pay online, which is something the older site didn’t do. This new website is going to be really game-changing for us,” he declares.

The company is also “trying out new equipment all the time. Manufacturers are constantly innovating; coming out with hybrid machines – full electric, different horsepower.”

He envisions bigger and better things for CBS Rentals, once COVID lifts and the company can start opening new branches again. “Five years down the road, we want to make sure we can cover everyone in Texas. The big areas like Houston, Dallas, Austin – right now we have one maybe two locations in these cities, so there’s plenty of room for growth there,” says Tucker.

“We doubled in the last five years. Over the next five years, I wouldn’t be surprised if we more than doubled. I can see us getting to twenty-four locations in five years. As for equipment we own, I see that tripling. For our technology offering, we will introduce new items like AI. Whatever the manufacturers chose to include in their equipment, we’re going to be first adopters. We’re going to lead with customer service.”

The post Committed to Expanding and Enhancing Services in the Face of COVID<p class="company">CBS Rentals</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

An integral part of the process, reinforcing steel – called rebar – is crucial in building roads, buildings, bridges, wind towers, and more. Hidden behind structural walls, or buried under concrete slabs, rebar remains one of the most important construction materials.

Founded in 1948, and headquartered in Longueuil, Quebec, the AGF Group was the first company in the nation to specialize in rebar, and is a pioneer in the reinforcing steel industry.

Steadily growing its business by merging with related companies and forging dynamic new partnerships, the company is present in five provinces in Canada: Quebec (AGF Steel), Ontario (AGF Rebar), Alberta (AGF Reinforcing Inc.), British Columbia (AGF Reinforcing BC) and New Brunswick (AGF Olympic). Additionally, AGF has a new Vancouver area plant under construction, set to open this year.

To meet client needs, the company is selling to customers – and servicing them – from other plants at its own cost, because of COVID-related slowdowns. “Our goal is to grow slowly, and to provide service. We’re not going out there and trying to take over the market. The way we sell ourselves is all about service. Keep our customers satisfied, and they keep coming back,” says Joe Golden, Senior Vice President, Ontario and Western Canada.

AGF today has over 25 business units. With the majority in Canada, the company also has units in France, Latin and Central America, and India, where AGF has an engineering operation now expanding into fabrication. Privately owned to this day, the AGF Group does not own and nor is held by steel mills, but purchases rebar from mills.

AGF has fabrication and placing, but it starts with the mills, according to Golden. Even with its strong supply capabilities in Canada, demand for rebar remains high.

“A certain percentage of rebar is actually brought into Canada, because the Canadian mills cannot service the whole marketplace,” says Golden. “Depending on the year and how things are going, we can only serve 60 to 70 percent of the market, so we have to bring steel from overseas.”

With about 2,150 workers worldwide, the bulk of AGF’s crew – some 1,650 staffers – are in Canada. Most are iron workers and signatories to a union, usually Iron Workers International (The International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers Union), a trade association going back to the 1890s.

“About 40 percent of our people are field construction workers,” comments Golden.

“We love to do the big, complicated stuff,” says Golden. Although willing to take on smaller rebar works such as the construction of franchised coffee shops, AGF truly shines with massive, challenging above- and below-ground projects like subways, wind farms, and water treatment-related construction.

One of the company’s projects, still under construction at the time of writing, is Toronto’s Eglinton Crosstown LRT, a light rapid transit system.

Mandated for the large-scale project by Crosslinx Transit Solutions (CTS) — “a design and construction consortium established to deliver and maintain the Eglinton Crosstown LRT,” according to Crosslinx — AGF’s vital role is to supply, install, and inspect almost 6,500 metric tonnes of reinforcing steel for three stations.

Once completed, the Eglinton Crosstown LRT will see over 19 km (11.8 miles) of new light rail, 10 km (6.2 miles) of them underground, uniting the east and west end of Canada’s biggest city.

“Very few people can walk in to Crosslinx and do a $100 million station,” says Golden. “They will say, ‘Who do we want to partner with?’ and, ‘By the way, you can’t be late, and it needs to be done right.’ This is not for the faint of heart. And our safety is incredible, very professional.”

While Crosslinx had some COVID-19 related issues and did a good job addressing them, AGF also used its own health and safety experts on the project.

Other major works underway in Toronto include the Coxwell Bypass Tunnel. Part of Toronto’s Wet Weather Flow Master Plan (WWFMP), the project represents “the largest and most significant storm water management program in the city’s history,” according to an online media statement.

Begun in early 2020, the WWFMP is a 25-year project, with the Coxwell Bypass Tunnel the first of three phases of the 22 km (13.6 miles) Don River and Central Wet Weather Flow System. Phase One — a 10.5 km long (6.5 miles), 6.3 meter (20.6 feet) diameter tunnel — is part of the system designed to keep combined sewer overflows (CSOs) out of waterways.

“Toronto has major flooding issues, and it dumps into Lake Ontario,” says Golden. “The city is trying to get rid of that, so we are doing several projects, including the Coxwell Bypass and Ashbridges Bay – that’s another shaft we are doing – and a lot of tunnelling work is going on.”

Serving as Toronto’s key water sewage facility, the Ashbridges Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant is on the shore of Lake Ontario. It is an enormous project. Austrian construction services company Strabag was awarded the contract to build large underground concrete shafts, feeder tunnels, and chambers for wastewater to flow to the treatment plant.

AGF is responsible for rebar for the project’s shafts and tunnels, which will take several years to complete. As of early February 2021, AGF Rebar had supplied and installed a total of 1,525 MT steel out of a total tonnage of 4,940 MT. The end of the work for AGF is scheduled for April 2023.

Since no project is too big or too complicated for the experts at AGF, the company has tackled other massive works, from the Hibernia Oil Field to the Gordie Howe International Bridge and the new Samuel De Champlain Bridge in Montreal.

“It’s a beautiful bridge that opened in 2019. These things are as complex as construction can get, working over a river, with tight schedules for 12 months of the year. It’s incredible, and very cool. The express light rail that will go across it and will spread from the South to the North Shore of Montreal is still being built by our team as well. We first fabricated the caissons anchored in the ground, as well as the columns and the cross-sections of the pillars of a segment on the South Shore. We were then awarded the contract for the production and installation of reinforcing steel for 18 metro stations, two bus stations and two service buildings as well as the launching pad of the tunnel boring machine,” says Golden.

Over the years, AGF Rebar has been involved in the construction of many wind farms across Canada including the Whitla Wind Farm Project in Alberta. Spearheaded by Capital Power, the large-scale project was approved by the Alberta Utilities Commission in August 2018, with Whitla Wind 1 built soon after and commencing commercial operations on December 1, 2019.

The next stage of the work, Whitla Wind Phase 2 & 3, is under construction in the province’s County of Forty Mile. For AGF Reinforcing, this will represent the construction of 42 additional bases for approximately 2090 MT of steel.

“This is going to be the biggest wind facility in Alberta,” Golden says of the second stage of the work, projected to have a capital cost of approximately $165 million.

According to Capital Power, this stage of the project will see the construction of 27 wind turbines from Danish manufacturer Vestas Wind Systems, the V-136-3.45 MW (megawatt), optimized in 3.6 MW power mode. This is being done to fulfill Alberta’s pledge of adding 5,000 MW of renewable energy capacity in the next 10 years. Once completed, the project is expected to see 99 wind towers.

With a height of about 100 meters (328 feet) and a rotor diameter of 136 meters (446 feet), the towers are made with Large Diameter Steel Tower (LDST) technology, and require significant below-ground support. This is where AGF comes in.

“They’re huge chunks of concrete,” says Golden of the concrete and rebar bases, set 10 feet (3.5 m) into the ground, with a radius of 60 feet (18.2 m) for each tower. One company digs the hole for the base, and AGF installs rebar. “During Phase 1, our crew constructed one base per day which is 49 metric tons (MT) of rebar per base, for a total of 56 wind turbines. Right behind us, there is another guy pouring concrete, and that process is going as fast as it possibly can, six days a week, 10 hours a day.”

To ensure timely project delivery, AGF works from client designs during the off-season, performs all the necessary fabricating and bending, and delivers completed rebar to the job site for installation. In total, the project will see three phases. Slated for completion by the end of 2021, Whitla will be Alberta’s biggest wind farm, capable of generating 353 MW of power.

Big believers in giving back to the community, management and employees make it a point to help others through the AGF Group Foundation. Donating primarily to registered Canadian charities involved in humanitarian causes, health, education, arts and culture, and sports and leisure, the Foundation also has a signed, longer-term commitment to Polytechnique Montréal, Make-a-Wish Canada, The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), and other groups.

Last year, thanks to the Foundation, AGF Group received an Award in the Community Involvement category at the 40^th Mercuriades Awards. “Organized by the Fédération des Chambres de Commerce du Québec (FCCQ), Les Mercuriades is one of Quebec’s most prestigious business competitions that highlights the innovation, ambition and performance demonstrated by the companies in the province,” according to the company on its website.

“The AGF Foundation will match whatever funds are raised by AGF’s employees, and we also then create relationships – with CAMH, for instance,” says Golden. Employees approach the board that manages the Foundation, and raise money for charities that range from providing warm coats in the wintertime, to food and toy drives in their communities.

Unlike many other companies, these initiatives do not come from management, but employees. “I’ve only been here for 18 months, and it’s actually one of the reasons I came to AGF,” says Golden, who has a 30-year background in manufacturing and construction.

“That’s the mentality. You can work for anybody, but this starts at the very top, a whole separate side of the business. It’s driven hard, and the employees here are completely into it. The younger generation, they are all about that. They know they can work anywhere — a paycheque is a paycheque — but what are you giving back to your community?”

To better serve its customers and attract new talents, early this year AGF will be launching its new website which will be more streamlined and user-friendly than ever. And, as the construction industry contends with technological challenges, AGF set up a “4.0 committee” in spring 2020. Its mission is to integrate new technologies into the company’s value chain by, among other things, the judicious use of massive amounts of data (production output, orders, stocks, etc.) generated every day by the departments of the organization. From the automation of some IT tasks to the use of artificial intelligence, a vast program has been defined until 2024.

“We are a family-run business with the structure, reputation and professionalism of a major international business and we think long-term,” says Golden. “There is a reason the company’s been here since 1948 and continues to grow: it’s because, if you treat your customers’ right, they grow and you grow.

“AGF has done 40,000 projects since 1948. Because of that, we have an incredible amount of knowledge, from the technical part of folks in the manufacturing facility to on-site. We know how to do it. If it’s big and it’s tough, we’re definitely someone you want to partner with. We, of course, are about long-lasting relationships, and AGF plans to be here for another 75 years.”

The post Raising the Rebar<p class="company">AGF</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

A veteran of a demanding and crucial industry, Dubey, the charismatic chief executive officer and president of Specialty Technology and Research, Inc. (familiar to its many customers as STAR Inc.), never ceases to be amazed and gratified by the creativity, integrity, and vision of his staff and licensees worldwide.

“We are always looking for new ideas, and seeing what we can do that is new and exciting for the industry with our products and our technologies,” says Dubey. “I love working with all the members of the STAR family. “It’s a very cohesive group of people who have impeccable integrity in the way they run their businesses, and the services they provide to their customers,” he says. “People in the STAR family are professionals through and through. They run their businesses meticulously, and they look out for each other. And,” he reflects, “that’s the core of me showing up in the office every day after running this company for so long.”

Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio’s state capital, STAR in North America has grown significantly over the years in both domestic and international markets. Founded in 1986 and built upon Dubey’s many years of pavement industry knowledge and technical experience, the company today has 15 licensee plants in the contiguous U.S. and boasts its three international plants – in Australia, China and India – and full-line distributors in Mexico and Chile.

Friendly to users – and the environment
Over the decades, STAR Inc. has emerged as a pre-eminent manufacturer of sealcoating products for the pavement maintenance industry. Since inception in America in the fifties, sealcoatings have become a popular and highly effective way to protect and preserve asphalt surfaces in areas ranging from residential driveways, airports, and low to medium traffic roads to large commercial parking lots.

Over the decades, the sealcoating industry has steadily advanced, taking advantage of the evolving technologies and materials. STAR has been a forerunner in the industry in its efforts to stay on the cutting edge of the sealcoating technology, while propagating the knowledge about their value and relevance. Although the inception was based on sealers made with refined tar, newer generations of sealcoatings have been developed over the decades, which are safer to use and boast minimal or no impact on the environment.

As a safer, cleaner alternative, Dubey and his team formulated STAR-TRITON®, a bold new line of products which are better, safer for sealcoating professionals, but also exceptionally durable and able to boost the life of pavement by 300 percent or more. Resistant to harsh weather, rain, snow, salt and gasoline, the product is not only long-lasting and attractive but also economical, costing about one-third the price of a new installation.

Released about five years ago, STAR-TRITON is one of two-dozen quality products made by the company. On par with refined coal-tar sealers (RTS), it has proven itself to be even better than asphalt emulsion-based sealcoatings (AE) at resisting petrochemicals and other potentially damaging substances.

“It’s more user-friendly and environmentally friendly,” says Dubey of STAR-TRITON, which is water-based, non-burning, and has minimal odor compared to older RTS products on the market. In fact, most STAR customers switched from RTS to STAR-TRITON overnight. “It’s an outstanding alternative for refined coal-tar products.”

As well as producing STAR-TRITON, the company is behind other unique and long-lasting sealcoatings, crack fillers, traffic paints, specialty products, additives, primers, and concrete products.

Another starring role
Introduced to the market around 2015 – at the same time as STAR-TRITON – is STAR SPECTRUM®. A revolutionary new type of color coating for pavements, STAR SPECTRUM is heralded as belonging to “a new generation of pavement maintenance products,” according to the people at STAR, and for good reason.

Made from quality materials including colorfast pigments, performance boosters, minerals, and specialty additives, STAR SPECTRUM is a 100 percent acrylic latex polymer-based coating that protects paved surfaces from inclement weather, chemicals, and much more. Available in a rainbow of vibrant standard and custom colors, STAR SPECTRUM is ideal for safety, traffic delineation, corporate identity, and other applications. Providing supreme durability, the line is also non-hazardous, making it well-suited to playgrounds and other public areas.

Best known for its many sealcoating product lines, STAR also manufactures products specifically for concrete, including MACRO-DECK®, which effectively protects concrete against damage from the elements and chemicals. Formulated with acrylic polymers and specialty chemicals, MACRO-DECK is well-suited to resist salt, and ideal for everything from concrete bridges to support structures, highway dividers and other concrete surfaces. The MACRO-DECK product line is complemented with other quality concrete products such as STAR® ARMOUR-GUARD™, STAR-CRETE ACID-ETCH, STAR-CRETE ACRYLIC LATEX CONCRETE STAIN and STAR-CRETE STAR PRISM – a clear concrete-penetrating sealer,

Superior quality
Categorized as an essential industry because of the need for ongoing infrastructure maintenance, STAR Inc. hasn’t slowed during the COVID-19 pandemic. And while some segments in the industry may have slowed down due to supply issues, STAR hasn’t had any such problems. “The main reason is that the raw materials we’re using are all indigenous,” says Girish. “Nothing is imported, and that could affect the supply chain.”

The hallmark of STAR’s prominence is its commitment to Research and Development, taking advantage of emerging technologies, quality control and assurance for consistency in performance. All R & D and quality assurance functions are carried out at STAR’s headquarters in Columbus, OH.

STAR Technology Licensing Program – the key to growth
Uniquely, STAR is the sole American company offering independent business people the technology-licensing opportunities to manufacture sealcoatings.

“Our technology-licensing program is quite unique and highly cost-effective when compared to a typical run-of-the-mill franchise program,” say the people at STAR. “We allow our licensees to grow in their business environments with the least amount of restriction on their business activities, as long as they conform to the quality standards of our sealcoatings.” STAR works exclusively through its licensee plants who manufacture sealcoatings and supply other STAR plants in their respective regions.

STAR’s Technology Licensing Program has been the main avenue for growth since its inception in 1986. STAR has a very conservative approach in selecting the licensees. In addition to their experience and background, STAR licensees must have impeccable integrity and a commitment for serving the pavement maintenance industry. In 2017 and again in 2018, the company welcomed new licensees to the STAR family. At present, STAR is working on several manufacturing opportunities in both domestic and international locations, and exploring other growth avenues.

More than products
A great believer in the quality of his company’s products, President and CEO Dubey also strongly believes in educating customers about the science behind sealcoatings and other products for the sole purpose of empowering them to select the right products. Dubey believes that an educated customer is a dedicated customer, and has published numerous articles in trade magazines over the past decades.

Through its YouTube channel, the company promotes Triton, Macro-Fast, Macro-Flex, and other items. Along with a growing presence on social media sites, the company’s well-established website – containing a wealth of information including downloadable product descriptions, technical data sheets, source books and more – is undergoing a redesign.

“We are going through a complete makeover of the website,” Dubey says, “and we’ll be including more videos to make it helpful for contractors as well as property owners with regard to product application, selection of the materials, and so on.” Additional informative videos are still being worked on, but the new site will be up by this spring.

For Dubey, who was inducted into the Pavement Hall of Fame in 2019, the sealcoating industry is both a profession and a passion.

Holding Master’s Degrees in Inorganic Chemistry, a degree in Polymer Chemistry, and years of hands-on experience, Dubey has been an integral part of the sealcoatings industry since the early Seventies. After all these years, he still welcomes each new morning, eagerly anticipating the day’s work with his clients and other members of the STAR family.

The post Founded on Knowledge and Integrity<p class="company">STAR Inc.</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

“I had my Nike shoes on, trudging around in the mud for the better part of three months of my summer,” says Tim Baugher, whose early start in the construction industry got him hooked. “It improved my discipline, improved my work ethic and also gave me that sense of accomplishment, the feeling of playing with a team,” he says.

Baugher is now president of Asphalt Specialists, Inc. (ASI) in Pontiac, Michigan, a suburb 20 miles northwest of Detroit. The company has an almost 30-year history of delivering on paving projects that are tough and long-wearing enough to withstand the harsh Michigan winters.

Parking work to roadwork
Six years in, ASI has doubled its sales team and expanded its market reach, from paving for large commercial parking lots – without disrupting operations – to entire school districts and major municipal roadways.

“There’s been a lot of government stimulus injected into the economy directly related to roadwork and municipal roadway reconstruction, so it’s a part of our business that we’re trying to grow,” Baugher explains.

When you think about it, there are a lot more roads than parking lots, so there’s ample opportunity. And being able to pivot and diversify operations these days has been an essential strategy, especially with the economic uncertainty of the pandemic.

“We have a product that people want, so it’s easy to sell it,” Baugher says. “And we put a lot of energy and focus into customer service and making sure that we’re providing a quality product.”

Starting small, growing sustainably
The company was built on the leadership and sweat of its founders, brothers Dan and Bruce Israel, who, as teenagers, started their own parking lot striping and traffic-marking service as a summer job.

While attending college – Dan would graduate from Denison University in 1983 and Bruce from Hillsdale College in 1986 – the brothers grew that summer job into a successful full-time business, selling it in 1988 to move on to bigger aspirations. In fact, the beginnings of ASI were a dump truck, a roller and a small paver – and a huge commitment to offer the best in customer service.

“They didn’t do this through acquisition,” Baugher says. “They did this through sheer work ethic, sheer energy.” By 1992, ASI had two full-time paving crews, and a team of close to 60 employees. The brothers purchased a small excavating company and began performing their own grading and excavation work. In 1995, Dan and Bruce acquired a 10-acre parcel in Pontiac’s Highwood Industrial Park and built “ASI World Headquarters,” an office complex large enough to accommodate the company’s growing staff. This facility included a four-bay shop, an industrial garage for 24-hour preventative maintenance and repair, and a fleet of big rigs and trailers.

“To this day,” Baugher shares, “[Dan and Bruce] are both actively involved in the business. For instance, I just talked to Dan at 5:30 this morning.”

Today, the family-owned business is one of Michigan’s biggest paving companies with a full complement of in-house services and 280 employees, including engineers who work closely with clients on design and landscaping. With such a robust team in-house, customers are saved the headaches and expense of separately contracting with designers, site contractors, asphalt contractors or concrete contractors.

The only way is up
At ASI, there is also equal emphasis on helping employees grow and advance with the company and advance. One of the current Vice Presidents, for example, started out driving a truck. “We’re a firm believer that in order to get to the top, you’ve got to start at the bottom,” says Baugher. “So we culturally have that attitude. We bring people in and help move them up the ranks.”

ASI has the competitive advantage of maintaining quality control in house and passing on cost savings to customers. The company has its own equipment fleet including pulverizers, milling machines, trucks, pavers, bulldozers, rollers and compactors. The Israel brothers also own and operate TKMS Trucking and Lou’s Transport, two trucking companies for hauling aggregate, the stone base material used on the job.

“During the construction process, it’s very important from a scheduling standpoint that we’re able to move material on and off of the job site at a rapid pace,” Baugher shares. “So for instance, at Costco, the parking lot is useful so that people can walk on it and people can use their cars. They don’t want paving to disrupt customer foot traffic.”

Getting parking lots and roadways finished at speed is critical, and right up there with quality workmanship. “For ASI, controlling the trucking is similar to controlling the rest of the operation. It speeds up the process and we’re able to get things done at a much more rapid pace than our competitors.”

First, the foundation
When you talk about expert paving, you have to talk about what’s happening underground. If you don’t have a strong foundation, you’ll get cracks, potholes and repair bills far sooner than you expect. An ASI job is never about paving over the top of existing problems and hoping for the best. It starts with soil analysis and troubleshooting from the bottom up.

The company’s specialty is demolition and reconstruction of existing sites, as well as soil stabilization, a process where cement and lime are poured with the actual soil to provide strength. “What happens a lot of the time, especially in Michigan, where we have expansive soils like clay and a lot of water, is that the soil underneath the parking lot has been compromised.”

That leaves companies with two choices, and of the two, ASI chooses the environmentally sound approach. “You dig out a bunch of dirt, take all that dirt away and bring in a whole bunch of stone from a quarry – or you can stabilize. With stabilization, none of the soil leaves the site. You pulverize the old asphalt and base materials, haul in a minimal amount of cement and water, and then you stabilize the soil. So it’s a comprehensive, solid layer of earth that you can pave on top of.”

ASI essentially uses the materials that are there and adds cement and water to form a solid layer to be paved on. It’s another win-win that’s both cost-effective and better for the planet.

Saving time and money
Chippewa Valley school district in Macomb County is just one example of a very satisfied customer. ASI looked at school properties, removed existing asphalt and discovered that the subgrade material was compromised.

“They would have ended up having to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to an alternative contractor to do undercuts in order to get those soils fixed. Whereas we came in and we stabilized the soils and saved the district a ton of money and also gave them a solution that was going to work long-term,” says Baugher.

ASI did the job quickly so schools could continue operating and students wouldn’t be impacted. “Without us, they would have faced major delays and caused the school district to have a lot of pain, not only financially, but from a timing standpoint. It’s those scenarios,” he says, “where we’re able to really show our true colors.”

The post What it Takes to Make Smooth Roads and Perfect Parking<p class="company">Asphalt Specialists Inc.</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

Tourjé tagged along as a teenager as his friends worked on tricky hillside construction jobs. “I became attracted to that, and then I just kept advancing in construction.” As he advanced, he learned more about his area of expertise. “I became acquainted with the idiosyncrasies of actual hillside construction, hillside foundation work, which is an advanced form of foundation work, and I really liked that. I stayed with that. I became well known for building hillside foundations for new homes.”

He also became well known for his art. A founding member of the California Locos, Tourjé is a fixture in Los Angeles’ vibrant art and music scene. His work is described as a contemporary hybrid of low and high art, reflecting his background in the surf, skate, L.A. punk, and graffiti subcultures popular in his Los Angeles neighborhood throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

“It’s all intrinsic to me – building, making art, making music,” he says of what some might consider an unusual combination of talents. “I don’t see a whole lot of distinction between it in terms of what I do with my hands.”

Not only does it all come naturally to him, but each area of expertise builds on the other. For instance, he has applied his construction knowledge to create art exhibits of steel and concrete furniture. And, his desire to pursue art has propelled his construction company forward.

“You could say that my construction business model is always driven by the fact that I was trying to make time for myself to go play my music or make my art. So I don’t think I would have this business model if it wasn’t for that because I wouldn’t have needed to… So it’s always been a parallel thing.”

His business model got its start in the early 1990s during a recession that caused a slowdown in the construction industry. He recognized an opportunity and launched Alpha Structural Inc. “Nobody was building new homes,” he remembers.

That was when Tourjé’s special knowledge of hillside foundation work came to the forefront. “I always had a component of my company of fixing foundations because fixing hillside foundations was like a hybrid that nobody else was doing. So that was profitable, and it was something that continued during the economic crash of ’92. People, I found, were willing to fix their foundations but they were not going to build new homes. So I transferred a hundred percent of my energy to fixing foundations around that time… And then it just kept going from there.”

Earthquake mitigation is a key component of foundation work in Southern California. Tourjé recognized this fact when he built his first home for his family and utilized leading construction techniques to protect the foundation. His skill was proven all too soon. The very first morning he and his family lived in the house, a major earthquake hit.

“I was making a cup of coffee to gloat on my victory finally of building this three-story house, and as I literally took the first sip, the Whittier quake hit,” Tourjé remembers. The Whittier Narrows earthquake had a magnitude of 5.9 and caused 200 injuries, several deaths, and an estimated $213 to 358 million in property damage in the area.

“As I’m spilling coffee all over the place – that was a very big earthquake – I just couldn’t believe it. I was sitting in this house that I built that had earthquake mitigation techniques installed, and I’m watching this thing move all over the place, and in the end, it settled back exactly to where it started. No cracks, no nothing. And I just couldn’t believe it.”

His house was safe, but Tourjé realized others might not be so fortunate. “It was like a wake-up call,” he says. He was determined to construct safe foundations for his clients so they would be protected when the next big one hit. He continued to build on his knowledge and experience, forging a path where one did not yet exist in the industry.

“I was doing retrofitting before retrofitting existed, making up my own devices in the backyard of my building,” he recalls. “There was no trade of retrofitting. It didn’t exist. So we just made up our own stuff, and to tell you the truth, a lot of the stuff that we did is still done, it’s just done officially now.”

Those official requirements started in earnest after the magnitude 6.4 Northridge earthquake of 1994. This was one of the costliest natural disasters in the country with sixty dead, over nine thousand injured, and between $13 and 50 billion in damage.

“Then the codes kicked in, and then the mandatory retrofitting kicked in, and all these things happened that we were ready for. And we became the number one company in L.A. at that point, and we have never relinquished that position.”

A lot has changed since those early days of earthquake mitigation. Today, large corporations make the brackets that Tourjé once fashioned in his backyard. But his commitment to building safe foundations is the same – as is his company’s leading position in Los Angeles’ earthquake mitigation sector. “I have the licensing and engineering horsepower to design and build anything in-house, and there’s just nobody else who is qualified for that,” he says.

Alpha Structural Inc. is also set apart by its female leadership. The majority of the senior managers and executives are women. Construction is typically considered a “very, very male-dominated field,” says Vice President for Viability Melissa Temps. “We’re definitely proud to be breaking those industry stereotypes.”

Tourjé says the women leading his company, and women in the industry as a whole, “are the future.” He adds that he didn’t set out to build a women-led company, but that he gave senior positions to the most capable applicants – most of whom happened to be women. “I don’t care who comes in,” he says. “The most able person is going to get the job.”

Alpha Structural Inc. managed to stay busy over the last year, despite the challenges COVID-19 brought. “When it initially hit back in March of 2020, we all kind of banded together, acknowledged that it might be a little rough – but we all enjoy a challenge,” says Senior Owner’s Representative Alana Reinhart. “We really decided, as a group, we were just going to put our heads down, work harder, and really try to come out stronger, and that’s exactly what we did. We managed to keep all of our employees on board. We are really proud of that.”

The company did so well in 2020 that it even expanded from the original Los Angeles location to open a new office in neighboring Orange County. To achieve this expansion the team asked themselves, “How can we, in spite of all this, move forward and really actually grow this year?” Reinhart remembers. “We had to really take a look, increase our marketing efforts – and the phones rang and they kept ringing and ringing, and it just never slowed down for us. And we acknowledge we are definitely lucky in a sense, but, you know, that wouldn’t give our team due credit because they really worked very hard to ensure that we kept afloat and even beyond that, expanded. So we really credit the whole team.”

Temps adds: “We have a really good team and everyone put their shoulder to the wheel collectively.”

The expansion is the first of many planned for the near future. Tourjé has a long-term goal of opening an office in every county that touches Los Angeles County. “We intend to build [the new location] up, get it going really well, and then move on to the next county,” Reinhart says. “It’s definitely very exciting.”

And, of course, the team plans to maintain the same high standards that put Alpha Structural Inc. on the map. “We are already the leading company in our field in L.A., so we want that same standard that was set here to be the same in every county that we open,” Reinhart says.

The post Building a Strong Foundation in Los Angeles – and Beyond<p class="company">Alpha Structural Inc.</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

Yes, they were on a mission to show that women can deliver the goods just as well as men in what’s long been a male-dominated industry. At the same time, they’re also bringing different perspectives to design and construction.

While roughly 67 percent of certified realtors are female, women represent only 35 percent of the workforce in the lucrative commercial real estate field and hold just 11 percent of C-suite positions. Oprah Magazine reported these statistics in a feature on women trailblazers that included Reina’s Sherry Larjani and Taya Cook.

“After 15 years in the industry, I’ve become accustomed to being the only woman in meetings,” Cook said.

The final project plan, unveiled last summer, is the result of a full year of consultation and collaboration with colleagues, potential buyers and community members of all ages. The team even held a workshop with the Girl Guides to talk about their dream teen spaces, and launched a design competition for local college and university students to create smart, compact kitchens and bathrooms, storage ideas and other amenities for condo living.

“One thing we heard is that most condos are designed for the young and chic and look like modern hotels, so we had to consider how design can be extended to include families with young children or seniors,” Cook said. People wanted a place that was warm and inviting with a sense of community.

The building’s modern offerings include a yoga studio with a view to the kids’ playroom, stroller parking and a snack shack for all ages. Outdoors, the multi-use courtyard will boast barbecues, dining harvest tables, shared outdoor workstations and a children’s play area.

Cook and Larjani also saw that parents and their kids were walking through the Reina site to get to nearby schools. So they moved the building site back and added a walkway for safe passage for kids heading to and from school. Giving back to the neighbourhood is part of their mandate.

Most, if not all, cities are designed by men, so what could change if women had greater influence on city planning? Consider the need for more spacious public bathrooms that also allow room to maneuver strollers in and out. How about more seating and tables by kids’ playgrounds, and more pedestrian-only spaces for simply hanging out with the family?

These are some of the changes you’d see, according to Punt 6, a feminist collective of urban planners in Barcelona. The group has been “obsessing about this for over a decade,” looking at numerous ways cities can work better for women, the BBC reported.

The female perspective can bring improvements that start with identifying women’s needs. Physiology, for example, means that women need to use the bathroom more often than men, and women spend three times as long in bathrooms. As women are the predominant caregivers of young kids, they need places in public to sit down, give their kids snacks and rest while they watch their kids play.

And there’s a lot to be gained in a city’s function, appeal and sustainability, said Punt 6 members.

The group has done a lot of research into the different journeys of men and women and how they play out in city spaces. In terms of movement and transportation in Barcelona, the city’s design is very male-centric. Women travel by foot and use public transit more than men, while men travel more by car. That said, about 60 percent of public space is taken up by cars for travel and parking. More needs to be done to rebalance the space so everyone has access. Strategy should start with inclusivity.

To this end, Barcelona has some interesting projects in the works. One is called a “superblock” to reclaim the streets for cyclists, pedestrians or just for relaxing and socializing. The plan takes nine city blocks to form one big block which is closed off from through traffic, with underground parking. So instead of hectic intersections, there are parks, more green spaces and trees, picnic benches and play areas. These rest spots are also helpful for people with mobility issues like older seniors. Barcelona has built six of these and the plan is to extend superblocks to more than 500.

Another initiative is kiosks that provide a contact point and information to help protect women from risk. The city has launched an app where people can report any sexual aggression they’ve seen or experienced, with the aim to create a map of where these incidents are happening so the city can stop them.

In Paris, Mayor Anne Hidalgo has established more pedestrian and bike-friendly spaces. She’s also promoting the concept of the “15-minute city,” where people’s homes, places of work, education, health care, shopping and entertainment are all within a 15-minute walk or bike ride. When cities are re-shaping or planning housing developments, this kind of connectedness helps people balance work and family commitments. Families and friends can build in more time to spend together.

And in Vienna, the neighbourhood of Aspern is one of the largest urban developments in Europe, slated for completion in 2028. It will be home to 20,000 people and another 20,000 workplaces, with an explicitly family-oriented design. There are wide sidewalks and an artificial lake, and half the area is devoted to public space.

Aspern is billed as a model city-within-a-city, in a place that already has a highly rated quality of life. By the way, all the streets and public spaces in Aspern are named for women.

Closer to home, in New York, a female former transport commissioner for the city is the architect behind cutting congestion and creating new multi-use outdoor spaces. Janette Sadik-Kahn has helped create 400 miles of bike paths and more than 60 plazas to open up the densely populated city, the Financial Times reported.

Here’s the thing: according to the World Bank, women hold only 10 percent of senior jobs at leading architecture firms around the globe. So it’s understandable why urban planning is dominated by men, and why cities tend to work better for men than they do for women. “Men, women, gender minorities, and people of different abilities tend to use the public space in different ways,” said Sameh Wahba, a World Bank director.

“However, if the city is built for the ‘neutral’ male user, it neglects the needs, interests and routines” of others. This impacts women’s access to jobs or schools, and ultimately, their freedoms and safety.

The World Bank recently developed a guidebook for practitioners and city planners that sets out practical approaches, activities and guidelines for inclusive design. The guidelines are adaptable for housing, public transport, other infrastructure and city master plans.

“The argument is, you get a fairer society,” Eva Kail of Vienna’s strategic planning unit told The Guardian. “As a public administration, to offer good service for the people – to have better quality of life – you have to take care of gender equality.”

The post New Directions<p class="company">What Would a City Designed by Women Look Like?</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

At Boudreau Pipeline Corporation, people are its greatest asset, and this is the motivating force behind everything that it does. Being committed to its people and the communities it calls home is not just a slogan, but a way of life that is embedded in the company culture and organizational structure.

There is a reason it has been named a top workplace in Inland Empire for five years straight and counting: it continuously sets the standard while digging the future. It even has fun while doing it, which is part of the secret of its growth from one-man-and-a-backhoe to what has become a family of employees.

A re-evaluation
Driven by its commitment to its people, Boudreau continues to identify new ways to grow and adapt. As an essential service, it quickly addressed the onset of COVID to ensure the safety of its people and the viability of its business. It was particularly helpful that market activity aligned with the services it offers, particularly residential and commercial work.

As people were forced to stay home, they reevaluated their housing needs which has had a positive impact on residential construction. Likewise, increased online shopping has accelerated the warehouse market which is driving growth of Boudreau Pipeline Corporation’s commercial division and setting the stage for some really exciting projects.

One such example is the Rialto project, a great, two-phase challenge to Boudreau Pipeline Corporation in terms of both size and complexity. One of the largest projects of its size on the West Coast, the project required an estimated 16,239 hours and 18,020 equipment hours, involving fifteen employees and seven large pieces of equipment, including the Telebelt, the “million-dollar machine.”

Million-dollar marvel
The Telebelt, which moves materials efficiently and effectively to even the most awkward areas, may have cost a million dollars but the value it adds to Boudreau Pipeline’s arsenal is exponential, especially on projects like Rialto.

As President and Founder Alan Boudreau explains, “Out here in California, we have to mitigate all of the storm water on site, so we put big detention systems in the ground, football field sized units that are 20 feet deep and filled with anywhere from 96 inch to 142/144-inch pipe and filled with rock.”

Derrick Brown worked on both phases of the Rialto project. He says, “A project of this magnitude would have been extremely difficult to complete without the Telebelt. It has a reach of 130 feet, allowing us to reach several rows of the pipe at a time. This allowed the Telebelt to stay in one place longer resulting in less movement of the machine that took about an hour to tear down and setup.”

The Telebelt allowed for the efficient placement of aggregate, in this case, 5,000 tons a day for a total of 200,000 tons. A project of this magnitude required the coordination of numerous suppliers and subcontractors, including 200 trucks a day to move the aggregate. It was also a challenge to store pipes of that size and volume on site.

Brown explains, “The reason the backfill was a challenge was due to the size of the basin and the size of the pipe. The 162-inch pipe, while being very strong, if not backfilled correctly could result in damage to the system.” To make matters worse, access to the basin was limited on three sides.

“This portion of the project required a lot of coordination between the client and other subcontractors. We had to provide the excavation details to the grader that was excavating the basin on our behalf,” Brown says. “Had we not coordinated this properly, it had the potential to shut down other subcontractors on the project.”

Ownership as a tool
While projects like Rialto are keeping Boudreau Pipeline Corporation busy on site, a lot has been taking place behind the scenes as well. Recently, the company transitioned to an Employee Stock Ownership Program (ESOP), which seems like a natural fit for the company and its culture.

Boudreau is clear on the motivation behind this decision, “There are two ways to invest in a company: time and money. Our people definitely invest their time and now to be able to reward them for that really aligns. The heart of our company is building a better life for our communities and our families.”

The goal is to use ownership as a tool, as Boudreau notes, “To give them this ownership mindset.” He adds, “This is their company. They helped build it and it is a great opportunity to make their lives a little better. We’re a people company, not a pipeline company, we just happen to dig ditches for a living.”

Speaking with the employees proves that this strategy is paying off. As “I am always impressed by this company,” Brown says. “I told Alan years back that I look forward to Monday and walking into the office. The same rings true today, although ‘walking into the office’ looks different for now, but the culture and values ring the same.”

Career opportunities
Brown has been with the company for four-and-a-half years. Originally brought in as a junior project manager, he quickly made project manager, and most recently, became director of project management.

Boudreau Pipeline Corporation hires the cream of the crop and works hard to retain and advance its talent. By investing in its people and providing them with resources, training, support and career advancement strategies, employees can envision their future with the company and are provided a pathway to success.

Birth of Baseband
Few businesses are willing to establish an entirely new company to ensure that their best people have career advancement opportunities, but that is exactly what Boudreau did with the founding of Baseband.

“We started another company,” Boudreau says. “Baseband is a division of Boudreau working on the telecom side, IT, fiber optics. We’re already working underground, and we do some dry utility work which is electrical, gas, and cable work already, so it was definitely a complement.”

Baseband employs over 40 people, a number that continues to grow. It also employs some of Boudreau Pipeline Corporation’s best talent, including a member of the accounting team who Boudreau thought was ready to move into a controller position. Unfortunately, that position was already filled at Boudreau Pipeline Corporation, but Baseband made that advancement possible.

From Boudreau’s perspective, it’s simple. “We’ve taken the stance that if we aren’t growing as a company and giving people these opportunities then they’re just going to leave to go and find those opportunities elsewhere.”

While Boudreau Pipeline Corporation seems like an elite team to be a part of, the company’s growth and success means that the door is open for more great people to join the team. “In order to meet our growth plans, we need 100 more people throughout all of our divisions,” Boudreau says.

The goal is not just to grow in size, but also geographically, taking Boudreau Pipeline Corporation and Baseband beyond Southern California into the Nevada and Arizona markets through both organic growth and acquisitions.

Growth also means ensuring the systems are in place to support any expansion that occurs. Since 2019, the move to transition the company’s operational systems to the cloud has been underway. Though this was met with some resistance at first, the new systems were the reason it took the company only a matter of days to have the office up and running remotely when COVID hit.

The COVID rethink
For Boudreau Pipeline Corporation, COVID was both a challenge and an opportunity. Boudreau describes it as, “An opportunity to rethink how we do work and rethink how we do everything.” Rethinking, in this case, also included the company’s philanthropic commitments.

Among its many charitable efforts, Boudreau Pipeline Corporation hosts an annual charity car and bike show called Cars, Crafts, Bikes and BBQ, but given the restrictions to in-person gatherings, the event could not proceed as originally planned. But, Boudreau says, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

The team went back and forth on the best way to proceed and eventually settled on selling event t-shirts to raise funds. Each year a new t-shirt is designed, so this was a way to pay homage to tradition while also adapting, and as a result, $10,000 was donated to the United Way branches in their home communities of Inland Empire, Corona and Los Angeles.

At Boudreau Pipeline the priority is not growth for growth’s sake, but rather growth as a means to increase the company’s positive impact on its people and the communities it serves. The goal is simply to do good work, setting the standard through exemplary on-site performance, safety, culture, philanthropy, and a strategy that puts people first.

The post Setting the Standard while Digging the Future<p class="company">Boudreau Pipeline Corporation</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

Shipping containers, widely used to transport goods to and from just about every country in the world, are more common nowadays than people at ports worldwide. Made from COR-TEN®, a unique, naturally oxidizing rust-resistant steel, these containers are weldable and extremely robust; in fact, loaded containers locked together can be stacked nine high, a testament to their strength.

However, size and versatility make shipping containers not only ideal for transporting all manner of things but also for providing everything from storage facilities to offices, and industrial spaces to living spaces.

As students at the University of Texas in the early 1990s, Stephen Shang and Brian Dieringer certainly did not have shipping containers and their spatial virtues at the forefront of their minds. Following graduation, the pair stayed in touch but went their own ways, Shang to San Francisco and dot-com gold, and Dieringer to a software company in Austin.

A company you can kick
By the time the dot-com bubble burst in the early 2000s, Shang was disillusioned with the tech industry. Moving back to Texas, he embarked on creating a real business — “something you can see, touch, kick, and feel,” he says.

After investigating other types of low-tech enterprises, including a smoothie company, he came across the portable storage industry. It wasn’t long before the two old friends were together again, fleshing out Shang’s insight into the storage industry with a business strategy – and purchasing containers in Houston.

A novel idea – customer service
Shang, now Chief Executive Officer, and Dieringer, Executive Vice President of Products, sussed out competitors in the mobile storage arena and quickly saw that, while the services were similar to what they had in mind, the approach was different, with many other companies notably lacking in customer service and putting clients through an endless call center loop.

Inspired, the duo built a local company in 2003, consciously setting out to do it better than the competition by focusing on client satisfaction. The initial plan was simple: start a portable storage business, run it for two or three years, sell, then get back into the tech sector. “But there’s something about containers that just gets into your blood,” says Shang of the company, known at the time as Falcon Storage.

To build a customer base, Shang and Dieringer started with cold calls to potential customers from the Yellow Pages, soon applying tech-marketing techniques such as Google pay per click (PPC), followed by building a direct sales team using SalesForce cloud computing and software like HubSpot.

Referring to the fledgling business as “three start-ups in one,” Shang says Falcon started out as portable storage, but quickly began to receive questions about other uses for the containers, such as hunting cabins or portable offices. This led to asking Dieringer’s father – who was in the construction industry – for help.

Soon, the company was renting out offices made from shipping containers on job sites. Within a few years, almost 70 percent of Falcon’s business was in construction. When the recession of 2007-2008 struck, the company saw rented storage containers used by construction companies coming back in droves. Since they had personally guaranteed bank debt to buy the containers, they had to do something, and fast. The solution: discovering a unique niche with the military training industry.

Discovering an industry
“The military was asking us, ‘can you build simulated villages? Simulated schools? Simulated mosques out of storage containers so our troops can train in them?’ And we said, ‘Heck yes, we can!’” says Shang of the second iteration of Falcon – Falcon Containers.

Offering the newly realized capabilities of storage containers stacked together like blocks of LEGO®, company representatives attended trade shows with American colonels and generals, becoming one of the largest providers of military training structures in just four years. “It culminated in us building an entire city out of 700 containers in New Mexico. It was fantastic.”

When funding from the Department of Defense slowed down in 2012, Falcon took the lessons it learned working for the U.S. Military and applied them to the oil and gas sector with well-known businesses like Energy Transfer and Kinder Morgan, educating them about the many benefits of building container-based structures. Then, after selling the rental side of Falcon about five years ago, Falcon created its third iteration – Falcon Structures. The company shifted its focus to building structures for industry out of shipping containers.

With living space becoming more costly, cities are looking for alternative, versatile, and viable solutions. So, for the past five years, Shang and Dieringer have been busy in the background, helping change building codes to allow for creating permanent structures with containers.

“So now we are embarking on our fourth iteration,” says Shang, “and we’re building apartments, offices, and container parks out of containers, which are a permanent modular construction.”

Shaking up the industry
Oil, gas, and other sectors have been using durable container-based structures as temporary homes for workers worldwide. So permanent places to live — complete with plumbing, electrical connections, climate control, and all the other amenities of home — seemed the next logical step for Falcon.

This idea gained public impetus in 2016, when Shang gave a presentation to the Modular Building Institute (MBI), a worldwide non-profit trade association. The problem was that container structures were already being built, but building codes generally needed to be modified to make container developments safe and compliant.

Fortunately, the building code community embraced the issue, and moved quickly. Soon, task forces were created, and Falcon served on International Code Council (ICC) committees to establish new building codes for container-based structures.

“When regulators came for help, we knew the market was here to stay,” says Shang. “Since then, the MBI has asked me to present on the safe use of shipping containers every year. That has been our reputation if you will. We are forging a path with the building code community and working with them on behalf of industry to figure out how to come up with regulations that make sense.” Most recently, Shang gave a virtual presentation at the Institute’s 2021 World of Modular Digital Conference & Tradeshow, held March 8-12.

Although new organizations are appearing on the horizon, Shang believes the Modular Building Institute’s longstanding reputation speaks for itself. Founded in 1983, the MBI’s members include manufacturers, contractors, and dealers “in two distinct segments of the industry.” These include, according to the MBI, “permanent modular construction (PMC) and relocatable buildings (RB),” along with associate members including service companies, financing, and building-component suppliers.

“Because MBI has been around for a long time it has a solid reputation with people inside and outside of the modular industry,” says Shang, commenting on the MBI working with the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) to develop consensus documents for modular subcontracts.

“One of the things we identified with MBI was that they were very interested in forming a relationship with the International Code Council. The modular industry as a whole was not properly addressed in the building codes. Container-based structures became the platform for MBI to get a seat at the table, show that we wanted to be involved in that conversation, and to really effect change in the building codes,” he shares.

“Had we or any other company done that alone without the support of MBI, it would have taken years. But as an industry, we got that through in a couple of years, which for building codes is incredible. It’s a phenomenal organization.”

Serving on the MBI’s Board of Directors and Co-Chairing the Government Affairs Committee, Shang says that the organization remains alerted nationwide for legislation that may impact the modular industry.

Working with different regulators including the States of California, Texas, and New York, Shang is well placed to explain why modular construction works. “It’s a very productive conversation because of MBI’s reputation,” he says. “They’re not just a trade organization; they are a very strong advocacy organization. Because this industry is growing very fast, it needs that kind of support and leadership.”

Doubling revenue
If, as expected, Falcon’s growth trajectory continues, the company is poised to double its annual revenue in the next three years. The first reason, says Shang, is the fast growing market for shipping container-based structures, with increasing respect for their durability, aesthetics, and functionality.

Another is the historic under-performance of the construction industry, the subject of a recent report from McKinsey & Company, The next normal in construction: How disruption is reshaping the world’s largest ecosystem.

From delays to cost overruns, the industry has seen a “meager productivity growth of one percent annually for the past two decades,” according to McKinsey. Now it has once more been derailed, this time by the COVID-19 pandemic, with many construction projects brought to a halt.

“If you look at every other industry, they’ve moved to manufacturing in a factory. You don’t build a car in your driveway, and you don’t build an iPhone on your coffee table – you actually buy it from a factory,” says Shang. “So why can’t you manufacture a building in a factory-type setting – that is, modular construction? That’s growing leaps and bounds as more contractors and owners become comfortable with that mode of construction and start seeing the benefits. So, I think those two trends coming together provide a lot of the fuel for the growth company.”

From kitchens to stadiums
For Falcon Structures, the uses for shipping containers are practically limitless.

With a team of 78 including sales, marketing, design and engineering, product team, back office, manufacturing and operations personnel, production management, and direct laborers including welders, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, and painters, Falcon handles almost every aspect of container structures in-house.

This not only ensures better quality control but gives customers confidence that Falcon is in control of the overall production process.

Teaming up with general contractors and working together on projects means modified shipping containers can be turned around in as little as six weeks for standard builds, while advanced and custom builds take from eight to thirteen weeks. Permanent modular construction takes as long as the construction project takes.

Operating from its 51-acre facility in Manor, Texas outside Austin, fondly nicknamed “Area 51,” Falcon Structures continues to innovate and rise to face emerging demands, including the recent pandemic.

COVID-19 is tossing countless challenges at health agencies and first responders, including an extreme demand for vital personal protective equipment (PPE). Falcon’s modified shipping containers are playing a key role in keeping PPE safe from the elements, clean, and well-organized.

And with hospitals running out of space, the company’s portable shipping containers are being transformed into mobile immunization clinics. Safe, private, and easy to disinfect, these Mobile Immunization Clinics are designed to improve efficiency “while becoming a valued and versatile structure for many years to come,” according to the company.

A gamechanger
From ready-to-order mobile medical units to office space, portable kitchens and restaurants, developments to support the homeless, multi-family housing, and more, Falcon Structures is changing how we work and live.

“If you think about Falcon and what we do, we are building a better world by pioneering the use of container-based structures,” says Shang. “Being pioneers, out in front and doing things other people haven’t done before attracts a certain kind of customer that wants to do something special, to do something different, to lay the groundwork for the masses that come after us.”

The post Taking Shipping Containers to the Next Level<p class="company">Falcon Structures</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.