T Buck Construction Inc.: Resiliency In A Rugged Region

T Buck Construction Inc. (T Buck) is a commercial and industrial building contractor that offers such specialties as excavating, crane services and utilities/industrial facilities construction. The company is located in historic Auburn, Maine, and was founded in 1989.

Maine, despite being the largest of the New England states, is also one of the least populated. Maine has a population density of 43 people per square mile, as opposed to Massachusetts with a population density of 809 people. As a result, many of the people who live there are extremely resourceful and able to wear multiple hats. Terry Buck, president of T Buck, exemplifies the nature of many Maine residents. Buck is proud that his firm can easily handle any construction project that comes its way.

The company employs roughly 80 personnel and cleared roughly $25 million in revenue in 2010, making it a significant local employer. The company works on various projects throughout New England and Buck notes that the harsh New England winter’s effect on roads and bridges have had a direct effect on what constitutes a large number of his projects. “We can work on any project, but we have been seeing a large number of infrastructure projects,” says Buck. “I recently hired six guys who have a lot infrastructure experience and it’s been a great addition to the company.”

Bridging Sectors of Activity

T Buck is involved in a couple of projects that are currently impacting thousands of lives. Maine’s coast is a popular destination in the summer months, and large numbers of tourists drive through the state’s most populous city, Portland, to reach the coast. Noting this fact, the city decided to repair and replace five bridges along a stretch of highway just north of Portland. The safety procedures put in place by T Buck’s crew have ensured that the project has remained accident-free and should be completed on budget and on time.

Buck’s crew is also working on the replacement of a bridge about 25 miles south of Portland along another vital tourist route, Route 1. Officials in the town of Kennebunk – which is adjacent to the world-famous Kennebunkport – decided they could no longer ignore the structural deficiencies in the Mousam River Bridge due to its age. Buck’s crew has worked on the new bridge to finish the structure within 2011.

T Buck was also involved in the dismantling and subsequent re-construction of a historic bridge in Kenduskeag, Maine. Built in 1932, the steel-girder Kenduskeag Village Bridge was lifted about four feet in the air by two cranes and snipped apart with hydraulic shears. Robbin Lanpher, an engineer for the Maine Department of Transportation, said that the project was complicated by the fact that the original structure contained lead paint and the stream underneath the bridge is a salmon habitat. The crew was still able to recycle 100 percent of the old bridge. The steel of the truss was to be cut up and sent to a recycling yard. The concrete deck from the bridge was crushed on site with an excavator and used as select back-fill.

Unrelated to bridges, but still characteristic of the state, lumber is one of Maine’s largest exports and the state decided to expand the country’s easternmost port facility – which is located in the aptly named town of Eastport – to help Maine capture a larger share of the European biomass push. T Buck was selected for the $7 million project. The expanded facility has 12 additional acres of flat loading space, a new warehouse and a state-of-the-art conveyor system to unload and load ships.

“We had to blast out 1 million pounds of ledge in order to create the additional space,” says Buck. After the completion of the project, the new port set a record by handling more than 400,000 tons of cargo, its most productive year on record.

Stimulus Projects Benefit Company

Buck’s company has benefitted from the stimulus package passed by the Obama Administration in 2009. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provided an additional $19.5 million towards public health improvements in Maine’s public water systems. The town of Auburn successfully petitioned for an $8 million Ultra-Violet (UV) Light Treatment System at Lake Auburn, the drinking water source for over 40,000 local residents. T Buck’s team of professionals successfully added the chemical feed to the new facility, which improved the drinking water for the towns of Auburn and Lewiston and provided additional protection from disease-causing microorganisms and contaminants that can form during water treatment.

Buck and his crew personify the resourcefulness and resilience that is so typical of people from Northern New England. Whether building bridges, treatment facilities or port expansions, there’s not much that Terry Buck’s crew at T Buck Construction Inc. can’t successfully complete successfully.