The demand for quality municipal equipment continues to grow but finding reputable sales partners from which to buy these service vehicles can be difficult at times. However, buyers in the market for municipal equipment know who to call for top quality and customer service. RNOW is a family-owned-and-run industry leader in quality, heavy-duty, civil sanitation vehicles typically used by municipalities, county governments, and private contractors.

RNOW’s list of new and used vehicles available for sale or rent includes garbage, recycling, and hook-lift trucks as well as street sweepers, combination sewer-jetters, hydro excavators, and sewer inspection equipment, to name but a few. Based in West Allis, Wisconsin, it also offers customers a parts division and service center with three decades of service excellence across the Midwest, including the states of Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Indiana, and beyond.

Over the years, RNOW has served happy customers from all over Wisconsin and the Midwest, including the City of Green Bay, the City of Chicago, and the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority, and thanks to its dedication and superb service, the company is growing fast.

“We believe this to be a relationship-based business. We consider our customers and our vendors as real partners. They’re people we rely on, and they rely on us. For us, it’s about more than commercial interaction,” says President Steve Krall. “It goes deeper than that. They become friends. We develop relationships,” he says.

“If our customers and vendors are successful, we’re going to be successful,” he continues. Krall is clear that the caliber of the company’s vendors has steered it toward its current growth and success and will continue to do so.

Part of this is that RNOW goes to great lengths to understand what its clients need from their equipment. The company then goes about pairing clients with the right vehicles for the job. Some clients need automated collection vehicles; others do not. Some may need mechanical street sweepers, while others may find that air is better for their application and region. To create these custom solutions, the company collaborates with a wide range of fabricators to ensure that its clients always have the best range of quality equipment and possibilities at their disposal.

The company’s sales service includes hauling broken equipment to its dedicated service facility for repair, and as it carries a large selection of parts, any issues are fixed quickly. Some of the many brands carried by the company’s parts division include Ampliroll, Diamondback Products, Labrie, Leach, Loadmaster, Proteus, Schwarze, Super Products, and Wittke.

The company recently introduced a new financing service where prospective buyers can apply for vehicle leases. This addition is proving to be what many of its customers need to pull them through some of their projects on budget and on schedule, a saving grace for many.

Touching on the realities and results of supply chain challenges driven by the COVID-19 crisis, Krall is humorous yet brutally realistic. “I don’t know if anybody has overcome supply chain issues,” he laughs, highlighting how the flow of parts and products remains “flipped on its head.” The struggle is real but so too is the team’s commitment to mitigating the ill effects of the pandemic on local commerce.

RNOW is a loyal member of the Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA), whose guidelines and best practices help the company to remain on top of its game and in line with the latest industry standards and laws. “SWANA’S influence forces our manufacturers to meet the needs of what the SWANA members want, in other words, our customers and end users. The collaboration that comes out of SWANA gives our end users something to strive for,” Krall says. SWANA sets the bar, and by answering the needs that result from its guidelines RNOW answers the demands of its customers.

The company was founded by Krall’s father Dan Krall in 1980 when he set out to create a hydraulic rebuilding firm and service center. “Some of his largest customers at the time were waste haulers. My father… partnered up with a man in garbage truck sales in the late eighties who did not have a service center,” Krall says.

Dan Krall identified the market need and set to work rebuilding and servicing garbage trucks. Krall, Senior then hired garbage truck salesmen. In 1992, RNOW, Inc., standing for Refuse and Recycling Needs of Wisconsin, was born. The company split from the hydraulic rebuilding operation to focus entirely on sales and service. Steve Krall joined his father in the business in 1996, taking charge of operations and leading the firm.

When it comes to the RNOW team of sixteen, Krall could not be prouder. He is, without a shadow of a doubt, an appreciative leader. “I have to say I am truly blessed because I have had so many good people over the years. We have a very good group of people who work with us. It is awesome. Part of our growth is in the consistency of [our] people. They are all unique people with unique skills, and I want them all to be successful too,” he says.

Employees know that the health and strength of our relationships with others are what really matters. Relationships “are what define you. Your family and work life are the people. In the end, nobody is going to care about what you did. People are going to remember the times together,” says Krall.

Thirty years later, many people have devoted entire careers to RNOW and its staff turnover rate remains as low as ever. Being charitable is another priority here, as the company donates to several good causes annually. The Shrine Circus, the Special Olympics, and several veteran organizations are just a few of its beneficiaries.

The team’s commitment to its customers is second to none. Some of its most longstanding customers “have continued to work with us. Everybody in equipment knows that this stuff is going to break; if we had a failure with them, they came back anyway because we took care of the failure. That is a source of great pride,” Krall says.

Rolling ahead, RNOW’s goal is to remain known for being the company of choice in the municipal equipment market rather than the largest and paying its staff even better than it currently does. Achieving these goals will be done by keeping its size manageable and retaining its family-oriented authenticity.

For Krall, growth beyond what can be comfortably managed is illogical, especially in terms of taking care of customers and vendor relationships to the degree to which they have become accustomed. After all, there are not that many companies that have retained customers for over thirty years, and that says a lot about this team’s aim to please.

The post Sweeping the American Midwest: 30 Years in Sanitation Equipment<p class="company">RNOW, Inc.</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

At Superior Fabrication Company, long-term partnerships trump short-term gains, making it an easy and efficient firm with which to collaborate. For those in original equipment manufacturing, oil and gas, agriculture, and several other sectors, Superior Fabrication Company serves as a contract heavy metal fabricator favored for producing quality heavy-duty welding, forklift mast assemblies that handle 100,000 lbs. and beyond, and bespoke components rendered from metal thicker than one inch – like the pivot body truck frames it is currently building in great numbers for mining companies.

The company is also well-known for the quality machining, welding, and high tolerances of its hydraulic fracking pumps, which are notoriously challenging to fabricate. A subsidiary of The Reserve Group (TRG), the company has a deep understanding of the heavy metal industry and has access to group-wide resources and easy collaboration among sister companies. These include a pressure-vessel facility and a super-heavy fabrication facility dealing with railroads and similar.

“Some mining vehicles have pressure vessels on top of them. We benefit from that by [addressing] fabrication work collaboratively. Sometimes that goes beyond just the Superior Fabrication brand. Now we are providing more comprehensive solutions to people as a result of these cross-brand capabilities,” says Rob Polich, Vice President of Sales and Marketing.

Superior Fabrication’s clients also benefit from TRG’s strong buying power, giving it access to better prices and often improved resources as a result.

In addition, the company offers clients a full-fledged engineering department with a solid knowledge base. “Because of our mast business, we have a [solid] engineering department which can assist in many ways, especially on first article inspections,” Polich adds, explaining that this initial prototype fabrication has to be to the exact standards upheld under contract fabrication.

Polich also highlights how imperative transparency is at Superior Fabrication. “I have personally studied the fabrication market and found it very opaque. People do not like to show you what is going on behind the curtain. You are not provided updates; you are not shown what is going on. We don’t engage with customers like that,” he says. For this reason, communication is considered to be of the essence, and clients receive regular progress reports and photographs to keep them up to speed with their fabrications while in the manufacturing process. But there is yet more to this dynamic company than first meets the eye.

Superior Fabrication Company also fabricates capital equipment, on- and off-road truck fabrications, dewatering and environmental equipment, charging systems and conveyors, specialty vehicle frames, and much more. Furthermore, its fabrication systems include all the elements needed to take projects from start to finish, including engineering, assembly, inspection, end of line testing, and painting.

There are always new partners signing up. As such, the company welcomed some fifteen first-time visitors to its plants just last year, adding to its impressive existing client base. And in a bid to build confidence and share expertise, such prospective clients are also free to conduct tests on its components and systems in-house. “That is not common in the industry. Even when we engage with a new prospect, we have every department’s managerial person there to address questions and discuss their subject matter and area of respective expertise. As a result, we’re much more successful – and we have more partnerships than we have customers,” Polich shares.

These efforts are supported by formal weekly progress meetings where the engineering and production teams meet with clients to iron out any possible challenges and ensure that they are on the right track. “We are not a one-off fabricator; we’re not interested in short-term work. Conversely, we seek long-term partners. We’re particular about who we engage with, and we expect them to be particular about who they trust,” he says.

To this end, every project is handled by a focused manager offering singular attention to every detail – including timelines and budgets. And Superior Fabrication’s after-sales service is just as robust, with all parts and service requirements being met and taken care of to the same high standards.

This approach brings us to an unlikely philosophy about clients and business in general. Albeit also very refreshing, the term ‘empathy’ is not one that you naturally and easily imagine when you think of heavy metal fabrication. Here, however, empathy is implied at the beginning of every sentence. And it is a trait that this dynamic leader holds very dear, both personally and professionally. The company’s transparency is only one of the ways in which it shows empathy to its partners; another way in which it displays empathy is by mitigating clients’ risk factors where possible, as with material management issues, complex processes, difficult tolerances, and the like. Whatever is needed to ensure clients feel confident and secure throughout the project, the Superior Fabrication team goes the extra mile to provide.

“[We offer] effective communication targeted at their greatest areas of concern and risk. We like to mitigate risk for both us and the client. A successful partnership for us is the mitigation of mutual risk. Many times we find commonalities; this is the value of transparent partnering,” Polich says.

Sprawled across 150,000 square feet of what sounds much like a movie set, the former Cold War strategic command air force base the company calls home is as fascinating as the work it does. Operative during the full-on tensions with Russia between the 1950s and 1980s, the company began its life as a military fabricator. Today, the facility comprises three buildings housing its office and fabrication facility spread across two gargantuan B52 Stratofortress aircraft hangars connected with a passage. There is more than enough space to create greatness – even for large, 30-foot-plus-long fabrications.

Superior Fabrication regularly invests in new technology, making the company the proud owner of seven robotic cells, a collection that will soon expand to several more. This fall will also see the implementation of new enterprise resource planning software that will help to further streamline its systems to provide clients with even better all-around speed, quality, and service. Superior Fabrication is also the proud owner of such trusted material handling brands as Knickerbocker, Brudi, and Swingshift.

With the significant current growth in heavy fabrication in sectors such as construction, agriculture, oil and gas, mining, and more, Superior Fabrication’s team of seventy is appreciated beyond belief. “We’re a customer-centric team. There’s very little sense of titles here. We all work very collaboratively to delight the customer,” Polich says with the sincere smile of a leader who knows that being too serious is unhealthy – both for business and morale.

“We have a good time doing it. It’s a fun place to work. I’m proud that we have a very approachable culture,” he adds, pointing out that being a great fit culturally is one of the best perks for customers.

“They always like the tempo, the personalities, the open expression that we have, culturally. We’re more interested in serving our customers than serving our hierarchy inside the organization,” Polich says of this wholesome, ego-free workplace where gag gifts and celebrated wins are equally common occurrences. And, speaking of tempo, this fantastic team is growing as new opportunities continue to roll in. Its success stands to reason, however. Superior Fabrication has turned blending its partners’ teams seamlessly with its own into a fine art, ensuring that every project rolls smoothly from start to finish while underpromising and overdelivering – every time. Just as its work promises to outlast the competition, its quality and dedication do the same.

The post Pulling Back the Curtain – Resourceful, Transparent Fabrication With a Smile<p class="company">Superior Fabrication Company</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Having “survived the worst of the worst,” in his own words, Geoffrey Joseph, President and Chief Executive Officer, understands the transportation industry inside out. With years spent in a market that is most certainly not for the faint-hearted, he knows how to calmly handle adversity.

To this end, the company seized an opportunity to enter the fuel transportation business while that sector experienced severely reduced traffic volume during the COVID-19 crisis. It hung in there tenaciously, and today, the leap is paying off in lucrative ways. It also acquired, amongst others, a sister company specializing in food-grade tanker transportation. Back in its original Joseph Haulage firm, it continues to focus on moving construction materials with an equally fast-growing focus on tanker transportation of chemicals.

“Joseph Group is coming out bigger and stronger than ever. We are actively engaged in multiple acquisitions. We have a very strong growth strategy,” Geoffrey says.

As the company only buys firms with “proven successes,” the group is always eager to learn about how these companies do things in ways that can improve its overall performance. “We acquire good businesses,” Geoffrey says, noting that the first hundred days after an acquisition is used as a “learning period,” in which no changes are made but the company is studied to discover what makes it good. “Then we start to look at the best scenarios from both companies: ours and the acquisition company. Sometimes we see great things,” he adds. These approaches are then incorporated into the group. “So we’re ever-evolving.”

He is quick to admit that the group has an incredible staff. When it comes to marrying new teams with existing ones, it is important to continuously “improve the happiness of our new [and existing] family members.”

Joseph Group Canada is synonymous with accountability and service, and as a result, its growth and evolution have been able to hit an entirely new direction. Since we last spoke in 2021, the company has focused on training its teams as well as establishing Joseph U. Its in-house university is dedicated to instilling its culture and ethics and offers leadership training and improved safety programs for its clients and staff.

Nothing about Joseph Group is traditional, and that includes how it applies technology within the organization. This push has led it to next-day billing, increased remote work opportunities, and paperless systems.

As part of this drive, its trucks now have rear and forward-facing cameras, tremendously improving driver and cargo safety. Geoffrey tells me that drivers are beginning to realize the benefits of being able to prove their innocence during disputes.

“Footage is never viewed unless there is an incident, and when that incident does happen, the driver is also present during the [review] of the footage. Our drivers see the value, and they don’t want to go to work unless their cameras are working,” Geoffrey says.

Electronic logging devices have been becoming standard in the transportation industry. Always ahead, Joseph Group already kitted out all its vehicles with the latest equipment to track and follow cargo in real time and has been keeping it updated.

The company also makes a point of listening to its drivers. In addition, its custom truck program rewards drivers by letting them personalize and choose their trucks’ extras. These include leather seats, sleeping quarters, and microwaves. Drivers even get to put their names on their trucks. “The program is about the sense of pride that our drivers have for their and our equipment,” he says.

All the investments meant swiftly adapting to the changes brought about by COVID-19 was easy. Not only could the company go into remote work mode almost overnight, but it also ensured that its people had all the support they needed. “We put people before profit. We made sure that our managers understood empathy,” Geoffrey says, underlining that parents working from home could not always be available during traditional office hours if they had to take care of children while working. The leadership team touched base regularly, “ensuring that people were adjusting well to working remotely.”

Joseph Group did not lay off staff and continued paying people during the shelter-in-place period to guarantee their financial security. “We put a couple of million dollars into that program and said that when we come out of this, we are going to have a stronger buy-in from our team because we stuck by them during COVID.” Geoffrey points out that the staff members of some of the company’s competitors were not as lucky since job losses and salary cuts were commonplace in the industry during this time.

All of its hard work and dedication have returned in meaningful ways, and the company has been the proud recipient of several awards, including Trucking HR Canada’s Top Fleet Employer. It has also made consistent appearances on the Canadian Business Growth 500-list, amongst others.

Joseph Group’s heart is even bigger than its fleet of over three hundred vehicles and trailers, and the company is particularly dedicated to charities supporting children. The team takes around one thousand inner-city children to the cinema every year. It also issues scholarships that include books and whatever technology they may need. This has led to great success stories already.

“Last year through COVID, we gave out about ten X-boxes and PlayStations to various kids. We couldn’t get enough of them, so my son ended up donating his X-box. We did home visits with people. Charity is a big thing for Joseph Group,” says Geoffrey, who says that if the company can change one child’s life, “That’s enough of a reward.”

Looking toward the end of 2022 and into 2023, the company has plans for new headquarters. The building will be constructed at a new location in its home town. “We’ll have an open and very exciting workspace. There will be a coffee shop in the restaurant, and a very open, light, and bright work environment,” he says.

Further ahead, the goal is to do even more for existing customers than before, doubling both profitability and revenue. The plan to get there is deceptively straightforward. “Zero accidents, zero injuries, service failures, zero turnover, and one team, one call, one voice, number one drivers, and number one staff,” as Geoffrey puts it. While the company continues to acquire more companies to join its portfolio, steady, organic growth remains its aim.

The post Rolling Out Safety & Service Across Canada<p class="company">Joseph Group Canada</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Solar and wind power are two alternative energy sources earmarked to take the mining industry on a more environmentally conscious and less toxic growth trajectory with greatly reduced greenhouse gas emissions and more energy efficiency. These energy sources also make operations cheaper in the long run through a combination of price hedging and not being tied to volatile global crude oil prices. Solar energy can also power far-flung mines in inhospitable places like the Atacama Desert, where heavy fuel oil generators would otherwise make exploration too expensive.

In the race to go off-grid, microgrids are fast becoming all the rage with some operators adding hydroelectric power and backup gas-powered systems. South African-owned Gold Fields mines in Australia use predictive weather technology to program energy supply software that allows easy switches between energy sources depending to cloud cover and prevailing wind speeds.

Great as all these innovations are, the reality is that, to achieve cleaner mining, rare earth elements (REEs) like the indium and cadmium used in producing solar energy, the neodymium and boron used in wind turbine magnets, as well as other minerals like aluminum, iron, and copper for wiring, must still be extracted from the earth and processed by using copious amounts of resources like water and electricity.

Another consideration when it comes to REE commodity value is availability. In light of these points, researchers are advising caution lest a single country hold power over entire supply chains. Clean energy cannot be separated, at this stage and in our present model of production, from the environmental and diplomatic challenges presented in obtaining and extracting the minerals essential for mining’s electricity infrastructure. While the lion’s share of these materials comes from faraway places like South America, Kazakhstan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, China, and even Ireland, their impact on the environment and economic value is of global and national relevance.

With some luck for North American supply chains, not all of these locations are abroad. Closer to home, California’s Mountain Pass Mine is but one mine classed by the Minerals Education Coalition as having some of the world’s biggest REE deposits outside of Asia. According to an investingnews.com article of this past June, the United States and Greenland rank seventh in the world with an estimated 1.5 metric tons of rare earth elements; however, demand is increasing, and supply is, ultimately, finite.

But dark clouds often have silver linings—mainly thanks to the sun, and this brings us to the earth-friendly promise of solar power. There are currently two forms of solar capturing technologies. The first, reserved for large power plants, is concentrated solar power (CSP) that employs reflective materials to concentrate sunlight. Then there is photovoltaic power (PV), which converts solar energy into electricity, as seen in solar panels.

Many mines are beginning to use this technology. Anglo American reported the world’s first floating solar farm at one of its mining facilities in Chile in March 2019. The almost 260 photovoltaic panels at the Los Bronces copper mine handle 330 watts per unit and are suspended as a single island-style array on the surface of the Las Tórtolas tailing pond.

Here, water from the copper mining process is stored to allow sediments to separate and settle until the water is clear enough to be repurposed and the desirable mineral particles are extracted from the slurry. The solar plant is estimated to potentially lower the mine’s carbon dioxide production by close to sixty tons annually while providing it with 150,000 kWh of electricity over the same period. It also stops any significant water losses as it covers a large part of the pond surface, preventing evaporation and allowing nearly all of the water to return to the mine’s extraction cycle. The impact of such tailing ponds is regulated by government bodies and management and mitigation protocols set out by the United Nations in 2020.

In March, the Rio Tinto mine in Utah announced its plans to start setting up a tellurium extraction facility toward the end of 2021. This by-product of copper smelting is derived from cadmium telluride. Its semi-conductor properties allow sunshine to be transformed into electricity in thin-film photovoltaic (PV) solar panels.

“The minerals and metals we produce are essential to accelerate the transition to renewable energy,” Gaby Poirier, managing director of Rio Tinto Kennecott, said in a recent statement. “Adding tellurium to our product portfolio provides customers in North America with a secure and reliable source of tellurium produced at the highest environmental and labour standards with renewable energy. Rio Tinto is committed to using innovation to reduce waste in our production process and extract as much value as possible from the material that we mine and process.”

Rio Tinto is the first recorded large mining corporation to commit to investing in ‘clean’ energy as it sold the last of its coal assets—Australian-based Hail Creek coal mine and Valeria coal project—to Glencore in 2018. It now reports powering its operations with over seventy percent renewable energy. Part of Anglo-Australian’s multinational mining portfolio, the company went on record in 2020 with its goal to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. In a 2016 report, the mine vowed to close all three of its coal-burning units at the Kennecott mine for good. Since then, its power needs have been fulfilled by renewable energy certificates procured from Rocky Mountain Power, which has been supplying the mine with energy derived from a range of renewable local sources as well as wind turbines in Wyoming.

Considering the hefty amount of minerals needed to fabricate wind turbines, it is good to see that mines are beginning to employ the energy generated by these whispering giants to power their extraction activities. Once these minerals are extracted and transformed into workable materials like steel, most can be reused infinitely. This is exactly what the Rio Tinto mine has discovered in Utah where it derived nearly three million pounds of copper in 2018 from waste that had accumulated since the early 2000s.

Some of the mined materials needed to fabricate solar and wind-generated power include the more common ingredients like clay, shale, gypsum, limestone, silica, molybdenum, zinc, aggregates used in the cement that anchors these large structures, and even coke, a fuel product made from coal. This list is by no means exhaustive.

While lithium and cobalt are still the leading components of batteries used for power storage, researchers are looking to replace highly flammable, toxic lithium with gentler substances. One alternative power storage device, the proton battery, which powers itself by separating water into hydrogen and oxygen, was presented recently by the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Others are working on batteries based on graphite, potassium, or aluminum salt liquids while China reportedly developed an earth-friendly, non-toxic battery using nickel-zinc that is fully recyclable but has a shorter life span. Trade-offs prevail.

There continue to be some major environmental impacts to consider when it comes to extracting rare earth elements. Scientists point out that the solvents used in the extraction process are often more toxic to the environment than burning fossil fuels. REEs are noted as ‘relatively abundant’ but rare due to the complexities involved in isolating these metals from the dirt in which they are found. Part of the difficulty is that these elements are not found in concentrated deposits, and so large volumes of earth must be processed to obtain comparatively small amounts of these minerals, taking much hard work and energy.

On the bright side, there are always smart people capable of solving big problems and big companies with the ability, vision, and budget to bankroll such work. Last year, in the Financial Times, U.S. Bureau of Energy Resources Assistant Secretary of State Francis Fannon referred to the mining for clean energy issue as “the green revolution’s inconvenient truth about mining.” As the market currently stands, investors are increasingly shying away from industries running on fossil fuels and coal, making it imperative for renewable energy development to become a whole lot cleaner a whole lot faster.

According to a McKinsey Sustainability report last year, titled ‘Here’s how the mining industry can respond to climate change,’ between a third and a half of the world’s deposits of minerals needed by the renewable energy market are located in areas without plentiful water needed for cooling machinery and supporting workers. These areas are also already under great pressure from climate change. Issues like water shortages in desert mining regions and flooding in coastal mining areas pose very real threats to extraction operations. Automation is playing a huge part in protecting workers from toxins, yet methane and carbon dioxide from the mining industry account for nearly one-tenth of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

In 2019, in the United Kingdom, Lord Sales of the UK Supreme Court, questioning whether companies can act ethically toward the environment on their own, suggested a new senior management requirement for mining corporations in the form of a director dedicated to overseeing the integrity and safety of a company’s presence in the natural world.

There are other solutions to help ‘green’ the mining industry. Apart from attempting to use cleaner REE chemical extraction methods, materials can and should be recycled and reused. While this is still a painstaking and expensive process, the technology needed will likely get cheaper over time.

Sustainalytics.com describes itself as providing “environmental, social and governance (ESG) research, ratings and data to institutional investors and companies,” and mentions in a 2019 article titled ‘Implications of the use of rare-earth elements in the wind energy market’ that only 1 percent of REEs are recycled at present, making a strong argument for strengthening supply through reuse. It also notes that Goldwind, a wind turbine fabricator already smelts used magnets and reuses the precious metal content.

As well as recycling, improvements in design could potentially eliminate the need for REEs. Enercon, a German firm, has come up with a gearless wind turbine design that does exactly that. Another wind turbine project was driven by the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020, which footed the bill for developing superconductor technology that would render permanent magnets obsolete in generators, slashing the need for REEs in many of these machines.

Considering the red tape posed by European countries’ protective environmental legislation, the search for alternative technologies could go beyond these precious metals toward a genuinely cleaner energy future.

The post Clean Mining for Clean Energy<p class="company">The Necessary Components</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Civil & Environmental Consultants, Inc’s (CEC) Subsurface Utility Service minimizes risk on construction projects and does much more. The company’s diverse service portfolio is exactly why construction specialists do not need any other geospatial or survey contractors. The employee-owned civil and environmental engineering consultant’s team of more than one thousand serves clients from twenty-eight facilities stretching across the United States.

The Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based firm was founded in 1989 by a group of four engineers and scientists. And, because its multi-disciplinary teams specialize in solving complex challenges, the company is especially popular among construction firms for its skill sets, expertise, and advanced technological capabilities.

The company describes itself as a project lifecycle firm. “We have people working for us who are experts with years of experience in all phases of most [types of] project,” says Brian Souva, a vice president in the company’s Survey/Geospatial practice. As a result, the CEC team of geospatial professionals, engineers, scientists, environmental due diligence professionals, site assessment professionals, and individuals in countless other disciplines saves project owners and project managers the hassle of coordinating with a multitude of separate service providers.

CEC handles all tasks that are involved in ensuring that a site has been sufficiently studied in terms of surface, subsurface, infrastructure and environmental assessments. “It can be cumbersome for clients to manage many outsourced relationships, and then they don’t have continuity throughout the project [with regard to] the history of what happened from the beginning to the end. We pride ourselves on having knowledgeable people in-house at every phase of a project’s lifecycle,” says Emily Chiodo, Senior Marketing Communications and Public Relations Manager.

This is why the company’s services also include preliminary tasks like permitting and design. “Whether it is a mining project or a real estate project, there’s always a lifecycle. We work with our clients from the beginning to delivery and even beyond to assist with operations, monitoring and compliance, and even closure or retirement of their assets,” she adds.

Building on a site without knowing what the situation is beneath it is never ideal. Therefore, according to Souva, who is a professional land surveyor, the company’s work is mainly focused on managing risk. At the start of projects, after confirming ownership, CEC locates and maps underground utilities, voids, concrete substructures, pipelines, underground storage tanks, and even the boundaries of gravesites. As most utilities are typically located beneath roadway tarmac, multi-colored paints are used to mark each utility pipeline like water, gas, and others. Once this is done, the outlines are surveyed and mapped.

“What you end up with is an accurate picture of what the underground utilities for that project site look like. Utility records are usually very old or [passed down by] word of mouth. [Often] such records aren’t very accurate,” says Andy DeGroat, a senior principal and the geospatial practice leader for CEC’s operations in the Carolinas. Once the geospatial data is collected, designers then employ this to develop plans that inform the construction contractor of the surrounding underground and other structures.

To achieve all its great feats, CEC invests in quality technology. It uses uniform software platforms for easy collaboration between its regional operations and keeps its equipment the same across the business, saving time and assuring ease of use. For its subsurface utility engineering, CEC uses technologies that include several types of electromagnetic locating equipment, various frequencies of ground penetrating radar to help it find structures like underground storage tanks, and different pipe cameras.

The company performs ground-penetrating radar scans on roadways, bridge decks, and even walls. “We’re nimble in terms of where our people can go, and we have the manpower to send enough people out to complete even tall orders on short deadlines,” says Chiodo. Whatever its clients need, CEC can offer a one-stop-shop experience.

The company’s in-house depth of bench “better positions us to see that everything goes smoothly because we have collaboration taking place. When [a company] doesn’t have this level of collaboration, they may not identify potential hurdles early or arrive at better solutions derived from multiple points of view. This is why we bring our disciplines together to talk about how they all can serve a particular industry’s needs,” says Chiodo.

CEC’s comprehensive services even include a fully equipped archaeological team with historical preservation professionals and scientists in its cultural resources department. This group ensures that the firm’s work remains in line with the National Historic Preservation Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and more.

The company has found many interesting artifacts over the years while scanning areas for utilities. One such find turned out to be antique trolley rails used to haul goods from one side of town to the other in Charlotte, North Carolina’s gold mining days. The track went straight past the Federal Reserve offices.

CEC’s service is known throughout the industry, landing the team several accolades over the years. Some more recent acknowledgments include reaching #88 on Engineering News-Record’s ‘Top 200 Environmental Firms’ list and #96 on Engineering News-Record’s ‘Top 500 Design Firms’ list for 2021 and, in recognition of what a great place it is to work, CEC was recently listed among the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s top workplaces.

But the company serves more than the construction industry. Clients include respected firms in the manufacturing, mining, oil and gas, power, real estate, and solid waste industries as well as entities in the public sector. Other services include air quality, civil engineering, ecological sciences, environmental engineering and sciences, manufacturing infrastructure services, survey/geospatial, waste management, and water resources. Each of these categories comprises a host of sub-services led by carefully chosen professionals with a range of academic backgrounds.

The company’s strength is in its diversity and in the fact that its teams come up with solutions specifically tailored to each industry and even each client it serves. Collaboration between disciplines teaches “our folks to think from the clients’ perspective. We are tailoring what we do and our discussions around how each industry functions and what their latest trends are so that we can be adaptive,” Chiodo adds.

Considering the quality, scope, and reach of CEC’s services, it stands to reason that many of its clients, even national ones, have been with the company for several decades. Relationships matter and Souva is a great believer in speaking with customers in person. “It’s about the [sincere, personal] relationship. It’s not always about the project. I see this as being part of my lateral management approach. Working with us is like working with a friend,” says Souva.

Despite the impression one might get from its size, the company works as one big family. For this reason, personal accountability is a big deal, and so is safety. In a bid to fortify and communicate its extensive safety protocols, employees receive thorough training and refresher courses, and clear procedures are set out for tasks. On the odd occasion that accidents do happen, the sequence of events is carefully studied and protocols further developed. It is always looking to develop its skills and capabilities further.

Around sixty percent of its people hold stock in the company, and it is always hiring thanks to continued stable growth throughout its history. “We provide a top-notch opportunity for folks who are looking for a place to build a long-term career,” says Chiodo. For Souva, the company’s different locations’ ability to pull together and cultivate shared solutions from across the country is both unique and inspiring.

DeGroat joined the firm not long ago. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked at a site and found a person who [specializes in a service] that I could sell on to another client somewhere else in the country,” he says. “At the same time, it’s all very personal. I know people by name. I call them, and we get together. We sit down and talk about what we’re doing. It’s very refreshing to be here.” Considering how interesting its projects are, the work naturally gets pretty cool, too, like performing LiDAR scans inside bat caves and other unusual projects.

CEC was recently called out to take care of a project in Boone, North Carolina. The facility had been a holiday resort for years and now wanted to expand and improve the existing facilities. But there were no records of its underground utilities. The CEC team rushed to their aid and located the underground infrastructure during a painstaking process that took around three months.

The company invites its adventurous thinkers to invent. There are even annual awards for the best innovators in order to inspire people to come up with brilliant solutions to clients’ big challenges, fostering creativity and perpetuating its competitive edge in the market.

Taking care of people beyond its own offices is also important for the company. Its “CEC Community” initiative reaches across the United States and allows the company to lend a helping hand and better local communities. Its activities range from improving neighborhoods to charity donations, and even volunteering skills and sharing knowledge in areas that need it.

Staying abreast of market trends means keeping up with technological developments like investing in aerial LiDAR drones that can scan hundreds of acres in a single day, improving 3D technology, and more. This commitment to growth and development is led by the company’s desire to meet the needs of its clients.

Another growth strategy the firm employs is finding great people in locations where it does not yet have a footprint but a need for its services exists. This is how it recently handled its expansion into California. It will continue to perform steady, small acquisitions to expand its capabilities strategically. And CEC is always ready to help. “If readers have any questions, they should please feel free to reach out to [us] so we can help them out. If we can’t, we’ll find somebody who can,” says Souva. “Our goal is to help people find solutions to their challenges so they can achieve their business objectives.”

The post Owning Accountability – Subsurface Investigation With a Difference<p class="company">Civil & Environmental Consultants, Inc.</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

This exceptional company is a premium, mid-size lumber pioneer that supplies homeowners and contractors via independent retail lumber yards and farm supply stores throughout the northeast – all from its state-of-the-art facility in Madison, Virginia. Trusted since 1959 by some of the biggest names in lumber retail industries, this team player simply delivers the best products, service, and customer care.

At Madison Wood, superior lumber is sourced from the best mills in the United States, after which it is pressure treated on site with eco-friendly preservatives in high-pressure chambers before being shipped to clients.

The team’s relationship with customers does not end once a sale is closed. Madison Wood is as thoughtful as it is thorough. Generous with expert advice, information, and education on its products’ uses, installation, and maintenance.

As lumber and other wood products are increasingly available online, separating the chaff from the good stuff using photographs can be difficult. Madison Wood goes the extra mile to ensure that clients make informed purchasing decisions driven by in-depth knowledge rather than initial capital outlay alone. According to the company’s expert team, when treated lumber comes cheaper at the outset, it often turns out to be pricey in the long run with an unusable product coming to light once it arrives on the job site.

Madison Wood’s singular facility packs a punch with the capacity to treat over one million board feet per day. While acquisitions and mergers are trending among the current high demand, this team has taken the long-term, and surer, approach of growing its capabilities, efficiency, safety, and automations within its facility.

It’s a simple creed – “It’s not the size of the company that’s important, but the size of its capabilities.” In fact, Madison Wood’s startling ability to provide clients with a level of service that simply outdoes many bigger competitors resides in its size. By leveraging this very strength, the company has carved out a strategic growth plan second to none.

The COVID-19 crisis left no stone unturned, affecting the lumber industry as catastrophically as it did many others. The team’s solution was to stimulate growth through meticulous customer demand planning and by continuously adapting to the new market reality.

Thanks to the company’s commitment to maximizing its capabilities, the twists and turns of the current economic downturn have found it ready for action.

Despite ongoing pandemic uncertainties and widespread lumber shortages, the team secured the lumber it needed to match 2019 sales and more. In May 2020, as retailers scrambled to stock up on supplies, sales soared to unsustainable levels over previous years.

Working quickly, the team developed a system to fairly distribute stock amongst its existing clients according to average past sales. In this way, the company prevented any single dealer from cornering over-large amounts of product, assuring its regular customers a continuing supply and uninterrupted access to premium quality treated lumber.

This approach not only bought the team time to source more lumber, it also secured the continued support of long-standing customers. The plan enabled the company to guarantee customers a set price when they ordered, to offer an average three-week lead time or less, and to ship what was originally ordered with each shipment processed.

This decisive action stands in stark contrast to many competitors’ non-committal pricing that typically uses the ‘priced at time of shipment’ (PTS) model, driven mainly by the sharp rise in the price of lumber occasioned by longer lead times. Poor inventory management often resulted in last-minute changes to orders due to shortages.

“It is this company’s job to consistently uphold our customers’ reputation by producing quality products they can depend on. We want the buying of treated lumber to be the easiest and most worry-free segment of their day,” says Kari Gaviria, Vice President of Sales.

During this time of lumber shortages, Madison Wood’s clients have particularly favored its SelectDeck™ 2×6, a versatile decking alternative of an almost clear C-Grade wood that is manufactured with kerfs to reduce warping, a natural characteristic of southern yellow pine and wood in general.

But it isn’t just Madison Wood’s products and internal systems that are always being upgraded. In the past three years, Madison Wood has also improved its nearly 4.5-acre under-roof storage facility that keeps all its wood looking as fresh and clean as the day it was milled. And, true to the company’s culture, technology updates are always underway. The team recently introduced a new automation suite to its production line. “It can lay out tasks to be completed using prior sales and efficiency tactics as guidelines,” says Gaviria. The system will soon become an integral part of the entire facility.

Also unveiled was a new, proprietary tracking system, MADtrak®, which enables any top client – referred to as a “Blue Diamond Dealer®” – to track live shipments in real-time with fantastic ease.

However, there are many aspects to rendering and delivering the best-treated lumber on time.

One of these is that high demands require laser-focused logistics planning, with members of the team having to think on their feet. Prior to signing any new deals, the company ensures that it has a reliable transportation provider to run the route. Madison Wood devotes considerable energy to securing solid partners who will carry its loads safely and deliver on time.

Adapting to the challenges of COVID-19 is not the company’s only current driver of change. After 40 years with Madison Wood, President Steve Lillard will be relinquishing his role as President of the company on December 31, this year.

“After graduating with a degree in forestry I started at Madison Wood driving a forklift back in 1981,” he says. “It has been a wild ride full of meaningful partnerships, detailed collaboration, and teamwork. I have decided at the end of this year that I will be stepping down as president. This industry is ready for the next generation of leadership and I cannot wait to see what the future brings for this company.”

His official retirement from office will be followed by a year or two in which he will continue acting as an advisor to the team. “Madison Wood Preservers has a facility that is still the most up-to-date treating facility in the world,” he says. “I think it is time for new talent to come in with the succession – people like Brad Knighting and Kari Gaviria – to take us to levels that a person of my age may not be able to reach.”

He is pragmatic about the large change that awaits. As retail sectors have growing numbers of younger people entering the job market, creating the need for a younger generation of service providers and a refreshed supplier/client interface that they can relate to, Lillard sees the step as timely.

“The innovation that they bring with them will be critical to the success of the company,” he says.

Bill Price concurs. “There’s a saying that old age and wisdom will overcome youth and enthusiasm every day. We’re in a situation where we have old age and wisdom and youth and enthusiasm running the company. That is the absolute best of both worlds.”

When it comes to its team, there is no end to the leaders’ praises. “We’re convinced that we have the best team in the industry,” says Brad Knighting, Vice President of Purchasing.

This sentiment is reflected in the fact that not even one of the company’s 105 staff members were laid off due to the virus. When asked about morale, Knighting is particularly proud. “Most importantly, we have a bunch of self-motivated people. People that are interested in being their very best and being part of a successful program,” he says.

The company ensures that its people are well remunerated. This culture of caring is one of its greatest forms of support for the entire team. “There’s a lot of respect and comfort in working with each other – we all know we’re here for the company’s best interests. I think we unite on that front,” says Knighting.

It’s apparent that Madison Wood’s entire team worked with great gusto to pull the company through this uncertain time in world history. Accountability and team effort especially are two game-changing traits of this company’s equitable organization, and staff members are motivated to take on a diversity of roles to help people invest in their own and the company’s future success.

Madison Wood also cultivates its future leaders with much care and dedication through programs like MADskillz and other educational activities that keep employees up to date with both the company’s and the entire industry’s latest best practices.

Despite universal challenges, trade has evolved over the past two years as demand for treated lumber rocketed. Many of Madison Wood’s new clients are retailers, tired of second-rate service and seeking to benefit from its meticulous customer care and excellent products. And meanwhile, according to Gaviria, demand for quality lumber and related wood products continues to rise despite freezing winter temperatures and very high prices.

Blessed with the go-getting spirit that’s so typical of the company, Kari Gaviria brought home the sought-after Pro Sales 4 Under 40 Award in 2020. She also became a proud member of two of the American Wood Protection Association’s (AWPA) committees, followed by her well-deserved promotion to Vice President of Sales in December last year.

It will take some time before bulk lumber suppliers are out of the woods, but the company remains confident. “2020 brought forth many lessons that made us stronger. That being said, we expect that the trends continue throughout the third quarter of 2021,” says Knighting.

Moving ahead with sustainable annual growth, Madison Wood will continue to measure its success by the volume of consistent return customers it generates. “In an age of consolidation, we wish to remain a company large enough to compete but small enough to care,” says Price. “One thing is for certain; our products, service, and facility will remain at the forefront of the treated industry for years to come.”

All considered, the indicators are clear. Leading the way with impeccable preparation, Madison Wood Preservers is set to surpass its goals in the year ahead and beyond.

The post Delivering Superior Treated Lumber<p class="company">Madison Wood Preservers</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Even mid-pandemic, professional haulage has held the fabric of North American trade together by delivering essential goods from one side of the continent to another. With over 300 state-of-the-art trucks and trailers and around the same number of expert employees, this tightly-knit family firm, headquartered in Stoney Creek, Ontario, delivers when clients’ timelines and budgets matter.

Keeping ahead of trends and ensuring that its clients’ logistics are optimized according to the latest standards and technology are only two of the complications that this company navigates with ease. “I don’t like comfort zones, which is why, as a company, we like taking on new challenges,” says President Geoff Joseph. As one of Canada’s 500 fastest-growing companies for four consecutive years, the firm proves that this attitude provides a sweet spot where prosperity and innovation balance.

At the heart of its drive for perpetual improvement is a commitment to serve its clients well and be accountable. Its employees have access to the best technology available to the industry, making Joseph Haulage a leader in its field. This is important as haulage is not simply about moving goods from point A to point B and beyond; instead, the quality and efficiency of its behind-the-scenes processes set this company apart from its competitors.

It is well known for moving soil, waste materials, and heavy and light oils throughout Ontario, the Great Lakes, the New York to Pennsylvania corridor, and further afield. February 1st, 2021, welcomes another new location in London, Ontario. When asked what makes the company so successful, Joseph is candid about the importance of getting the basics right. “We are big at showing up on time, with a professionally trained, uniformed driver in a clean truck. [This includes] achieving budgets and timelines to ensure our customers don’t face unforeseeable penalties and delays,” he says.

The company had strong growth in 2020, despite the difficulties many businesses faced. Its recent acquisition of Bergland Transport, a company perfectly united with Joseph Haulage’s values, has allowed it to move into the agricultural bulk transport sector. The company also secured a five-year waste haulage contract with Waste Management, Inc., the parent company of Waste Management of Canada.

Joseph Haulage has invested in a staggering 27 new custom trucks in collaboration with Paccar Peterbilt for drivers who were not able to invest in their own new vehicles. The purchase includes trailers from Titan Sales, and drivers could select options for their vehicles according to their needs and tastes. Titan Sales President Rob Ganiec and Joseph have worked together for over 25 years, and this project was a continuation of this longstanding relationship.

Changing economic situations and many issues have been overcome or adapted to by the firm through a careful balance of old and new. Tough times have given the management team the wisdom to grant employees the space needed to excel and the freedom in which to explore new technology that can enhance service.

Part of the company’s approach to recession-proofing the business is to focus on moving materials and substances that are always available for transportation and to ensure that its clients’ values always match its own. This tactic has seen the company flourish in even the hardest market drops. “We always make sure that we align ourselves with customers who share our values,” says Joseph.

The company’s divisions are structured to give clients access to all of its multi-modal transport services without having to jump through office bureaucracy. To ease flow between divisions, each department is staffed by a manager and logistics team, supported by a finance department and administrative team.

The company has several divisions, each of which focuses on a unique sector. The dumping division deals with sand, gravel, aggregates, soil, salt, compost, and hazardous waste. Its waste division deals with garbage, construction debris, and other waste. Heavy-duty cargo like machinery, roofing products, pre-cast products, lumber, and steel is moved by its flatbed transportation division. The tanker department takes care of liquids like oils, asphalt cement used in road surfaces, petroleum lubricants, and caustic chemicals. It also offers specialized tanker trailers that keep liquids at predetermined temperatures.

Joseph Haulage is a great place to work, and its people are considered its greatest asset. As a result, the company was chosen three years in a row as a ‘Top Fleet Employer’ by industry non-profit group Trucking HR Canada, and it has been on Canada’s list of 500 fastest-growing firms for four years running.

Despite the uncertainty that came with the COVID-19 pandemic, Joseph Haulage merged with Bergland while retaining more than 99 percent of all its staff and making safety a top concern throughout the year. “We make it a priority to adhere to our customers’ safety practices and policies, which are always in line with our safety culture. They also know that we’re reliable, so they’ll often approach one or more of our other divisions as well,” says Joseph.

The company also invests in its people’s futures by providing training and development programs as well as enough space for its managers to develop their skills and talents; there is no micromanagement here. Creativity and contributing ideas are encouraged so one can see why the company’s leadership insists that everyone is on board with the plans for its future development.

This company genuinely cares about its people, and staff members are encouraged to build their relationships independently of the office. Joseph Haulage highlights the importance of a healthy lifestyle for its employees, even renting a basketball court biweekly at a local gym where staff can play together.

There the list of charitable organizations supported by the company is also rather sizeable. Apart from donating over $100,000 to good causes annually, team members receive forty hours of paid volunteer time dedicated to good community causes. “[The paid volunteer time] totals roughly $150,000 in wages,” says Joseph.

“We give our people a lot of opportunity for career advancement. That includes any additional training they want. We always support them financially when it comes to learning,” Josef says. Other benefits include a profit-sharing pension plan.

Alongside great perks, there have been many great projects. These include several of the biggest soil projects around Ontario that moved up to one million loads of earth in very short timeframes. One of its best-known projects happened in preparation for the Pan Am Games of 2015 in Toronto, Canada. This project was so complex that the work was declined by several competitors, but Joseph Haulage made a great success of the contract.

Moving ahead, the company’s growth strategy comprises becoming a nation-wide carrier offering a range of dynamic carrier options including rail, vessel, and traditional methods. Between one to three annual mergers will continue to grow its reach and capabilities. Then, of course, the matter of COVID-19 appears to remain centre stage for the foreseeable future.

To this, Joseph’s response is pragmatic when he quotes motivational public speaker and self-development author Brian Tracy: “The true test of leadership is how you function in a crisis.” What is clear in our conversation is that, for now, the company will continue to put its people before profit. “Our team will remember us for making these tough decisions. We knew we were going to lose millions of dollars [by putting people first] but we were okay with that,” he adds.

Joseph Haulage has seen tremendous growth over the past few years, reaching fourth place in 2018 on the Canadian Business Growth 500 list with an 817 percent growth rate from 2012 to 2017. Through meticulous planning and tenacity, 2020 presented Joseph Haulage with 18 percent growth, despite its acquisitions and not laying off any staff. “We truly believe in the value of our people, and we will never lose sight of that,” says Joseph. For this reason, the company will continue to provide its staff with top-of-the-range tools and equipment.

The post Always on the Move<p class="company">Joseph Haulage Canada</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Thanks to their renewable, clean and carbon-neutral fuel consumption, Biothermic’s complete indoor heating systems are exactly what environmentally aware consumers throughout Canada have been waiting for. And, as wood is inexpensive, the demand for the company’s products is growing at a significant rate.

When it comes to alternative heating sources, this company is literally leading the country’s heating industry out of the woods – with wood. According to Vince Rutter, co-founder of Biothermic, Canada’s leader in small-scale modern wood heating based in Thunder Bay and Haliburton, Ontario, wood as an energy source can – quite literally – change the future of heating. “As we need to reduce our carbon emissions into the atmosphere, we need to be looking at renewable energy sources. [Consumers] must acknowledge that climate change is a function of the amount of carbon that we emit when burning [single-use] fossil fuels,” he says.

Seeing the forest for the trees
While Rutter is an advocate of wood fuel, he is also an expert in tree care. In fact, this dynamic CEO is a professional forester, certified arborist and an honours undergraduate in Forestry Science from Lakehead University – which is why this cause is so close to his heart. “While carbon dioxide is emitted when you burn a tree, wood energy is carbon-neutral because you can regrow [the] tree and it will absorb carbon dioxide over its life,” Vince tells us.

As oil, gas, and coal are not renewable and do not have the capacity to clean the atmosphere at any point in their life cycles, wood – when managed correctly – is way up there with the cleanest of fuels nature can provide us with.

Barking up the right tree
With its laser focus on smart project planning and dedicated after-sales service, Biothermic takes the frustration out of installing and caring for top quality wood-burning heating systems for those who prefer long-term investments in good, solid technology that make sense both environmentally and financially. “Our clients are typically [early adopters and] pioneers in modern wood heating. We serve our clients with honesty, providing detailed whole-system planning and after-sales support,” says Vince. Any possible challenges are identified and dealt with quickly and efficiently.

Commercial clients are increasingly more interested in modern wood heating and therefore, it isn’t just homeowners who benefit from the company’s services. Biothermic’s portfolio is quite broad, with the team installing everything from district energy systems for entire towns to single boilers for home use. With Fröling biomass boilers from Austria as one of its central products, the company also provides its customers with thermal storage tanks, plumbing equipment, heat distribution equipment, chimneys, wood chippers and complete heating systems, as well as wood pellets and chips for larger clients.

Knocking on wood
With the Biothermic team in charge, there is no need to go out on a limb to get a heating system installed. The process is simple; commercial clients typically approach the company to discuss their heating needs for schools, warehouses or other large spaces. A detailed overview is done of the project’s scope in terms of budget, finance, heat load, fuel sources, installation site, size, and more. Once the plan is developed, a feasibility study is launched, covering engineering demands and other important details.

Once the groundwork is laid out, building commences and wood supply is carefully matched up with the boiler capacity. And, when Biothermic is not managing projects for its own clients, it supplies heating systems and other products to external project managers. Due to the nature of the product, the Biothermic team is well-seasoned in working with lengthy timeframes, as heating systems are typically large purchases that are planned and budgeted for well in advance.

New technology
In contrast to low-tech wood boilers, Biotech heating systems are far superior, offering clean, efficient and fully automated heating, giving modern wood heating all the sophistication that older systems lack. Because everyone’s heating needs differ, the company meets a significantly large range of heating demands that fall into three categories: fire heating systems fuelled by logs; another fuelled by wood pellets; and lastly, wood chip heating systems.

All of these award-winning systems are highly efficient while being easy to use, self-cleaning, and often self-fuelling. They are particularly popular for being incredibly quiet.

Experts in the woods
In search of a fresh challenge, Vince and his brother, Mike, founded the company in 2014. Mike Rutter brings his vast knowledge of hydronic heating and natural resource management with the Ontario government to the team. He is also a certified Hydronic Designer and is an honours graduate, holding a Master of Science in Geophysics from the University of Western Ontario. With their sound practical and scientific backgrounds, the two brothers hit the ground running early on.

Since the company’s inception, the team has converted large numbers of Canadians into adopting modern wood burning systems as a means to help clean up the way in which the country heats small and large spaces alike, becoming national experts on the topic in the process. Breaking into the market early on provided Biothermic with a massive head start that has resulted in multiple invitations to represent the industry on panels, groups, and events where they advise policymakers, mayors and cabinet ministers on the future of heating and the contribution that modern wood heating can make in the process.

At present, Vince and Mike act as industry representatives on a solid fuels working group that forms part of Canada’s Clean Fuel Standards Initiative, and on the Canadian Standards Association’s (CSA) Solid Biofuels Committee. They have addressed audiences at wood energy forums as well as classes at the Universities of Toronto and Lakehead, and have collaborated on intergovernmental workgroups. Their argument is solid. “If you consider that it is clear that we need to take action on climate change, [along with] the price of oil and gas continuing to rise, it only makes sense that wood is going to become [an increasingly large] part of our energy mix,” says Vince.

The future of heating is in modern wood burning
With the importance of modern wood burning systems growing alongside the urgency of establishing carbon-neutral heating sources, Biothermic makes getting these systems installed easier than ever before. With this committed team on standby, easy, modern and clean heating is but a phone call away.

Of course, with better awareness comes better understanding. Therefore, it is heartwarming to know that there is a company out there that is ushering in an unexpected and brave new means of harnessing an ancient heating method – one that helped our ancestors survive eons of bitter cold Canadian winters in a way that is not only kind to the earth but also quintessentially modern, simple and a fantastic long-term investment.

We all know that knowledge is power. At Biothermic, however, that power lies in the solid biofuel provided by home-grown, Canadian wood. That’s because its leaders see no logic in burning money – or fossil fuels – when wood combusted in one of its top quality, modern boilers is a cleaner, smarter and more sustainable way to stay warm in winter.

The post Heating for the Long Haul<p class="company">Biothermic</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

The company’s journey began in the late 1970s producing stationary two-shaft shredders for a wide range of manufacturing plant-based applications. By the middle of the next decade, Shred-Tech had developed one of the world’s first mobile shredding trucks, designed to shred confidential office paper and documents on-site.

Fast forward 40 years – Shred-Tech now has well over 6,000 shredding and recycling systems installed worldwide, and are recognized globally for their first-class products as well as commitment to engineering, innovation and quality. With shredders in daily use around the world, servicing over 31 countries, Shred-Tech equipment is helping customers reduce costs, generate revenue and protect the environment.

Shred-Tech has been “Thinking Green since Day One.”

In 2019, Shred-Tech® was acquired by The Heico Group of Companies LLC. Heico’s array of global resources will help Shred-Tech continue to grow and expand their offering of exceptional products and services to customers worldwide.

Shredding and HAAS TYRON
Shred-Tech® is the exclusive distributor of HAAS TYRON shredders throughout North America. But before considering these formidable machines, let’s briefly look at the way shredding works.

While many businesses and even homes have mini- to medium-sized shredding machines, it takes industrial-sized shredders to handle the genuinely big jobs. The HAAS TYRON shredder processes wood pallets, tires, paper rolls, plastics, roots, green waste, railway sleepers, residential and commercial demolition materials, municipal solid waste, industrial waste, food waste, mattresses, plastics, synthetics materials, aluminum extrusions, white goods, e-scrap and more. The shredders can also be used to produce refuse-derived fuel (RDF) and to reduce volumes at landfills and transfer stations.

HAAS TYRON exclusive
Since 2016, those who need shredding processes of this power have had access to the potent range of German-developed and manufactured HAAS TYRON primary transportable shredders exclusively through Shred-Tech®.

HAAS TYRON shredders’ speed-adjustable shafts rip through even the most complex materials, such as mattresses and e-scrap. The machines tear material into random pieces, liberating them, and the ferrous material is removed with the cross-belt magnet. The shredder shafts can rotate forward and backward and can operate in unison, bidirectional and at different speeds at the same time. These are infinitely programmable for changing material streams.

Available in three models, the 1500, 2000 and 2500, they range from 25 tons per hour to 100 tons per hour, depending on the application and material. Operating options include stationary, trailer or track mounting, hopper extensions, cross-belt magnets and water spray dust control. The machines are designed for extreme environments, ease of maintenance and low wear and tear.

The hydraulic systems ensure that the machines can withstand running 24/7 in extreme weather conditions.

Problem solvers
To complement the HAAS TYRON Primary Shredder, Shred-Tech® also offers a line-up of top quality single-rotor shredders and granulators manufactured in Italy by Camec Mechanical Solutions. Much like the partnership with HAAS, Shred-Tech is also the exclusive North American Distributor for the single rotor Camec lines and granulators.

Rob Glass, President and CEO of Shred-Tech® explains, “Our thorough understanding of all aspects of engineering and manufacturing, fueled by a proud and energetic corporate culture, puts Shred-Tech® at the forefront of the industry.”

All Shred-Tech shredding systems can be configured with application-specific knife design, cutting chamber size, horsepower, feed and discharge rates to suit the customer’s requirements.

With the unique flexibility that this offers, it is not surprising that “customers oftentimes approach Shred-Tech® with a problem that many competitors haven’t been able to solve,” as Cristina Battick, Senior Creative Marketing Manager, puts it.

In-depth service
With Shred-Tech’s broadly skilled in-house en¬gineering team, they are able to work closely with the sales department and the customer to find a viable solution. Coupled with a vigorous quality control process, in-house assembly and manufacturing, Shred-Tech builds and manufactures the world’s best shredding and recycling systems.

Shred-Tech® honours and fulfills all warranties on every unit. In addition, they offer full servicing replacement parts, as well as a dedicated, all-hours emergency service hotline. Skilled service staff offering full technical assistance can be onsite as quickly as the next working day depending on location.

Shred-Tech’s product lines and services include mobile document shredding trucks, collection trucks, plant-based document shredding systems, custom-designed shredding and recycling systems, original equipment manufacturer parts (OEM) and preventative maintenance contracts.

Breaking through
Founded in 1978, Shred-Tech® set out making stationary two-shaft shredders for waste products in various types of manufacturing plants. Then, in the mid-1980s came the breakthrough, when the company presented the world with the first-ever mobile shredding trucks. These trucks are designed to provide on-site secure document destruction.

Shred-Tech®’s contribution to a healthier planet is their machines’ reduced fuel consumption. They proudly announced that all of their 2018 model shredding and collection trucks run on ULSD (Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel) and B5 BioDiesel and meet the EPA’s toughest emissions standards.

“Predictive Idle/Auto Shutdown” is a program available on all models that senses low shredder loads to shut off the high engine idle when the shredder is unattended and the hopper is empty; moments later the PTOs are turned off along with the engine. This means never wasting fuel and engine hours. The new remote panel start button allows you to restart the truck from the side control panel when you return with more paper to shred.

Thinking green
The company estimates that thanks to the volume of paper recycled by Shred-Tech®-fabricated trucks, over 22 million trees are saved annually. To share this understanding of how much can be done for the environment, Shred-Tech® hosts their annual Shred-Day. Local households are invited to drop off their confidential documents and watch them shred, with the proviso that they in turn make donations to United Way, the international non-profit organization that provides support to communities in need of education, sanitation, food assistance, and more.

The post Taking Control of Waste, A Thousand Shredders at a Time<p class="company">Shred-Tech® Corporation</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

The Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma recently said that, while its main mandate is industry advocacy and lobbying, it is also committed to ensuring that income earned from the state’s natural resources also benefits local communities.

With 72 of its 74 counties rich in oil and natural gas deposits, Oklahoman communities reap real benefits from fossil fuel taxes. This makes the industry as valuable to the state as it is to the country as a whole.

As most of these resources are concentrated in the north-western and northern parts of central Oklahoma, drilling happens mainly in the sedimentary shales of the Anadarko Basin, while smaller production takes place throughout the rest of the state.

For the people
“We have a very good regulatory and tax structure, which is attractive to investors. The geology is good and the infrastructure is even better, allowing us to be competitive with other states,” says Chad Warmington, President of the Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma.

But Oklahomans don’t only benefit from taxes imposed on the industry. They also benefit from the jobs it creates and the growth of secondary services demanded by a growing population. Therefore, the better Oklahoma’s oil and natural gas fields perform, the more cash finds its way to local tradespeople, businesses, and educational institutions.

“We know that the industry can be disruptive, [so] we invest a lot in those communities,” says Warmington. To mitigate its effect on community lives, the Alliance’s contributions to local communities, and especially to the youth, are considerable.

As one example, the Alliance supports the Oklahoma Youth Expo – the world’s largest junior livestock show, county fairs, volunteer fire departments, and other local activities. It also collaborates with the Oklahoma Energy Resources Board (OERB), which is voluntarily funded by the state’s oil and natural gas producers and royalty owners. The OERB’s mission is to clean up orphaned or abandoned well sites and educate students and the public-at-large about the industry.

The industry’s taxes have also ensured pay raises for teachers and helped build thousands of new classrooms. “Since we started that program in 1996, around 16,000 teachers have been trained in our S.T.E.M. curriculum. Our members have spent probably $50 million on developing curricula that we have given out for free over the last 20 years,” he adds.

True representation
As the newly-established, united voice of the state’s oil and natural gas industry, the Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma represents all interests involved in this industry’s production, irrespective of their size or structure. Its members include exploration and production companies, pipeline companies, refineries, service companies, marketers, and more.

“We truly represent the breadth and depth of the oil and natural gas industry. It’s not just about poking holes in the ground,” says Warmington.

Due to the complexity of extracting, and creating and delivering the end products derived from petroleum and natural gas, the Alliance’s work is given particular value as a unifier of all the industry’s contributors. Its new-found size and many academic members now provide the organization with the necessary clout to approach policymakers on all levels, making it possible to bring increased capital investment to Oklahoma, enhancing the state’s prosperity.

“Oklahoma and our citizens are really the heroes of our story. If we do our job well, they prosper,” says Warmington.

Beyond its membership, the Alliance’s partnerships extend to both landowners and mineral owners, as they are not always the same entity. These relationships are paramount to the success of the state’s oil and natural gas operations.

As exploration and extraction can be a notoriously intrusive process, the industry is continuously looking at ways of improving its practices and lessening its footprint on surface owners’ properties. By improving efficiency and constantly looking for better ways to conduct its operations, the whole process is made more tolerable to individuals or communities affected by its work.

A question of volume
Over the past few decades, Oklahoma has produced record volumes of oil and natural gas. But these volumes are declining, as a steady drop in capital investment has seen its operational rig count go from 141 at the end of 2019 to just 51 in December of 2019. This was due to a combination of factors, including a drop in oil and natural gas prices and escalating tax burdens.

While the lag in cash flow will no doubt slow production, the industry is hoping to avert any dramatic drops in extraction volumes.

With this downturn in rig numbers, concern about the possible drop in the state’s gross domestic product and its effect on the economy have become hot topics. “The Oklahoma oil and gas industry provides the energy that drives Oklahoma and America forward and I think we need to be unapologetic about the good that we do for our state and our nation,” says Warmington.

He also explains that, despite the negativity surrounding the industry, it has proven its value through collaboration with its local communities. “Around 25 percent of all state revenue, 1 in 6 jobs, and $2 billion in education in the last 10 years all came from our gross production taxes alone,” he says.

Mighty merger
Established in December 2018, the organization announced its new name in the third quarter of 2019. The Alliance was the result of an historic merger between the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association and the Oklahoma Oil and Gas Association, two large, industry representatives who had, until then, represented two very different industry groups.

After many years of operating separately, the time had come to combine forces and serve the industry as one. With its combined 164 years’ experience in industry advocacy, the recently founded team is unstoppable. Since its inception, the Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma has worked ceaselessly to provide a fair and efficient service on behalf of the industry, the state, and the people of Oklahoma.

One of the most game-changing results of this merger has been the enlarged pool of experts available now to collaborate on issues big and small, assisting policymakers in clarifying the realities and intricacies of the oil and natural gas industry.

“We have had some really good regulatory and legislative outcomes because of the merger. We’ve been able to help the state with some challenges because we are able to come together under one banner,” says Warmington. This is an achievement that will stand the industry in good stead in years to come.

The merger’s once independently-operated alliances share a history as rich as the region’s oil fields. Both were originally established to meet pressing needs in the industry at the time. First, Oklahoma’s earliest local industry leaders gathered in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1917 to discuss the future of oil in the state. This resulted in the Oklahoma-Kansas Division, later renamed the Oklahoma Oil and Gas Association. It was founded in 1919 alongside the Texas Oil and Gas Association, which remains a sister organization.

One of the Oklahoma Oil and Gas Association’s greatest challenges was supporting the war efforts during World War II by producing a huge flow of fuel to allied forces, which indeed played a major part in driving the ultimate allied victory.

But because the organization chiefly represented large companies, the region’s prospectors – or wildcatters as they’re known – were prompted to establish their own association. The prospectors set up the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association in 1955 as a way to look after their own unique needs.

Ecology of extraction
Due to the pressures posed by environmental realities, a lot has changed in the industry’s extraction methods since those early days. The Alliance reports that Oklahoma’s oil and natural gas industry is committed to the reduction of air emissions. Lowering these emissions as much as it can while boosting oil production as high as it can is its ultimate goal.

This goal is being achieved to an ever greater degree by increasingly sophisticated technology, the results of which have been recognized by the Potential Gas Committee (PGC).

Recently, the committee described the country’s extraction of recoverable natural gas, abundant in Oklahoma, to have grown by 20% compared to 2016. According to the government’s annual greenhouse emissions report for 2019, methane emissions from petroleum production appears to have consistently dropped, sitting at 1,506 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MTCO2 Eq.) in 2017, in contrast to 1,682 metric tons in 2014.

Tackling challenges head-on
As is the nature of oil and natural gas production, the challenges are plenty. But more often than not, these hurdles are overcome in innovative ways that often leave the industry as a whole better off for having encountered issues.

A case in point would be the increase in seismic activity around Oklahoma, especially between 2014 and 2016. These unfortunate events are referred to as earthquake swarms and were linked in part to the disposal of wastewater, a byproduct of the crude oil extraction process.

Alongside stakeholders, state regulators, academics and other experts, a unified industry stepped up and tackled the problem. Teamwork and research resulted in what the Oklahoma Geological Society has reported as an 80 percent reduction of seismic issues.

“We are proud of the fact that for the past three to four years we’ve been working with the state to reduce seismic activity,” he says. These collaborative efforts have been mostly successful and are expected to become even more so in the future.

Bettering the industry
Considering the Alliance’s valuable work and current challenges, it is not surprising that interest in joining the Alliance is on the rise.

“[Our members] are getting more value for money than ever before,” says Warmington. Members also get the opportunity to network at quality events where industry leaders gather to discuss important matters. In addition, becoming part of real solutions based on actual data means that members are more involved in improving the industry now than ever before.

Accustomed to the cyclical nature of the industry, the Alliance is confident that its inherent resourcefulness and resilience will once again pull Oklahoma’s oil and natural gas industry through pressing times ahead.

One thing is certain, the Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma will be there – as it has been for so long – to support the industry, to help it be strong and adaptable, and to help it continue to thrive.

“We’ll get leaner, we’ll get smarter and we’ll be okay,” Warmington assures us.

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