Binder Equipment Technology

New Jersey's most famous son once wrote that he was born to run, but you might say one of the Garden State's slightly less well-known sons was born to build.
Brendan Binder is the president and founder of Binder Equipment Technology, a Middlesex, N.J.-based company that supplies Leica Geosystems machine controls to a number of construction firms across the United States as well as a full range of support services.
Binder, along with his wife and company CEO Krissy, launched the independently-owned company in January of this year. He's hardly a newcomer to the heavy construction equipment industry, though. Prior to starting his own business, he was involved for many years in Binder Machinery Co., the company founded by his grandfather in South Plainsfield, N.J., in 1957 that was acquired by Komatsu Ltd. in 2016.
Binder says the lessons he learned working for the family-owned enterprise over the years continue to have a profound impact on the way he does business.
"Our focus was always on service and support for our customers and that's a philosophy we've carried forward into Binder Equipment Technology and something we take very seriously, which I think is a differentiator for us in the technology products distribution business," he said.
"I keenly understand the needs of contractors and the significant need of uptime and the cost of downtime that contractors can incur as it relates to construction equipment."
Binder knew soon after his family's business was sold that he wanted to start his own company. He also knew that he wanted to go in a slightly different direction, with a focus on machine automation and the growth opportunities that are available in the technology sector.
In March 2017 he attended CONEXPO-CON/AGG, North America's largest construction trade show, to explore potential partnerships for his new business. The very first exhibit he visited at CONEXPO was Leica Geosystems and signed a partnership agreement with the international manufacturer a short time later.
"I knew that Leica had a very strong reputation in machine automation and other precision products that they manufacture. I just knew that was a company that we wanted to partner with," he said.
Binder Equipment Technology offers a range of Leica Geosystems products for a variety of heavy construction projects, all with a focus on automation. That includes machine-controlled systems for bulldozers, excavators, graders and various other pieces of equipment.
One of the company's most popular offerings is the Leica iCON site construction software system that is geared specifically for the piling industry. As part of the system, a series of sensors are mounted on a machine's chassis and lead vertical system and are constantly determining where the lead is in relation to the machine body using a sophisticated GPS unit.
Shawn Dahl, Binder's technology solutions manager, says the Leica system is unique in that it allows the machine operator to do the work of several people.
"Instead of having to rely on a survey to manually lay out the fields, the operator is able to navigate the machine to the exact geodetic position of that designated pile location without having a surveyor in the field," he said.
"The machine is also able to [assess] where the pile is put in the ground and to gain information about how that pile was put into the ground. If it's a soil mixing situation, we're also able to extract data about the soil mixing [and] the depth that was achieved by that pile."
Binder Equipment Technology has already supplied the system to a number of larger civil contractors in the Eastern U.S. including New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and New York State, including New York City and Long Island. The largest project the company has been involved with to date is 50 Hudson Yards in New York City. When complete in 2022, it will be the city's fourth largest commercial office tower at 985 feet tall with 2.9 million square feet of space.
Despite its involvement in several big-scale projects, Binder says his company plans to stick with the formula that made his grandfather's business so successful. A major component of that strategy is to continue providing education and training to clients and their employees on all products Binder sells.
"Education and training is key because when it comes to technology products, contractors who aren't already utilizing machine automation tend to shy away from it because of concerns about training and education for their employees," he said.
 "That's why we are very focused on ensuring that our customers' field support personnel are well educated and trained on the products that we sell and also have a direct line of support when they have questions they need answered."
One of the first decisions Binder made after launching his company was to join PDCA. It was in keeping with his family's philosophy of helping the organizations that help them.
"We've always felt it was important to have membership in industry organizations and associations, be involved in various committees and attend marketing functions because we understand the work associations do on our behalf," Binder said. "We also want to make that outreach to the pile driving market and really build our business by partnering with pile driving contractors throughout America who are looking to explore and implement machine automation into their organizations."
Although Binder Equipment Technology is not yet a huge player in the industry, the company's president says it is actively growing and plans to add more people in the near future.

Posted in PileDriver Magazine. Tagged as Edition 4, 2019.

 DuroTerra

In 2014, DuroTerra leaders took on a wonderful opportunity when they launched their company while working with Austria-based Tiroler Rohre, GmbH (TRM), a manufacturer of ductile iron piles. These piles have been used in Europe for more than three decades and in the United States for more than 10 years.
"The sister company of DuroTerra, LLC, is a specialty geotechnical contractor in the Northeast U.S. and has installed more than 50 successful ductile iron pile projects," said Rimas Veitas, P.E., who along with partners Chad Graybill and Christian Littlefield (owners of Helical Drilling and who have more than 80 years of combined experience in the specialty contracting and engineering industry) comprise the DuroTerra's corporate team.
Brendan Fitzpatrick, P.E., a prior vice president at Geopier Foundation Company, joined the team in 2014 as director of engineering/marketing and manages operations of the company.
With its corporate office and distribution yard located in the Greater Boston, Mass. area, DuroTerra is a distribution company specializing in ductile iron piles, which it distributes through a client base across U.S. and Canada along with select locations throughout Latin America.
"In addition to material supply, DuroTerra also provides its customers with project feasibility assessments and preliminary design evaluations based on geotechnical site conditions and foundation plans to help evaluate the construction and technical suitability of the system," said Veitas.
 "We also provide equipment and construction support to assist installers in getting adequately set up for a ductile iron pile job and following construction guidelines to aid in the installer's construction success."
Benefits of ductile iron piles
Ductile iron piles are a modular, low-vibration driven pile system. The system utilizes a medium-sized excavator and percussion (demolition-type) hammer to install the piles, making it well suited for constrained urban sites or interior renovation work where overhead clearances are 18 feet or higher.
"The equipment needed is simple and makes installation simple," said Graybill. "While the system has been used cost-effectively on wide-open sites, the vast majority of our customer's projects include building additions, interior retrofit work or tight, urban development sites. The system is versatile and can be installed to develop capacities ranging from 25 to more than 100 tons in either end-bearing on a competent bearing layer (i.e., rock or very dense ground) or by using an oversized pile shoe and continuously pumping grout during driving to create an efficient grout-to-ground bond zone for frictional capacity."
Littlefield added, "Projects primarily include industrial and manufacturing additions and improvements, warehouse retrofits, commercial and residential buildings and additions and the occasional bridge support and municipal application. When a project uses ductile iron piles, the pile can go 150 feet without mobilizing a large crane. All that is needed is an excavator."
When asked how contractors can find out whether ductile iron piles would be the right choice for their project, Littlefield said that besides meeting directly with project teams and participating in industry events, "Our team works with geotechnical contractors, engineers and owners to evaluate applicability of ductile iron piles for their projects. Involvement and feasibility assessment occur at all stages from early design phases prior to the selection of foundation systems through bidding (including value engineering opportunities) and even into construction when specified solutions are encountering issues and teams are looking for alternatives."
Littlefield says the system is more cost-effective compared to micropiles, which can help a contractor secure the job.
Fitzpatrick, who has more than 20 years of design/build geotechnical construction experience, concurs.
"I encourage all of our existing and future customers to provide us with project information (structural foundation plans, geotechnical reports, boring logs, etc.) to evaluate and discuss whether the system is well-suited for their project. While it'd be great for all projects to make sense for ductile iron piles, we recognize that there are many different foundation solutions available to project stakeholders. We want to make sure that our solutions are providing value against other options."
As for a project that stands out, DuroTerra was recently brought in as an alternative to a micropile system on an active project where a new interior mezzanine level was being constructed for an international shipping company. The project had overhead clearance restrictions of generally about 30 feet, but as low as 24 feet in some locations.
"After encountering conditions that required the specified micropiles to go deeper than planned, the project team was looking for alternatives to avoid costly foundation overruns," said Fitzpatrick.
"The ductile iron pile system was selected on a 1:1 replacement of the 50-ton micropiles and construction immediately proceeded to keep the project schedule on track. A total of 116 piles were installed in only six days, while working around existing distribution facility operations."
He adds that the success of the ductile iron pile system for this project has led to ductile iron pile solutions on three other similar projects for the same international shipping company.
"The most notable was a large interior project installed by PDCA member GeoStructures, Inc. near the Philadelphia International Airport. The project involved another mezzanine expansion and required more than 330 piles installed to depths ranging from 70 to over 100 feet to develop capacities of 45 to 75 tons. Overhead clearances were limited to around 35 feet in many locations, but did drop to 25 feet in limited locations. The pile installations were completed in four weeks while working around active facility operations."
[Editor's note: GeoStructures, Inc. received a PDCA Project of the Year Award for the above-mentioned project; read the full story on page 75 of this edition of PileDriver.]
These projects, Fitzpatrick says, along with a number of other similar jobs, illustrate some of the advantages of the system when working on projects with tight access, overhead clearance restrictions and vibration-sensitive conditions.
PDCA membership and the future
A relatively new member of PDCA, DuroTerra recently joined the association at the suggestion of Larry Moore, P.E, past president of PDCA and COO of GeoStructures, Inc.
"We joined as a way to become more connected with the pile driving community," said Veitas. "We are looking forward to being better connected with contractors in the driven piling industry."
As for the company's plans, Veitas says that like most companies, DuroTerra is focused on growth.
"From a start-up company five years ago to having successful projects with customers in about half of the U.S. and Canada we see growth opportunities both geographically as we develop a greater customer base in the U.S. and abroad, and also by raising awareness of the DuroTerra™ brand and the benefits offered by the ductile iron pile system. Despite its long-term use in Europe and availability in the U.S., many contractors and engineers are not yet familiar with the system and the substantial benefits it provides in the right application."

Posted in PileDriver Magazine. Tagged as Edition 4, 2019.

Sunroc Corporation

With approximately 850 employees across the U.S. in four regions northern Utah, southern Utah/Las Vegas, Idaho and Wyoming Sunroc Corporation provides construction materials and services throughout Utah and the Intermountain West for both public and private sector customers.
The company was first established in 1937 as Utah Service when founder W.W. Clyde purchased a small service station in Springville, Utah. Directly adjacent to the station, he added a hardware store and lumber yard. Since that time, Sunroc Corporation has continued to grow beyond the Utah Service hardware store and service station, expanding to nearly 50 operating locations including masonry block plants, aggregate facilities, construction offices, asphalt plants and concrete facilities.
"Essentially, Sunroc Corporation is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Clyde Companies, Inc., a family-owned and operated company headquartered in Orem, Utah," said Mark Wimmer, Sunroc vice president. "Our president, Scott Okelberry, oversees the growth, operations and vision of the company and reports to the president of the Clyde Business Group at Clyde Companies, Inc. His vice presidents, Russell Leslie and myself, lead the construction and construction materials divisions of the company, respectively."
Sunroc specializes in pile driving and earth shoring operations, including precast prestressed concrete piles, H-piles, pipe piles, sheet piles, soldier piles and soil nail/shotcrete, at present.
"We recently completed work on a high-profile project for UDOT, driving piles for the SR-68/I-215 Interchange Bridge," said Eric Hendriksen, general manager of the piling and shoring division.
This a major interchange that is relied on by motorists traveling between Salt Lake and Davis counties. Plans called for 16-inch by ½-inch wall pipe piles, driven [to] lengths up to 125 feet. We were chosen by the general contractor as a subcontractor for the pile driving work because of the relationship of trust and proven results we have with them.
Work began in July on UDOT's highest priority project, Mountain View Corridor 4100 S to SR-201, a two-year project consisting of four miles of new roadway with two lanes in each direction, with biking and walking trails, 13 bridges and six pedestrian bridges.
When asked how Sunroc differs from its competitors, Hendriksen doesn't hesitate.
"Our perfect safety record, for sure. Our core group of people has been together for decades and I believe we have far more experience than competitors in our area."
Added Wimmer, "Sunroc is unique in the large variety of construction and material services provided from earthwork, excavation, shoring, piling, ready mix, sand and gravel, asphalt paving and masonry products with an excellent footprint in the Intermountain West. What else differentiates us is that we are large enough to take on large projects, but still provide personal service and detail in each of our individual locations."
Leslie agreed: "Over the last few years through acquisition, we have significantly increased our footprint and have brought on some very qualified employees that are experts in their chosen fields. We strive to do the project right the first time. If there is an issue, we work to quickly remedy the situation. We have been very successful in doing multiple projects with the same customer. This happens because of our ability to establish and maintain exceptional relationships with owners and customers."
PDCA and the future
Sunroc has been a PDCA member for many years.
"My previous employer was a member from the early days of the organization, joining in the first or second year," said Hendriksen. "I have been connected for many years and have maintained membership with each change in business structure from Desert Deep Foundations LLC to DDF Inc. and now Sunroc. Aside from the benefits we derive (education, networking and making connections with other contractors, suppliers and manufacturers, etc.), I feel it's important to support the driven pile industry as a whole, helping promote, publicize and educate others on the benefits of driven piles, while alleviating unfounded concerns sometimes associated with driven deep foundations."
As for what the next five to 10 years hold for the company, Hendriksen said, "My plan is to continue for the next five or six years, training others to pick up the ball and keep moving it forward. I have learned a lot since my first experience with driven piles in 1983, and I still have lots more to learn. Hopefully, by the time I'm ready to step away, Sunroc will be widely recognized not only for excavation and civil work, but also as the most reliable and trustworthy source for driven piles and earth shoring in the region."
Said Wimmer, "The company plans to continue to grow and provide more services both organically and through acquisition over the next one to 10 years."
Leslie agrees, "There are still areas that I feel we have the ability to grow in geographically. As long as the markets continue moving forward in a positive way, we will continue to grow."

Posted in PileDriver Magazine. Tagged as Edition 4, 2019.

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