Case Studies

Baldwin, Louisiana, a tiny town in the southern part of the state, is small in both size and population. It measures just 3.2 square miles and is home to just over 2,000 residents. But key industries, including carbon black processing—a little known but important chemical powder—and sugar mills, anchor businesses like SAS Construction Inc., a […]

When Dominic Piestrak began gathering builders for a high-end luxury community development in Clarence, New York, a small suburb outside Buffalo, his efforts raised a few eyebrows. It was the late ‘80s, “and everyone told me you’ll never sell them,” the real estate developer recalls. “At that time, Buffalo was a blue-collar town, centered around […]

If a big-box store in San Diego loses its air conditioning, the solution may be just a phone call away to a massive command center staffed around the clock in Ohio. Perhaps the issue can be resolved remotely, and, if not, a crew will soon be arriving either from Sodexo|Roth or from a trusted vendor […]

In the medical world, high blood pressure is a “silent killer,” often caused by clogged arteries. The world of foodservice equipment, water heaters, steam boilers, cooling towers and other equipment that uses water, has its own silent killer: scale buildup and corrosion. Much like plaque can clog arteries, scale and corrosion buildup clogs plumbing systems […]

When John W. “Jack” Somerville sold his architecture and engineering firm, Somerville Inc., he wanted to preserve the reputation his family had built over 50 years. He wanted to avoid selling to a large firm that might gut Somerville Inc. of its legacy or its longtime employees. Converting the firm to an ESOP, or employee […]

Bill Swarbrick Jr. used to light the lamp as a productive forward on Northern Arizona University’s Division 1 hockey team, scoring 42 goals over three seasons during the 1980s. Since then, he’s done even more lamp lighting at Superior Lighting Inc., which has offices in Omaha, Nebraska, and Des Moines, Iowa. Co-founded in 1968 by […]

Originally the nation’s first public high school for African-Americans, Dunbar High School in Washington, D.C., had fallen into such disrepair that in 2011, the district opted not to renovate but to raze and rebuild. “A dark, dingy and nearly windowless high-rise,” the Washington Post deemed it. Its principal likened it to a prison. Its replacement […]

As a general contractor in the Phoenix area, Steve Anderson tired of the bidding game around 20 years ago and identified an underserved niche that he would fill; that is, the building and remodeling of dental offices. “I saw how necessary it was to help dentists get their clinics off the ground,” he says. “There […]

A few years after SRM Development finished Google’s three building office complex in Kirkland, Washington, in 2007, the developer began thinking of ways to expand the project. In 2010, “we started looking at the vacant land across the way from the original three buildings, and started to formulate some thoughts about ways we could expand […]

In 1963 Josh Wiener’s parents—both dance instructors—bought a fixer-upper, Manhattan townhouse in what was then a bad neighborhood: 91st Street between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues. Wiener grew up helping his dad repair that townhouse. At 6 years old, he was sorting nails. At 11, he was mixing plaster and rebuilding walls. Now, 53 years later, […]