Equipment World Digital Magazine
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/119539
on record | by Marcia Gruver Doyle MGruver@randallreilly.com Ready to rumble T he first question we ask during our annual Contractor of the Year roundtable is, "How's business?" For the past five years, the answers, with some outliers, were a mix of frustration and hope. This year, there was a noticeable difference when we asked the question. Our finalists are now running on much more than the fumes of hope. Most have dropped the nostalgia for the good ol' mid-2000s and recognize tough times have made them better contractors. "Learning how to get lean and mean was something we definitely needed to do," says our 2013 Contractor of the Year winner, Scott Kelly with Enterprise Trenchless Technologies Incorporated, Lisbon Falls, Maine. (There will be more on Scott in our next issue.) "We actually got a hold of our overhead costs, learning how to manage and fine tune our true costs." Kelly's words are echoed by Ellis Brown, who runs Brown Brothers Construction, Loa, Utah, with brothers Michael and Albert. "We found out there are a lot of things we can do without and still make the money and do the things we need," he says. "That has made us prosperous in the past year." When the Colorado Springs, Colorado, market went down, "we started traveling, and it made all the difference in the world," says Tim Thibault, T-Bone Construction. "We are now at the same staffing level as in 2004 to 2006. We had told clients before, 'no, we're not going to Texas, we're not going to Kansas.' We don't say that anymore." Ken Lester echoes Thibault's words. "In " 2006 or 2007, we'd look the other way on some projects," says Lester, who heads Lester Contracting, Port Lavaca, Texas, with his wife, Melissa. "Now the phone rings and we respond quickly. We want to be their guy." Steger Construction, Dyersville, Iowa, has looked beyond its traditional grading work, says Paul Steger, who operates the firm with his father Jesse. "Because we have good people who can figure different projects out, we can make money at projects that might be a little riskier and deter others from bidding." Others have taken advantage of the new normal in different ways. "If a competitor went out of business, I hired his best man," says Gene Lowder, Charles D. Lowder Incorporated, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. And Lowder has expanded his site development and utilities firm into recycling wood and concrete waste. "All of that is a profit center for us," he says. "In the past three months, there's so much private work going on in our area that we can't keep up with it," says Dany Giangiulio who, with his two brothers Thomas Jr. and Greg, runs the 32-year-old Glendale Excavating, Voorhees New Jersey. "But we want to control our growth. We've been through this before," he said. "Things are looking good right now for this year … and going into 2014." Adds Chris Fink, with Dale's Paving Incorporated, Bossier City, Louisiana: "This December, I found we had a million dollars on the books for 2013, which has never happened before. I'm absolutely stoked about what's coming." EW I'm absolutely stoked about what's coming." EquipmentWorld.com | April 2013 9