October 11, 2004
End of the road | As the Maine Turnpike widening project winds down, Bob and Ken Grondin of R.J. Grondin & Sons discuss their company's contributions
By Michaela Cavallaro
Late this month, travelers on the Maine Turnpike will experience a long-awaited phenomenon: the completion of construction of a third lane in each direction on the 30-miles of highway between York and Scarborough. The five-year, $135 million project, dubbed "The Widening" by the Maine Turnpike Authority, has meant traffic tie-ups, the introduction of so-called "pace cars" and the near-constant threat of a speeding ticket for motorists zipping past the work zones' orange barrels and Jersey barriers.
For the construction companies that have done the actual widening, it's been a largely routine job, but one with an increased focus on safety. Gorham-based R.J. Grondin & Sons has worked on several pieces of the project. These days, the company is finishing up work on the widening's last piece, from the Kennebunk rest area to the Biddeford exit. And, says Ken Grondin, the firm's president and the grandson of its founder, "We can preach safety 24-7, but when [Grondin employees] go out there on the job, it's somebody else that's going to cause the problem, not our guys."
Grondin and his brother, Bob Grondin III, the company's vice president, discussed the intricacies of the widening, as well as other recent projects, in a recent conversation with Mainebiz. The following is an edited transcript of the discussion.
Mainebiz: Tell me a little about the Maine Turnpike project. You worked on another section prior to this one.
Bob Grondin: We've actually been there pretty much since the start of the widening, though we did not do every section. We started five years ago when we were a subcontractor for Reed & Reed on the bridge over the Mousam River in Kennebunk. The same supervisor [Howard Ricker] that we had doing that job ˆ it was pretty extensive earthwork ˆ has been on every project we've done on the widening ever since. So for the past five years, he's been right on the turnpike.
While that [bridge] project was going on we did a project that was not part of the widening, but it was a major project for the turnpike, the 7B interchange down here in Westbrook. That job had a lot of unique features about it [including mitigation of nine acres of wetlands and use of recycled tire chips as fill in the bridge approaches]; we submitted it for an award we received, the Build Maine award from [Associated Constructors of Maine].
We also did a piece in Saco, on the North Street bridge ˆ we did the bridgework, the demolition and the new bridge. There was also another bridge that we demolished that went through the old exit 5, where the Holiday Inn is. We built that section from there down to the Saco River.
The following year we did the Biddeford interchange, from the Saco River to the Route 111 bridge, and that brings us to this year. We picked up from the Biddeford interchange going down to the Kennebunk rest area.
The current job we're doing is $11.3 million. With the other four projects we did, there was another $25.7 million. So we've done $37 million worth of work for the turnpike in the last four or five years.
[On the widening,] the work itself is pretty straightforward ˆ it's stuff we do every day on other sites, the same techniques, the same way we achieve things. But it's the traffic in the work zone that we really have to pay attention to.
Ken Grondin: It's really a routine job ˆ there's a lot of the same things going on in the widening project [as there are in other projects Grondin works on] and in any routine job people can often get off track, thinking about what they have going on at home. It's similar to running a whole bunch of boards through a table saw. After a while, you get so good you forget where your fingers are and cut one off eventually. The people working [on the turnpike] ˆ and the people driving ˆ can daydream; really just one instant could make for a lifetime of living differently. The public, when going through work zones, really need to pay attention. They don't realize it's someone's father or son or daughter [is working there].
One of the new things on this project was the pace cars; they were first implemented on your sections of the turnpike. Was that the Turnpike Authority's idea?
Bob: Yes, it was their idea and we implemented it. I think it went pretty well. There are a lot of people there that are in a hurry; once the pace cars got off the exit, people were just ˆ see you later, gone.
Ken: What they don't realize, though, is that when the pace cars weren't there, there were more police cars and radar enforcing [the work zone speed limits]. So the pace car was not only saving lives, it was saving people from getting speeding tickets in a work zone, which are doubled.
What's it like bidding on publicly funded projects like the widening? Do you go about bidding on these differently than you would a Home Depot or a Wal-Mart?
Ken: The big key to success when bidding on highway projects is utilization of materials and being able to recognize how the project will be constructed ˆ knowing the phasing of different areas, and when you'll be able to re-utilize materials onsite. Having materials nearby ˆ like gravel ˆ really makes a big difference. Asphalt pricing is a big one. On a lot of projects, night work is becoming more and more prevalent. But there's an additional cost associated with night work; it's a necessary evil, particularly on highway projects and airport work.
The bidding on a large job like that is pretty straightforward, quantity-wise. The art to the bidding is knowing your costs, recognizing the ability to re-utilize materials in different areas and then the coordination of the project when you go from the bidding to the construction.
Bob: Using your men and equipment and other resources to their full potential.
Ken: After bidding, the next step for us is to have what we call a turnover meeting, and the turnover meetings are more important than the actual ongoing project [meetings], just to plan properly. They're critical, because the guy who thought [the bid] through ˆ George Conly, our chief estimator on 90% of our highway work ˆ hands the project off to a project manager, and he has to let all those people know about all his thoughts when he was pricing that work. Why you can use excavation on this side, and put the northbound [traffic] in a southbound lane, for example ˆ he has to give them all the insight he can. And he can also let them know about suppliers and subcontractors he planned to use.
Quite often at that meeting, the project manager and supervisor, who have the plans and specs, come up with other ideas that no one's thought of. So being open-minded and listening to other ideas is something that we do fairly well. We're not perfect, but we do try to value input from all our people. Then the project is handed off, and it becomes time to build it. The building part of it ˆ
Bob: That's the fun part.
Do you two get down to the sites very often?
Ken: Bob spends more time on the job sites than I do.
Bob: Kenny's president, and he does a lot of the internal stuff ˆ he watches over the estimators, the project managers. I'm in charge of operations ˆ the HR end of hiring the men, firing the men, scheduling the equipment, going over daily stuff with the project managers and superintendents. I get down there a few times a week.
Have there been any surprises along the way in the turnpike work?
Bob: Not really. When we start the job, we know it's pretty straightforward. There are different conditions when you bid the job that you know about ahead of time. The big thing down on the turnpike is some stream relocations and some pipes you can't extend until a certain time on account of the fish spawning in the brooks. That kind of limits what you can do in certain areas. It's not really a surprise, because you know that going in, but the time in which you can do that amount of work ˆ you have to plan all your other work around it.
Ken: We've been extremely lucky with the weather. This spring, we had three snow days [on which] we couldn't work in a month. That really helped improve efficiency by leaps and bounds. The weather was extremely dry this spring. We did have a month-and-a-half or so of rain in April and May, and that was when we were starting to place topsoil in a lot of areas. We lost a little bit of time there, but we more than made up for it.
What other projects do you have coming down the line after the turnpike finishes up?
Bob: We've got some irons in the fire on a couple different projects. At the moment we're doing six miles of total reconstruction of Route 302 on the Westbrook-Windham line. We're doing a big site job for Hannaford Brothers down on Riverside and Route 302 [in Portland].
Ken: When the highway work phases out from the turnpike, there's always going to be [Maine Department of Transportation] work. There's a little bit of shift in focus [at Grondin] now to big-box stores ˆ there's a lot of them coming around, it seems.
Bob: There's going to be a Kohl's and a Lowe's everywhere there's a Wal-Mart and a Home Depot.
Ken: We work on a lot of design-build teams from start to finish, and we've got some projects like that we're doing. We've got some sophisticated estimating software, and people that know how to use it, [so] we're valued as a member of design-build teams to work alongside engineers, owners and developers that start from the design of a project to the tail end of it.
In design-build, sometimes your ideas are put out to bid at a later date. That's not a good feeling, but it's a home run when you can work on a project from start to finish. That's a big shift in our work. We're having more work handed to us all the time, and getting out of the competitive bid projects.
Bob: I'd say half our work is negotiated.
Ken: That ties into being diverse as well; we've got people such as George Conly who bid these large highway projects, and we've got other people that can bid on site projects, as well. Paying close attention to how much work you can handle is something we're focusing on, and trying to man projects [accordingly] and not take on too much work, but [also] keep ahead of the cash flow. It's something we do fairly well, partially because of Bob's ability to schedule things.
That gives me the time to do the fun projects, like design-build projects and hail Marys ˆ nice jobs that might never pan out. But when you've got somebody else to look at the main schedule and take work as needed to keep up that cash flow, you can spend some time looking for the home runs and the important jobs that work well with other projects in the area.
Tell me how the company got started.
Bob: We were incorporated in 1959. My father started the company ˆ there used to be a dairy farm on the site of this operation. He talked my grandfather into [the fact that there was] more money in doing a little bit of dirt work, and eventually it went from a handful of employees back then to 180 employees today.
Ken: Our uncle Phil came to work after he got out of the Seabees in approximately 1966.
Bob: He and my father, Bob, became partners. Currently, we're a third-generation, family-owned business; five of the principals are family members.
Ken: It really took off from using the farm tractor to do small jobs in the area due to the long hours farming and my father and Phil's love of earthwork; they got some jobs larger and further away. In 1972, we bought the first Caterpillar backhoe in the state of Maine. It was a 225 excavator. [That year] they did the earthwork for Jordan Marsh, which is now Macy's, with that same machine. Then in 1976, they bought the first 235 excavator in the state, and that was kind of the start of the bigger projects.
Bob: We've gone from different small jobs around town to today we do site jobs for Wal-Mart, Home Depot and places like that. We do a lot of utilities, sewers, drainage, water lines ˆ infrastructure for commercial and industrial roadways, commercial and industrial sitework.
For the construction companies that have done the actual widening, it's been a largely routine job, but one with an increased focus on safety. Gorham-based R.J. Grondin & Sons has worked on several pieces of the project. These days, the company is finishing up work on the widening's last piece, from the Kennebunk rest area to the Biddeford exit. And, says Ken Grondin, the firm's president and the grandson of its founder, "We can preach safety 24-7, but when [Grondin employees] go out there on the job, it's somebody else that's going to cause the problem, not our guys."
Grondin and his brother, Bob Grondin III, the company's vice president, discussed the intricacies of the widening, as well as other recent projects, in a recent conversation with Mainebiz. The following is an edited transcript of the discussion.
Mainebiz: Tell me a little about the Maine Turnpike project. You worked on another section prior to this one.
Bob Grondin: We've actually been there pretty much since the start of the widening, though we did not do every section. We started five years ago when we were a subcontractor for Reed & Reed on the bridge over the Mousam River in Kennebunk. The same supervisor [Howard Ricker] that we had doing that job ˆ it was pretty extensive earthwork ˆ has been on every project we've done on the widening ever since. So for the past five years, he's been right on the turnpike.
While that [bridge] project was going on we did a project that was not part of the widening, but it was a major project for the turnpike, the 7B interchange down here in Westbrook. That job had a lot of unique features about it [including mitigation of nine acres of wetlands and use of recycled tire chips as fill in the bridge approaches]; we submitted it for an award we received, the Build Maine award from [Associated Constructors of Maine].
We also did a piece in Saco, on the North Street bridge ˆ we did the bridgework, the demolition and the new bridge. There was also another bridge that we demolished that went through the old exit 5, where the Holiday Inn is. We built that section from there down to the Saco River.
The following year we did the Biddeford interchange, from the Saco River to the Route 111 bridge, and that brings us to this year. We picked up from the Biddeford interchange going down to the Kennebunk rest area.
The current job we're doing is $11.3 million. With the other four projects we did, there was another $25.7 million. So we've done $37 million worth of work for the turnpike in the last four or five years.
[On the widening,] the work itself is pretty straightforward ˆ it's stuff we do every day on other sites, the same techniques, the same way we achieve things. But it's the traffic in the work zone that we really have to pay attention to.
Ken Grondin: It's really a routine job ˆ there's a lot of the same things going on in the widening project [as there are in other projects Grondin works on] and in any routine job people can often get off track, thinking about what they have going on at home. It's similar to running a whole bunch of boards through a table saw. After a while, you get so good you forget where your fingers are and cut one off eventually. The people working [on the turnpike] ˆ and the people driving ˆ can daydream; really just one instant could make for a lifetime of living differently. The public, when going through work zones, really need to pay attention. They don't realize it's someone's father or son or daughter [is working there].
One of the new things on this project was the pace cars; they were first implemented on your sections of the turnpike. Was that the Turnpike Authority's idea?
Bob: Yes, it was their idea and we implemented it. I think it went pretty well. There are a lot of people there that are in a hurry; once the pace cars got off the exit, people were just ˆ see you later, gone.
Ken: What they don't realize, though, is that when the pace cars weren't there, there were more police cars and radar enforcing [the work zone speed limits]. So the pace car was not only saving lives, it was saving people from getting speeding tickets in a work zone, which are doubled.
What's it like bidding on publicly funded projects like the widening? Do you go about bidding on these differently than you would a Home Depot or a Wal-Mart?
Ken: The big key to success when bidding on highway projects is utilization of materials and being able to recognize how the project will be constructed ˆ knowing the phasing of different areas, and when you'll be able to re-utilize materials onsite. Having materials nearby ˆ like gravel ˆ really makes a big difference. Asphalt pricing is a big one. On a lot of projects, night work is becoming more and more prevalent. But there's an additional cost associated with night work; it's a necessary evil, particularly on highway projects and airport work.
The bidding on a large job like that is pretty straightforward, quantity-wise. The art to the bidding is knowing your costs, recognizing the ability to re-utilize materials in different areas and then the coordination of the project when you go from the bidding to the construction.
Bob: Using your men and equipment and other resources to their full potential.
Ken: After bidding, the next step for us is to have what we call a turnover meeting, and the turnover meetings are more important than the actual ongoing project [meetings], just to plan properly. They're critical, because the guy who thought [the bid] through ˆ George Conly, our chief estimator on 90% of our highway work ˆ hands the project off to a project manager, and he has to let all those people know about all his thoughts when he was pricing that work. Why you can use excavation on this side, and put the northbound [traffic] in a southbound lane, for example ˆ he has to give them all the insight he can. And he can also let them know about suppliers and subcontractors he planned to use.
Quite often at that meeting, the project manager and supervisor, who have the plans and specs, come up with other ideas that no one's thought of. So being open-minded and listening to other ideas is something that we do fairly well. We're not perfect, but we do try to value input from all our people. Then the project is handed off, and it becomes time to build it. The building part of it ˆ
Bob: That's the fun part.
Do you two get down to the sites very often?
Ken: Bob spends more time on the job sites than I do.
Bob: Kenny's president, and he does a lot of the internal stuff ˆ he watches over the estimators, the project managers. I'm in charge of operations ˆ the HR end of hiring the men, firing the men, scheduling the equipment, going over daily stuff with the project managers and superintendents. I get down there a few times a week.
Have there been any surprises along the way in the turnpike work?
Bob: Not really. When we start the job, we know it's pretty straightforward. There are different conditions when you bid the job that you know about ahead of time. The big thing down on the turnpike is some stream relocations and some pipes you can't extend until a certain time on account of the fish spawning in the brooks. That kind of limits what you can do in certain areas. It's not really a surprise, because you know that going in, but the time in which you can do that amount of work ˆ you have to plan all your other work around it.
Ken: We've been extremely lucky with the weather. This spring, we had three snow days [on which] we couldn't work in a month. That really helped improve efficiency by leaps and bounds. The weather was extremely dry this spring. We did have a month-and-a-half or so of rain in April and May, and that was when we were starting to place topsoil in a lot of areas. We lost a little bit of time there, but we more than made up for it.
What other projects do you have coming down the line after the turnpike finishes up?
Bob: We've got some irons in the fire on a couple different projects. At the moment we're doing six miles of total reconstruction of Route 302 on the Westbrook-Windham line. We're doing a big site job for Hannaford Brothers down on Riverside and Route 302 [in Portland].
Ken: When the highway work phases out from the turnpike, there's always going to be [Maine Department of Transportation] work. There's a little bit of shift in focus [at Grondin] now to big-box stores ˆ there's a lot of them coming around, it seems.
Bob: There's going to be a Kohl's and a Lowe's everywhere there's a Wal-Mart and a Home Depot.
Ken: We work on a lot of design-build teams from start to finish, and we've got some projects like that we're doing. We've got some sophisticated estimating software, and people that know how to use it, [so] we're valued as a member of design-build teams to work alongside engineers, owners and developers that start from the design of a project to the tail end of it.
In design-build, sometimes your ideas are put out to bid at a later date. That's not a good feeling, but it's a home run when you can work on a project from start to finish. That's a big shift in our work. We're having more work handed to us all the time, and getting out of the competitive bid projects.
Bob: I'd say half our work is negotiated.
Ken: That ties into being diverse as well; we've got people such as George Conly who bid these large highway projects, and we've got other people that can bid on site projects, as well. Paying close attention to how much work you can handle is something we're focusing on, and trying to man projects [accordingly] and not take on too much work, but [also] keep ahead of the cash flow. It's something we do fairly well, partially because of Bob's ability to schedule things.
That gives me the time to do the fun projects, like design-build projects and hail Marys ˆ nice jobs that might never pan out. But when you've got somebody else to look at the main schedule and take work as needed to keep up that cash flow, you can spend some time looking for the home runs and the important jobs that work well with other projects in the area.
Tell me how the company got started.
Bob: We were incorporated in 1959. My father started the company ˆ there used to be a dairy farm on the site of this operation. He talked my grandfather into [the fact that there was] more money in doing a little bit of dirt work, and eventually it went from a handful of employees back then to 180 employees today.
Ken: Our uncle Phil came to work after he got out of the Seabees in approximately 1966.
Bob: He and my father, Bob, became partners. Currently, we're a third-generation, family-owned business; five of the principals are family members.
Ken: It really took off from using the farm tractor to do small jobs in the area due to the long hours farming and my father and Phil's love of earthwork; they got some jobs larger and further away. In 1972, we bought the first Caterpillar backhoe in the state of Maine. It was a 225 excavator. [That year] they did the earthwork for Jordan Marsh, which is now Macy's, with that same machine. Then in 1976, they bought the first 235 excavator in the state, and that was kind of the start of the bigger projects.
Bob: We've gone from different small jobs around town to today we do site jobs for Wal-Mart, Home Depot and places like that. We do a lot of utilities, sewers, drainage, water lines ˆ infrastructure for commercial and industrial roadways, commercial and industrial sitework.
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