Case Studies January 2017

The brute strength and space efficiency of Dome Technology’s domes make them ideal for storing bulk products like grain and wood pellets.  In fact, the domes are so strong they can weather hurricane-force winds and tornadoes, which is why the company now builds shelters for school kids and their communities. The key to doing this, […]

When Drew Maran started his custom home construction business in 1985, green was a color painted on the inside of his client’s wall, not a building standard. That didn’t stop his company, Drew Maran Construction, from becoming an early adopter of sustainable building practices eventually referred to as ‘green’ and taking steps like using non-toxic […]

Just as restaurants like Starbucks and Subway list the calories in their menu items, Shane Pollin predicts the building industry might one day list Energy Star ratings. That disclosure, he hopes, would get people to look at buildings differently. While it may sound farfetched, this isn’t the first time one of Pollin’s ideas has sounded […]

One Sunday night Victor Fernandes was watching “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” with his family and said he would love to contribute to a show like that. A few weeks later, out of the blue, his business, Fernandes Masonry Inc. got a phone call. A general contractor working with the show—which surprises people by renovating their […]

Paul MacQuinn says he was stunned when, in 2004, his company received an order from the White House. President George W. Bush’s second inauguration ceremony was approaching. His wife, Laura, wanted to pave the ceremony with a type of pink stone that could only be found in Harold MacQuinn Inc.’s inventory. “My estimator came up […]

When Dennis Kane was young, he never understood why his father hated firing people. As the head of a successful trucking business with more than 1,000 employees, Kane assumed it was just another part of running a business. “But my dad would say, ‘No, you don’t understand. You’re not just firing the employee; you’re firing […]

A day at the beach is how Niklas Moeller would introduce the concept of sound masking. Even though it’s far from silent, it still feels quiet. Ambient sound from the wind and breaking waves mitigate the noise of loud beachgoers, traffic or machinery. Similarly, in built environments, sound masking technology uses a specific type of […]

When founder Leonard Nagel started Leonard’s Carpet Services in 1960, he set out to be a carpet installation supplier, nothing more. Within a decade, his company had not only become one of the largest carpet labor suppliers in southern California, it was also providing other services. That’s been the trend going on six decades: growth […]

More than revenue, more than growth, Milestone Contractors measures its success by worker safety. “Everyone goes home the way they came in,” says Scott Cornelius, vice president and Indianapolis area manager at Milestone. This is important for the Indiana-based company because it specializes in highway and road paving, where speeding trucks, heat stroke, blizzards and […]

When contractors finish a construction project they get what’s called a punch list. It includes everything that isn’t up to code or the original specifications, and it can be a huge drain of money and time. Not for Northwest Partitions. “We pride ourselves on doing it right the first time so it’s not uncommon for […]