SSE Helps Keep Archer Western Contractors on Schedule

AWC is a member of the Walsh group and was ranked as the 2nd largest domestic heavy

Contractor in the United States by Engineering News-Records Top Contractor Rankings and they

were ranked as the 125^th largest privately owned company in America by Forbs magazine. 

The old LVP 109 levee before construction

NEW ORLEANS- Since June 20, 2010 Archer Western Contractors (AWC) has had Schultz and Summers Engineering (SSE) helping them to finish LPV 109.02a levee project.   AWC Project Manager Martin Pospisil said, “Having SSE on the project has been very beneficial to our progress.  Their technicians show up every day on time and ready to work and Stan has been available to handle any questions or problems that arise.”

A drill rig on one of the 126 wells

The Contract Award was for $112,247,806 to rework a 7.2 mile stretch of levee starting on the south bank of Lake Pontchartrain and running South along the bayou.  Work includes moving over 3.1 million tons of soil to enlarge the existing levee, demolish existing gates and construct new gates that cross US Highway 90 & US Highway 11.  Also, they will remove and replace four (4) drainage structures, remove and replace pump station discharge pipes, and upgrade two (2) pump stations. Additionally, they installed over 9 million feet of wick drains as well as constructed T-wall/I-wall transitions at CSX Railroad, US Highway 90, and US Highway 11.  “Working with Martin and all his staff has been very rewarding,” stated SSE owner Stan Schultz.  “There are a lot of moving pieces to this project, but so far technicians like Thomas Hudson, January employee of the month Cory Brown, and James Badkoubei have been able to keep things on schedule and within budget.”

Despite all the wet weather they met their goal of completing this project by August of 2011.  Quality Control manager Raphael Campos added, “With the hurricane season in New Orleans we have to maximize our progress on sunny days.  Around here we put in some long hours and all the SSE folks have been willing to do whatever it takes to keep us moving.”

For Stan and all the SSE employees this was a particularly challenging job.  They also were responsible for drilling 126 well holes and installing the geotechnical instrumentation for monitoring the levee.  This required ordering all the necessary equipment and personal to drill these holes, and properly installing the magnetic extensometers, inclinometers and piezometers all while the work on the levy continued.  SSE technician Cory Brown said, “It was a challenge to keep the drill rig going and ahead of the dirt moving crews.  The whole project schedule depended on us to meet our goal each day and the bad weather was always a worry.  I am proud to say we finished our part ahead of the schedule!”   

Schultz concluded, “I’m thankful to be working on one of the bigger projects in the New Orleans region but being able to help solve problems and keep LPV 109.02a on schedule has been very rewarding professionally.  Martin made us feel like we were a key part of his team and working with AWC has been one of the highlights of our work here in Louisiana.”

When A Levee Needs Repaired Fast, the USACE Turns To Schultz and Summers Engineering

SSE was selected by the Memphis Corps of Engineers District to perform all the

testing for Operation “Make Safe,” the emergency repair work on the Birds Point Levee. 

Crops ready to be harvested behind the new levee

EAST PRARIE, MO- Last May the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) intentionally blew up the Birds Point- New Madrid Floodway levee, flooding over 130,000 acres with up to 23 feet of water and damaging hundreds of buildings and homes in the floodplain.  In addition to the property damage, the blast and ensuing floodwaters left three giant crevasses that totaled nearly three miles in length. This left those same homes and millions of dollars worth of crops vulnerable to the mighty Mississippi River this fall. “If the area were to flood again it would put many people out of business”, stated Carlin Bennett, the Mississippi County Presiding Commissioner.

Additionally, the raging waters left several huge scour holes up to three stories deep and four football fields wide.  SSE owner Stan Schultz said, “The amount of soil needed to repair these breeches and sand to fill in the scour holes is massive.  Helping the USACE accomplish this task before the fall rains could harm this year’s harvest has been very satisfying.”

Mark Ritter in the bottom of a scour hole that is almost filled in

When the Memphis corps district went looking for a material testing company to help with Operation “Make Safe”, they called the Army corps district that has the most experience in repairing levees-New Orleans. Because of the stellar performance by Schultz and Summers in New Orleans, they have quickly become known as a company that can perform fast and reliable soil tests when called upon. It wasn’t long before SSE received a call asking if they would be interested in providing testing services for the corps on the Birds Point Levee Floodway. Said Schultz, “Of course we were excited about working on such an important project, and helping repair a critical levee right here in our own backyard was very appealing. I immediately sent them my top soil technician, Mark Ritter, because I knew he would help to keep the project moving.”  

With such a tight schedule the corps didn’t have time to solicit design and construction bids, so they decided to do this job themselves.  They quickly designed the interim levee, brought 41 pieces of dirt moving equipment and 43 corps personnel from several different districts to southeast Missouri, and began work.  There were only two outside contractors involved in the project, Schultz and Summers Engineering for testing and J.W. Transport for trucks to haul the needed soil and sand.

One item of contention has been the height of the interim levee.  The current design is the same as the 51 foot river gauge at Cairo, IL.  Once funding is approved, the plan is to take the levee back up to its original height of 62.5 feet.  The interim repairs are projected to cost $15 million and it will cost another $21 million to raise it back to the original height. But corps spokesman Jim Pogue said, “Corps officials are evaluating the whole Mississippi River flood protection system before ranking projects, but where there is a potential for loss of life, that’s always going to be at the top of the list. The floodway is important. It’s going to happen. It’s not an if, it’s just a when.”  

Amazingly, this project started June 16, 2011 and is on track to be completed by November 30, 2011. Currently they have completed 95% of the work at the upper crevasse, 56% at the center crevasse and 100% at the lower crevasse.  “We’re still on target to meet the deadline,” said Pouge.

The follow-on project to Operation “Make Safe”, called Operation “Restore”, will reconstruct the floodway system to the pre-operational level of protection. The construction schedule is contingent on the availability of funding.  Clearly, the gridlock in Washington has slowed the appropriations process down. But earlier this year Jo Ann Emerson led the charge to get $589 million for levee repairs pushed through the House Appropriations Committee and recently the U.S. Senate passed Senator Blunt’s amendment and included it in the FY2012 spending bill for Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies.

Blunt said, “We must work to provide communities with short term and long term recovery and disaster mitigation, which is why I recently introduced an amendment that was passed by the Senate Appropriations Committee to add $400 million to Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) — funding that picks up where FEMA leaves off.”

Many farmers gambled that the fall flooding wouldn’t come and planted crops after the flood waters receded.  Memphis Corps District employee Mark Broughton reports that about 90% of the flood way had crops planted.  He said most of it was in beans and they were planted late, but some farmers have gotten 50 to 60 bushes per an acre. Of course those farmers who owned land in the 10% that was totally destroyed, didn’t fare so well.     

Until the funding is approved for the higher levee, the threat of spring flooding has most farmers apprehensive about planting more crops in the floodway.  Many farmers are seeing crop insurance rates twice as high as 2010. With the Mississippi River staying at record summer levels along with a levee that is 11 feet shorter than the old one, residents are worried that even normal flooding could breach the interim levee.  KFVS News reported that county officials told them the data shows the river has been over 51 feet seven times in the last 12 years.

 Bobby Carlisle USACE, Mark Ritter SSE and Mark Broughton USACE

Schultz and Summers Engineering has played a major role in assisting the corps personnel in keeping the project on schedule.  Making sure the soil has the right amount of moisture and compaction is important to the long term strength of any levee.  SSE soil technician Mark Ritter said, “We have done over 300 tests so far on the project.  The results have been outstanding and everything has come in within the standards.  It’s been a bit hard to keep up with the fast pace of the corps, but we have done whatever it takes to support their efforts and keep things moving.”     

To read the most up to date info on the Birds Point Levee repairs go to: http://tinyurl.com/czdussf    

Last day on Guam

By Rod Jetton

A look at the Guam radar

 We had a very busy last day.  It rained most of the day, which cooled things off.  Did I mention it is the rainy season here?  We have a big tropical storm swirling around the south pacific that is keeping things wet.  

Me with several of the Guam Senators

I started my day at 7:00am meeting with Senator Blas.  He is one of the 15 Guam Senators who pass all the budget and laws for Guam.  Right now they are working to pass the Guam budget so I was very honored that he took the time to meet with me.  He also introduced me to a few of the other Senators before their session started at 10:00am.  Hearing them talk about passing their budget brought back memories of when I was Speaker in Missouri trying to work out the compromises needed to pass a budget. 

While I was visiting with the Senators, Stan was meeting with some of the local contractors.  We joined up again at 10:00 and stopped by Hensel Phelps Construction and talked with their senior estimator Jos’e Luis Vasquez.  After that we came back to the hotel and Mr. Lam visited with us about the Guam contractors association.  Mr. Lam was an example of everyone we met on Guam.  He is one of the kindest and most helpful people you could ever meet.  

Stan Al and Rod

Jaime Cea from Kiewit joined us for lunch and then Al Sampson who is the Small Business Advisor for NAVFAC on Guam.  Al was very very helpful!  He is a Marine so I knew he was good to go.  He had an excellent understanding about contracting in this region as well as the base buildup.  He gave us some extremely helpful pointers and told us to call him if we had any questions.

Our last meeting of the day was with Michael Ady from M80 systems.  They are a company that sells furniture and appliances.  They also do contracting and were a great source of information on Guam and the region.  After that the night ended with a reception Steve Maramonte by Guam Base Buildup where several folks who are interested in the base buildup attended.  

All of us at the reception 

Stan and Steve Maramonte of Guam Base Buildup

Stan and Dot Haymann from SunPorts

We left fairly early because we have to get up at 3:30am to start the long trek home.  We leave here at 6:00am on the 24^th and arrive in St. Louis at 11:15 am the 24^th.  That may seem amazing but we gain a day heading back.  Hopefully we have safe flights, don’t lose our bags and make it home in time for the Branson Cajun Boil.

1st Day in Guam

Guam
By Rod Jetton

We arrived in Guam late last night because the plane was delayed so today we took of to explore the island.  It is Sunday and everything is shut down here.  We are one day ahead of everyone back home because we crossed the international date line.  It's very hard for me to understand but we are now way ahead of Missouri.  

All we did was go to church and then drive around the whole island.  We also stopped in a grocery store to compare prices.   Here are the photos.  There were some beautiful beach and island spots I tried to capture on camera.

Stan in front of St. Anthony Church

A jungle Trail

Me on a beautiful beach

A big mountain

A rock formation Stan wanted a photo of-engineer stuff

The lagoon and beach where we were

Tidal pools the Guamanians had made a swimming whole with

The tide coming in on the tidal pool

Veterans Memorial over looking deep valley

Some sail boats I thought Bob would like

A captured mini-Japanese sub at the war museum

Some looks at the beach and lagoon

Meetings in Hawaii-Then Surfing

 Honolulu Hawaii

By Rod Jetton

We arrived in Honolulu on Tuesday at about 2:00pm.  By the time found our bags, picked up the rental car and checked into the hotel it was late afternoon.  I wanted to see the mighty MO so we headed down to Pearl Harbor just in time to get on the last tour of the day.  It was very interesting to stand right where General MacArthur and the Japanese ended WW II. 

It was special to me for two reasons.  My best friend in the Marine Corps had served on the U.S.S. Missouri in the 1^st Iraq war.  He had gone to the big retirement celebration for all former crew members when they moved the Missouri out to Hawaii and he had sent me a cap.  Train McCloud was a fine Marine and unfortunately he was killed in the 2^nd Iraq war.  Being on that ship brought back some great memories of Trane.  

You can see the Arizona behind me  

 From the front of the Missouri you can see the U.S.S. Arizona memorial.  It was sad to think about all the lives lost in the Pearl Harbor attack.  Looking around now you would never know there had been a war except for the Arizona memorial.  Taking time to tour those ships and reflect on how America has changed since December 7^th 1941 was very sobering.

After our tour we had dinner and then hit the rack.  Hawaii is 5 hours behind Missouri so even though it was only 9:00pm it had been a very long day for us.  We knew we needed to get some sleep and be ready to go in the morning.  

NAN Inc. meeting with Ms. Kim and Mr. Lucas

Some of our most productive and informative meetings were with Ken Loui from Parsons and Sharon Thom for Kiewit.  Parsons is the overall program director for the base buildup and Kiewit is a part of the $4 billion mega MACC that has already been awarded.   We also met with Mr. Lucas and Sandra Kim form NAN Inc.  Their company is also part of the mega MACC.  The small business adviser for the Navy in the Pacific Fleet is Flora Pang.  She was very supportive of helping us understand the contracting process in Hawaii, as well as the whole Pacific Rim.  Then we met Brian Zachmeier of AMEC for lunch on Thursday.  AMEC is one of the largest engineering firms in the world and Brian retired from the Air force and has lived in Hawaii for the last seven years.    We hoped these folks could give us an idea if a small company providing civil engineering and materials testing services like ours would be needed on Guam.

I am happy to report their advice and information was extremely helpful to us.  There was some good news and bad news in what we learned, but overall, the information we gained and the relationships we started will be very helpful to our future endeavors.  They all felt the buildup on Guam would require more engineers and technicians than Guam currently has available.  They each emphasized that in their planning they were looking for dependable companies like ours.   That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the funding and original time line for the Guam base buildup has not been approved.  The budget debates in Washington have put the funding on hold and the earthquake in Japan has given them other priorities to deal with.  

This has caused several companies to change their plans.  Many companies had already set up offices and moved staff to Guam.  It sounds like everyone is closing offices and bringing staff home while they wait for the Department of Defense to finalize a new master plan and appropriate the funding.    

This only confirms what I was hearing and reading about Guam before the trip.  For SSE the stalled timing is actually a good thing.  Our operations in New Orleans are still going strong and we have another year before they start slowing down.  Twelve to eighteen months from now would be a perfect time for us to start gearing up for a Guam operation.  

Overall the trip has been a huge success so far.  We are taking quite a bit of ribbing from our co-workers back home about this business trip to Hawaii and Stan and I feel a bit out of place with all the couples and honeymooners around, but the meetings we had were very helpful.  Clearly, like New Orleans the need for a dependable company is there.  The big question for everyone is, when will the DOD decide to move the Marines to Guam.

My Board and me 

Stan the Man!!

Catching a wave!

Stan and his board

On a side note we did work in some relaxation right before our plan left on Friday.  Stan and I signed up for Surfing lesson and they guaranteed success or “your money back.”  I am happy to report we are both now officially ‘surfers’.  It turns out surfing is a serious workout, we didn’t relax then, but it helped us sleep on the plane.   We had to rush but we surfed, rinsed off and were at the airport just in time.  It turns out the plane was delayed 1.5 hours which means we would not have had to rush.  I don’t know how good we smell but were sitting next to each other so I guess it doesn’t matter.    

STOPPING IN HAWAII BEFORE ARRIVING IN GUAM

Honolulu, Hawaii

By-Rodney Jetton

Stan and I drove up to St. Louis Monday evening because we had to catch a 6:00am flight to Hawaii.  I stayed up way to late working on a few letters and all too soon the 3:30 alarm went off and we were getting ready to head out on our trip to recon Guam and see if SSE should open up a branch office there.

You’re probably wondering why we are thinking about opening an office in Guam.  The short answer is because the Department of Defense (DOD) is moving the Marine base in Okinawa, Japan to Guam.  They have estimated it will cost about $14 billion to build the new base there.  The Japanese also want us to leave Guam and have pledged $6 billion to help pay for the move.  The move means there will be a lot of construction on Guam, but that doesn’t explain why a small civil engineering company from Missouri would consider moving there.

Here is the rest of the story.  Our work in New Orleans has been tremendously successful.  Stan went there, met with the local contractors, and quickly had a USACE validated construction testing lab operational.  In the beginning, most of the big firms would not hire SSE.  They had never worked with us before and they were afraid to trust something as important as testing to a small firm from Missouri. 

After several months CKY hired us for a little testing job and soon after that, our workload exploded.  Southern Services, Tetra Tech, Grillot Construction, Archer Western Contractors-The Walsh Group, WRCompass, The Shaw Group, Volkert, Odebrecht, and Integrated Pro Services were just a few of the major contractors who started requesting our services on their projects.  

The big contractors were not the only ones noticing the dependable testing services we were providing.  The USACE also took notice of our quality tests and accurate reports.  The Corps quickly awarded SSE a $5 million Blankest Purchase Agreement (BPA) to do Quality Assurance (QA) testing for them.  

Things were rapidly expanding for us in New Orleans.  Stan kept sending more of our Missouri employees down there to keep up with the workload and he also started looking for local qualified technicians who could join our team.  He had initially planned for 5 to 8 employees but within 18 months we had over 30 engineers and technicians providing both QC and QA tests in New Orleans.

During this time Tetra Tech was having some difficulty finding a surveyor to keep up with their timeline on one of their major projects.  They mentioned this to Stan and soon we had one of our Missouri crews helping them get the floodwalls and gates near the 17^th Street canal laid out for construction.  Our company had done construction staking on hundreds of lane-miles of Missouri highways as well as the largest privately owned airport in America, which is in Branson Missouri.  

Even though much of the surveying in New Orleans involved complicated sector gates and floodwalls, our survey crews jumped in and worked with the project managers to keep the jobs on schedule.  Once the word got out about our surveyors, it wasn’t long until we had as many as four survey crews going full time for several different contractors on some of the largest floodwalls and levees ever built in America.

 You’re probably saying, Rod this is an interesting story but what does New Orleans have to do with Guam?”  The short answer is everything for us.  Most of the contractors we have been helping in New Orleans are major corporations with worldwide operations.  They design and build things all over the globe.  For example Engineering News Record (ENR) ranked Kiewit as the 3^rd largest contractor in America, The Shaw Group is #7, and The Walsh Group is #12.  They also ranked Tetra Tech as the 5^th largest environmental engineering firm, AWC is # 20, and WRCompass is #49.   

Many of these companies are taking a serious look at going to Guam and a few of them are already there.  They started asking Stan to consider going to Guam.  So, we are studying the feasibility of setting up a testing lab to support the work to build a Marine Corps base on Guam.  

That’s why we woke up at 3:30 Tuesday morning to catch a plane to Hawaii.  We needed to stop in Hawaii because many of the contractors in Guam have their pacific headquarters in Hawaii and the Navy is headquartered here as well.  I’ll write more about our Hawaii meetings in my next post.  

Stan arriving at the Honolulu airport