Elizabeth Regan
East Lyme ― The flashing lights of multi-agency contingents
of crash trucks and police cruisers brought traffic to a gradual stop Thursday
morning on both sides of Interstate 95 while East Lyme police Lt. Mike Macek
brought up the rear on the southbound side.
His Motorola radio, on loan from project contractor Manafort
Brothers crackled inside his cruiser. It was go-time for one more daily
detonation intended to blast away 300 feet of ledge along the right lane on the
northbound side of the highway.
Originally estimated as a six- to eight-week project, the blasting effort represents
one of the first critical phases of the four-year, $148 million reconstruction of the highway.
Resident Engineer Robert Obey of Glastonbury-based GM2 said crews could be
looking at an extra month of blasting because an especially challenging section
of ledge has resulted in longer closures and fewer detonations than project
officials anticipated.
Each blasting period requires the complete closure of the
highway between exits 74 and 75. The goal is to get it open again within 20
minutes, though project data shows there were more closures lasting over 20
minutes than under.
A voice came through Macek’s radio again after two Manafort
pickup trucks swept the area for stragglers or disabled vehicles and took their
place on either end of the cleared highway.
“Manafort is in position,” the voice said. “Maine Drilling,
the highway is yours.”
Foreshadowed by a “fire in the hole” call from the blasting
operator, charges loaded into machine-drilled holes 30 to 40 feet deep exploded
beneath massive blast mats designed to contain the debris.
About 10 mats, each one made of 12,000 pounds of recycled
tires and stacked to overlap, lurched in a cloud of dust upon detonation. The
mats dulled the sound so that it wasn’t audible 1,000 feet from the blast.
Obey said daily efforts to monitor vibrations and movement
at the nearby Smilow Cancer Hospital Care Center in Waterford, where
sophisticated but delicate instrumentation can be sensitive to blasts, has
shown no disturbance down the road.
It turned out to be what Obey would classify as a “good
blast.” That’s the kind of explosion that doesn't end up with blast mats on the
highway and concrete barriers pushed into the road.
Traffic was moving again on the southbound side in the time
it took the foreman to check the expanse for debris before exiting the highway
and reentering on the northbound side to help with cleanup closer to the blast
site.
Nine minutes after the 11:05 a.m. detonation, the northbound
lane was open too. The quickest turnaround to date, it was a stark contrast to
detonations on Monday and Thursday of last week that resulted in the longest
closures since blasting began on Aug. 1. In both cases, stopped traffic was
detoured off the highway along Routes 161 and 1 before the lanes opened up
again 46 minutes later.
State Department of Transportation project engineer Andrew
Millovitsch said last Thursday’s delays were exacerbated when the reopened
highway had to be closed again after inspection of the blast site revealed rock
remnants on top that could potentially cause problems if dislodged.
“So we went ahead and made the judgment call that we’d need
to do the second closure to go ahead and surgically remove some of the bigger
rocks off the top so they didn’t decide to tumble down against the barrier at
midnight when we’re all home in bed,” Millovitsch said.
Obey, a former district engineer for the DOT, emphasized the
balancing act that comes from trying to keep the highway open while ensuring public
safety.
“We have to sleep at night,” he said. “So we have to make
sure that if there’s even a chance that something could fall and go into the
highway, that it doesn’t happen.”
An original plan to conduct two separate blasts per day –
both within the 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. time frame – has been on hold while Obey
waits for closures to consistently come in below the 20-minute maximum. Up
until Wednesday, he hadn’t seen times within the acceptable window since Aug.
9.
“At two blasts a day, this was estimated to take two
months,” he said. “And we haven’t done a two-blast yet. So we’re adding a
month.”
After Thursday’s nine-minute closure, he was optimistic “a
two-blast day is in the future.”
Difficult terrain
Standing on the ledge about 30 feet over the highway and 15
feet from the edge of the road where peak traffic can bring 80,000 cars a day,
Obey said the blast site is one of the closest to the highway that he’s
encountered.
That makes it especially difficult and time-consuming to
keep debris off the adjacent northbound side of the highway, though the
southbound side has remained clear.
Millovitsch acknowledged summer construction comes with peak
traffic volumes and carloads of frustrated drivers.
“We have to maintain two lanes of traffic in both directions
at every minute possible,” he said. “We know the pain that it causes.”
Obey said the four-and-a-half-year project schedule makes it
that much more imperative not to allow any more holdups. That means sticking to
under 20 minutes for each closure so crews can move to two blasts per day.
“I can’t have the construction schedule be delayed,” he
said. “The public is expecting us to figure it out.”
For information and updates, and to sign up for text
alerts about upcoming blasts, visit the project website at i-95eastlyme.com.
Construction has highest overdose mortality rate of all jobs
Drug overdose mortality varies widely by occupation, and
construction is an especially deadly industry. Construction and extraction jobs
led all others in the first year of the pandemic with 162.6 drug overdose
deaths per 100,000 workers, according to a new report from
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The overall drug overdose rate increased most years
from 1999 to 2020, and in 2021 the U.S. drug overdose rate was 50% higher than
in 2019, the report found. Provisional data from 2022 shows drug overdoses dropped 2% from
the year before.
Construction and extraction occupations’ high overdose mortality rate not only led all industries in 2020, but the 162.6 deaths per 100,000 workers were significantly higher than the 117.9 in food preparation and serving-related occupations, which had the second highest rate.
Work-related characteristics, such as the prevalence of workplace injuries, precarious employment, health insurance status, stress, lack of access to paid sick leave and unique stressors during the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the “prevalence and management of substance use disorders,” the CDC said.
In the broader industry group, construction led all
categories with a rate of 130.9 deaths, followed by accommodation and food
services with 99.6.
On a more granular level, among construction and extraction
occupations, the jobs with the highest overdose rates were roofers (177.4)
drywall installers and tapers (175.1) and painters (162.1).
A combination of seasonal furloughs, demanding physical
labor — which can lead to strain or injury resulting in a chemical dependency —
and workplace culture that sometimes fails
to address mental health directly impacts the drug overdose and
suicide rate in construction.
“Every day, construction workers show up to a jobsite that
is ever-changing, presenting potential exposures to high-risk safety
situations,” Keith McCoy, senior vice president of safety at Balfour Beatty
U.S. told Construction Dive in a round table discussion on mental health.
“Having to deal with this very unique work environment internally, in addition
to workers’ own personal worries and stresses outside of the job, can have a
significant impact on their mental health and well-being.”
Designs take shape for two new Norwich elementary schools
Claire Bessette
Norwich ― Designs for the first two new elementary schools
approved by voters last fall are starting to take shape, with approval this
week of the educational components for the new John B. Stanton and Greeneville
elementary schools.
No architectural renderings have been created yet, project
officials told the Board of Education at a special meeting Wednesday. But while
many of the components will be the same or similar for the four new elementary
schools in the project, the exterior building designs, facades and materials
will be individual to match the surrounding neighborhoods.
“The objective is to design a building that fits in with the
neighborhood,” said Gregory Smolley, senior project manager for DRA Inc., the
architectural firm for the first two schools. “You didn’t want to end up with
cookie-cutter schools across the city.”
The Board of Education on Wednesday approved preliminary
educational specifications for the first two schools to be built, the new Stanton and Greeneville elementary schools. The documents are
attached to the Aug. 23 electronic special meeting agenda packet, and will be
posted on the school’s main website once they are finalized.
The new Greeneville School, to be built on the grounds of a
demolished former school at 165 Golden St. and adjacent city-owned property.
The two schools have the same 79,978 square feet of building area with
projections of enrollment capacities of 597 students.
Along with classrooms, offices, libraries, gymnasium and
cafeteria spaces, each school will include office space for a school resource
police officer and space for a school-based health center in addition to school
nurses’ offices.
The school district this year is scrambling to house
preschool in the cramped elementary schools after closing the Bishop Early
Learning Center due to budget cuts. The new schools will have fully equipped
preschool classrooms, with bathrooms and amenities. The new Stanton and
Greeneville schools will have five preschool classrooms each, along with four
kindergarten rooms and 20 classrooms for grades one through five.
Additional classrooms are planned for special education,
music, reading and math intervention and for English language learners.
Smolley and Mike Faenza, hired by the school building
committee as the owner’s representative/project manager, said all the city
school projects will be designed with energy efficiencies at least 20% to 40%
higher than minimum building code standards, as required for state grant
reimbursements. In addition to mechanical efficiency components, designers will
consider windows and building orientation on each property.
Stanton School will be built on the 386 New London Turnpike
grounds of the existing school, which will be torn down once the new school is
completed. Because Greeneville School will be built on vacant land,
construction is expected to be slightly quicker. Greeneville is expected to be
completed in July 2026 and Stanton in August 2026, with both schools are
expected to open for the 2026-27 school year.
Each project faces a rigorous state approval process and
then will require city planning and zoning permits. The education
specifications approved Wednesday will be submitted to the state this week,
well in advance of the Oct. 1 deadline, Faenza told the Board of Education.
There will be three design phases before construction documents are prepared
next summer and submitted for state approval in fall of 2024. Local permit
applications will follow in November and December 2024, and project officials
then will seek state approval to put the projects out to bid.
School Building Committee Chairman Mark Bettencourt said
design work for the next two elementary schools, the John Moriarty and Uncas
schools, and the complete renovation of Teachers Memorial Global Studies Magnet
Middle School, are scheduled to begin next year, allowing for some overlapping
schedules.
Voters last fall overwhelmingly approved a $385 million
school construction bond to build the four new elementary schools and a
complete renovation of the Global Studies middle school. The state legislature
in the spring session boosted Norwich’s state reimbursement for approved
expenses to 80% for the first two school projects. Bettencourt said the
building committee hopes for similar reimbursement rates for the future
schools.
Annual Penalty OK’d For English Station Mess
NORA GRACE-FLOOD
United Illuminating will have to pay up for breaking
a promise to remediate a Fair Haven power plant after state utility
regulators formally accused the company of mismanaging English Station — and of
failing to prioritize New Haven residents over profit.
In a nearly 300-page decision filed on Friday rejecting
a proposed rate hike by the regional company, the Public Utilities
Regulatory Authority (PURA) further cracked down on United Illuminating for
stalling on its commitment to clean up the power plant at 511 Grand Ave. that
they formerly owned and operated for decades.
Read that final PURA decision, which deals with
English Station beginning on page 98, here.
“The authority finds that the company has not managed the
English station remediation with economy, efficiency or care for public
safety,” PURA’s decision reads. “The company has demonstrated
a willingness to prioritize the company’s and shareholders’ interest over
ratepayers and its obligations as a public service company.”
The authority has officially imposed a 20-basis point
reduction on the company’s return on equity for each year that United
Illuminating does not comply with a partial consent order they signed with
the state in 2017. In that partial consent order, the company agreed to put $30
million towards investigating and completing a remediation of the site
known as English Station — which is reportedly polluted with carcinogens,
polychlorinated biphenyls, heavy metals and other contaminants produced over
the years UI burned coal and oil on scene — over three years.
PURA wrote that the penalty, which UI estimated
would amount to a fine of around $1.63 million per year, is warranted
to “incentivize the company to fulfill its obligation to remediate
the site.”
Read in more detail about PURA’s critique of the
company here.
They argued that UI had committed to remediate the site not only with
the state, but as a condition of a business merger that the authority
itself signed off on between UI and the energy
company Iberdrola.
Six years later, PURA stated that UI has
spent just over half of a $30 million sum they’d promised to allot towards site
remediation within a three-year time frame. PURA pointed to
turnover of six different managers for the project under UI’s watch as
evidence of mismanagement and critiqued graffiti covering the station’s fences
and gates as proof of poor site security.
That mismanagement, PURA asserted, “has
deprived the state and its residents both economically and environmentally.”
The financial penalty, PURA determined, will
remain in effect until the company complies with the conditions of the
remediation as laid out in the partial consent order with the state and the
merger decision.
UI spoke
out against a draft decision issued by PURA in early August
which articulated the above claims. They denied accusations of
mismanagement and suggested that PURA was operating out of the scope
of their own powers by proposing a financial penalty. Asked for comment
about PURA’s final and formal decision to move forward with the
fine, UI Spokesperson Sarah Wall simply wrote: “We are
evaluating PURA’s decision.”
State Attorney General William Tong, meanwhile, released
a press release praising the state regulatory agency for seeking to hold
United Illuminating accountable for their actions, or lack thereof.
“United Illuminating has utterly refused to meet its
commitments to remediate English Station,” Tong wrote in
a statement. “United Illuminating can stop this annual penalty at
any time by getting serious about their clear obligations under the law. And if
a $2 million annual penalty isn’t enough to convince United Illuminating of
their legal obligations, I will continue to do everything in my power to
compel the company to clean-up English Station and honor their commitments to
the New Haven community and the state of Connecticut.”
New London community center site an opportunity for budding builders
John Penney
New London ― Besides the promise of new recreational
offerings, the community center construction project will offer a rare chance
to connect with young residents even before the facility’s doors open, city
officials said.
With up to two years of work ahead on the city’s largest
project, there’s plenty of time to use the Fort Trumbull-area building site as
a sort of real-time construction classroom, said Felix Reyes, director of New
London’s Office of Planning and Development.
“I’m a kid from New London who grew up loving construction
and I think how excited I’d have been to have that opportunity to go down to
that site and walk around,” he said on Thursday. “I put myself in the shoes of
those kids that love building design, those future electricians, plumbers and
architects.”
Reyes said he’s already started reaching out to school and
union officials to coordinate tours of the site as soon as the facility walls
begin going up.
“This is a once-in-a-generation building project and we can
let these kids, these thousands of bright minds, walk the site and see what’s
going on behind the walls,” he said. “And we want people and groups who’ll be
using the center to come down, too, and see the inside of that building ahead
of time.”
Council President Reona Dyess this month said the site
offers the chance to “open doors” to young residents interested in how a
large-scale municipal project comes together.
Excavating the past
On Monday, Reyes presented the first of what is expected to
be monthly summaries of the project’s progress to the City Council. In addition
to the paper updates, councilors, along with select officials, are invited to
take part in monthly tours of the site, visits Reyes said he’s open to
expanding to members of the public, including “neighborhood advocates.”
After months of delays due to the state environmental
permitting process, crews last month broke ground on the $40 million project
that aims to transform a patch of brownfield into a 58,000-square-foot,
recreational facility complete with competitive pool and basketball court
areas, batting cages, recreation department offices and programming space.
On Wednesday, mountains of excavated soil rose above utility
trenches. Workers wearing hard hats walked past idling construction vehicles
across the street from Fort Trumbull State Park.
Reyes, who described the site, the former home to the Navy
Underwater Sound Laboratory as currently looking as if a “bomb went off,” said
work is currently focused on examining and clearing soil, groundwater and old
foundations, the kind of preliminary work required before walls start rising.
“They actually found remnants of the old sound lab pool
right near where the new pool will be added,” he said.
According to a July report authored by the Downes Construction
Company, May 5, 2025, is pegged as the “substantial completion date” for the
project.
Reyes said he’ll know within a few weeks whether any “major
surprises” will be found that might require dipping into a $1 million
construction contingency account.
The project’s initial $30 million price tag, approved by the
council in 2021, jumped by approximately $10 million as more detailed cost
figures emerged, with the gap later filled with a combination of state and federal funding. The city was also awarded a $1.2
million grant through the state’s Brownfield Remediation program for
pre-construction site work.
“It’s nice to see progress — finally,” Councilor Akil Peck
said. “And I can’t wait to see it finished.”
Waterford residents criticize lack of information about data center
Daniel Drainville
Waterford ― Within the last two weeks, a group of residents met twice to share concerns over a proposed data center to be constructed on the Millstone Power Station property.
The 64 who attended the first meeting, and the 18 at the second, discussed their concerns about energy instability, environmental damage, noise and general lack of information during the initial planning phases of the project.
Additionally, a petition from Millstone owner Dominion to carve out space for the data center, is currently before the Connecticut Siting Council. Worried meeting attendees successfully petitioned the council to extend the deadline for public comment in order to allow more time for input.
“We were terrified of this petition,” meeting organizer Bryan Sayles said Wednesday.
That petition would give NE Edge, LLC, which is trying to develop its first data center, the opportunity to install the facility on the Millstone property.
“The entire site is an electric generating facility site, so we have jurisdiction over that area,” the council’s executive director, Melanie Bachman, said Wednesday.
If Dominion had not sought this ruling, the siting council would control the approval process for the proposed data center, instead of the town, Bachman added.
If the council approves Dominion’s request, state and local agencies, such as the local Planning and Zoning Commission and state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, will have the power to accept or reject the permits needed for the project.
She said she could not respond to concerns from residents, as they involved the data center, not the Millstone site.
A state law enacted in 2021 encouraged data centers to come to Connecticut by offering tax incentives to developers. As part of the program, the companies must sign agreements that outline how much money they’ll give to the towns they want to build in.
In February, the town began discussing an agreement with NE Edge. Per the agreement, NE Edge would pay the town $231 million over a 30-year period. The Board of Selectmen has approved the agreement, but is unknown if First Selectman Rob Brule has signed it.
Brule did not respond to multiple requests to discuss the status of the project over the past 10 days. NE Edge would not comment on the project this week.
Construction would include a pair of two-story data buildings, that would provide approximately 1.5 million square feet of storage for cloud and data servers. The centers would be supplied with energy directly from Millstone.
NE Edge would construct a third building, a switchyard, that would receive power from Millstone and distribute it to the data center.
Those who attended the meetings raised questions of whether the center would take valuable energy away from the electric grid and where that loss in clean energy would be made up, Sayles said.
“When you look at the scale for this project and the bill, you’re looking at an enormous amount of energy use that should be used to decarbonize our state and our region,“ Sayles said. ”If you look just at what the energy demand is, this data center is projected to use up to 300 megawatts of energy.“
Back in February, Millstone Site Vice President Michael O’Connor said the data center would stand to use 200 to 300 megawatts of the 2,100 megawatts that Millstone produces.
For example, Sayles said the power used by the data center would negate the 304 megawatts of energy that Connecticut’s first offshore wind farm, Revolution Wind, will eventually provide to the state.
“When you start taking away clean energy, then you’ve got to backfill using energy that’s produced with fossil fuels,” Sayles said.
Meanwhile, the chief concern since the project’s onset has been over noise pollution.
“There’s little in the way of information about noise control,” Sayles said.
The agreement with the town calls for a noise analysis conducted by NE Edge, Brule said back in February. It is unknown if that study has yet been done.
Sayles said his initial motivation for organizing the meetings was that he and other members had expressed frustration about their inability to access information about the project.
“This is something that is so impactful for the whole town, he needs to do a better job of providing information to the whole town,” Sayles said about Brule. “Why didn’t we know about it?”
“We’re asking them for transparency at this point,” he added.
Former Waterford First Selectman and Chief Executive of the Eastern Connecticut Chamber of Commerce Tony Sheridan said he thinks NE Edge has been transparent so so far.
“Any company that wants to develop in this day and age, has to have public meetings and explain what’s going on,” Sheridan said. “So far, from my perspective, I think the company has responded appropriately.”
New gas pipeline rules floated following 2018 blasts in Massachusetts
STEVE LeBLANC
BOSTON (AP) — Federal regulators are proposing a series of
rules changes aimed at toughening safety requirements for millions of miles of
gas distribution pipelines nationwide following a string of gas explosions in
Massachusetts in 2018.
These proposed changes are designed to improve safety and
ease risk through the improvement of emergency response plans, integrity
management plans, operation manuals and other steps, according to the U.S.
Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety
Administration.
This proposal was prompted by the series of
blasts that ripped though parts of the Merrimack Valley region of
Massachusetts.
The explosions and fires in Lawrence, Andover and North
Andover in September 2018 left a teenager
dead, about two dozen injured and destroyed or damaged more than 130
properties. Thousands of residents and businesses were also left without
natural gas service for heat and hot water for months in some cases.
Leonel Rondon, of Lawrence, died after the chimney of an
exploding house crashed onto his car and crushed him. The 18-year-old Rondon
had received his driver’s license just hours earlier. Rondon's family
later reached
a settlement with the utility involved in the disaster.
The explosions were caused by overpressurized pipelines
operated by Columbia Gas of Massachusetts, according to a federal
investigation. The utility agreed
to pay the state $56 million in 2020 in addition to a $53 million
federal fine and a $143 million lawsuit settlement.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said millions of
miles of gas distribution pipelines deliver energy to tens of millions of
Americans, heating homes and powering businesses.
“As the tragic death of Leonel Rondon in 2018 reminded us,
more must be done to ensure the safety of those pipelines,” Buttigieg said in a
statement Thursday.
The proposal calls for improved construction procedures to
minimize the risk of overpressurized pipelines and updated management programs
to prepare for over-pressurization incidents.
The changes require new regulator stations to be designed
with secondary pressure relief valves and remote gas monitoring to prepare gas
distribution systems to avoid overpressurization and to limit damage during
those incidents.
Finally, the plan calls for strengthening response plans for
gas pipeline emergencies, including requirements for operators to contact local
emergency responders and keep customers and the affected public informed of
what to do in the event of an emergency.
The notice of the proposed rules changes will be published
in the federal register, kicking off a public comment period. The agency will
review the comments before issuing final rules.
In 2019, the National Transportation Safety Board, which
investigates major pipeline accidents, recommended tougher nationwide
requirements for natural gas systems, including mandating all natural gas
infrastructure projects to be reviewed and approved by a licensed professional
engineer.
Nineteen states had such a requirement at the time, but most
had specifically exempted the natural gas industry from such review
requirements.
The board had also recommended natural gas utilities be
required to install additional safeguards on low pressure systems.
Regulators say the new proposal builds on other national and
international actions pushed by Congress and the Biden administration to reduce
methane emissions — a greenhouse gas with more than 25 times the global warming
potential of carbon dioxide.
Earlier this year, the first $196 million from the nearly $1
billion Natural Gas Distribution Infrastructure Safety and Modernization grant
program were announced.
NJR Construction LLC Building Bridges Across Conn., Western Mass.
Nicholas Mancini Jr. grew up around his family's
construction business. In 2004, when they closed their doors, he picked from
their best people and started NJR Construction LLC, specializing in small
bridge building in the $1 million to $6 million range
Based in Torrington, Conn., with 20 to 30 employees,
depending on the workload, the company does the majority of its work in
Connecticut and western Massachusetts.
"We are generally a self-performing contractor," Mancini said. "We sub out very little work. We do our own excavating, concrete, carpentry, and utility work. By and large we try to handle all items of work ourselves. This way we can maintain control over our projects."
According to Mancini, typical projects are bridges with a
span of 120-ft. or less that are cast-in-place or precast or culvert bridges.
Currently, the company is finishing up a $2.5 million bridge
that is actually two bridges under one contract in Colebrook, Conn. One small
bridge is being rehabbed and the other bridge is completely new construction.
In describing the project Mancini said, "This bridge is
founded on ledge with cast-in-place spread footings and abutment walls, wing
walls, all cast-in-place and a steel I-beam bridge with a cast-in-place bridge
deck. The bridge is 110-feet long and 30-feet wide."
The project was started April 3, 2023, and is scheduled for
completion in November 2023; NJR Construction is currently running ahead of
schedule.
When Construction Equipment Guide visited the site, NJR was
pouring the abutment #2 spread footings with approximately 80 yds. of concrete
being put in place. As is the case in any bridge construction over moving water,
the project has had its challenges with water level fluctuations.
"We got flooded out and had to pump all day to get the
site back to the water level that it was at the day before," Mancini said.
"This river is a relatively small body of water, but the water level
fluctuates quite a bit. Fortunately, Able Tool & Equipment was able to
respond to us very quickly and get additional pumps to us that could handle the
additional influx of water that we were dealing with. Once we were able to get
the site under control again, we rescheduled our pour and we are on schedule to
complete the pour by the end of the day.
"During the course of this project, we have had two or three freak thunderstorms that have quickly dropped 2 or 3 inches of rain in a short period of time. Fortunately, our key rental partner, Able Tool & Equipment, has quickly dispatched plenty of pumping power to our site to get things back under control with 2 and 3-inch water pumps."
The major excavating equipment on the site is primarily
Komatsu, which NJR has purchased from C.N.
Wood. But, the majority of its smaller support equipment comes from Able
Tool & Equipment, including small and large generators, water pumps,
light towers, concrete equipment and demolition tools.
"Just about anything in that size category comes from
Able Tool & Equipment," said Mancini. "If it is standard pieces
that are commonly used on most of their projects they purchase, and specialty
equipment is rented. If you walk around any of our sites you will see a lot of
Able Tool & Equipment stickers on many of the machines. We really depend on
them; they are a primary supplier and that is because their service is
excellent. I am fortunate to deal directly with the owner, Derek Bauer. You
can't find a better standup, honest person."
Employees Key to Success
"I have some fantastic employees that have been with me
for a long time," Mancini said. "My project manager, Ryan Giguiere,
has been with me for 13 years. He does an excellent job setting up and managing
our projects, often managing multiple sites at one time. It's not unusual for
us to have four to eight projects going simultaneously.
"I've got a fantastic concrete crew," he added.
"My concrete foreman, William Sanchez, does an excellent job, as well.
When you surround yourself with good people, the end result is good
workmanship, and good people and good workmanship has given us a great reputation."
CEG