Mount Construction Company Inc.

Mount Construction Company Inc. (MCC) is one of New Jersey’s top heavy civil contractors. Dave Smith, owner and founder of MCC, is proud of his company’s accomplishments, but admits it has been a long road. The company celebrated its 20-year anniversary in 2011, and its position in the industry is a testament to Smith’s hard work and drive to develop and diversify MCC.

In 1991, Smith was only 23 years old, working in the concrete industry and living in a hotel in Dover, Del. With only a wheelbarrow and pickup truck to his name, Smith founded MCC from scratch. MCC is now based in Berlin, N.J., and employs between 100 to 240 people, depending on the season.

Smith has diversified MCC several times over the years, and the company now offers its clients excavation, site work, paving, milling, concrete, recycling, environmental remediation and underground utility construction. The company also maintains an emergency services division that instantly responds to situations as diverse as a small water main break or a 150,000-gallon-per-day sewer interceptor collapse. Notably, MCC’s emergency crew was one of the companies that responded to the tragic Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and worked around the clock for several months to help rebuild the infrastructure in New York City.

Smith has also undergone quite a change from an inexperienced 23-year-old with a wheelbarrow. Smith served as president of the New Jersey branch of the Utility Contractor Transportation Association (UTCA), where he testified before Congressional committees about the need for more federal investment in infrastructure.

Population Increases Demand Infrastructure Development

“The lack of spending on infrastructure projects is quite worrying,” says Smith. “Our population continues to go up and we’re relying on projects that were built decades ago to provide increased services to those people.”

The company has notably weathered the economic slowdown well, mainly because Smith diversified MCC long before the residential housing market imploded. In 2007, Smith founded Mount Materials, a full-service recycling facility located on thirty acres in Fairless Hills, Pa. Both companies recycle concrete, asphalt and fill into crushed asphalt, concrete ballast and top soil for a wide variety of construction projects.

Smith also founded Harleysville Materials, a hot-mix asphalt plant and quarry that produces decorative red stone for architectural projects. The hot-mix plant provides asphalt for both Mount Construction’s projects and for those of its competitors.

Despite his company’s meteoric growth, Smith has remained focused on safety; he has maintained a safety education program that requires that all project managers, crew foremen and field superintendents to achieve an OSHA 30 certification. MCC also provides ongoing safety training in Trenching, Excavation, Fall Protection, Competent Persons Training, Confined Space Training, First Aid and CPR classes.

In recognition of MCC’s impressive safety measures, the New Jersey branch of the UTCA awarded the company its 2009 Safety Award for Heavy Highway contractors in the $10 million to $40 million category.

Complex Heavy Civil Projects Successfully Completed

The company’s crews have worked on a number of complex projects throughout the Tri-State area and Smith points to the company’s recent project at the intersection of Routes 49 and 55 as one of MCC’s best projects. The project called for the widening of the roadway with the addition of deceleration lanes on Route 55. The Route 49 work consisted of the removal and relocation of the underground utilities and the installation of a one-mile long subterranean retention system and surface drainage.

MCC successfully excavated over 42,000 cubic yards of rock and dirt, removed 9,000 square yards of pavement, plus built five major sign structures and a new weight-in-motion system as well.

Somehow, in addition to growing MCC and founding two additional companies, Smith found the time to also establish Mount Construction Charitable Foundation, a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization that was originally created to raise money for local families with sick children, but has grown and now donates to dozens of local and national charities. Since its inception, the Mount Construction Charitable Foundation has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, which it donates to families in need through local and national charities.

Dave Smith’s leadership is a textbook example of how a company should be run. He started with a wheelbarrow and 20 years later, MCC became one of the leaders in the heavy civil construction industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He installed a strong safety program, diversified his company’s services and even created a foundation to give back to local families. Mount Construction Company Inc. has earned its reputation as one of the best-run companies in New Jersey.