Construction Equipment Owner

National Pavement Expo’s conference program always offers sessions that we know contractors need to attend, but invariably these types of sessions (legal, contracts, safety, regulation) are among the sessions that draw the fewest contractors each year. I guess that’s okay, and we’ll keep offering the sessions our research shows contractors need to have access to, but I have to admit…I just don’t get it.

A perfect example is this year’s “Embezzlement & Fraud: How You Can Protect Yourself” presented by Pam Newman, RPPC Inc. Last year we offered it for the first time and it drew only 18 people; this year that number dropped to 7. We’ll offer the session again, though not in 2010, but I don’t understand why contractors aren’t interested in learning how to protect themselves from one of the most common and most damaging problems small businesses encounter. If you think it’s rare you need to have a few more conversations with other small business owners. In fact most contractors know someone who has encountered this type of problem (most people in the session the last couple of years had already experienced it). Why wouldn’t a contractor spend $65 and 90 minutes to learn some basic, low cost (or cost-free) steps they can take to protect their company?

Any contractor who has run into embezzlement or fraud can tell you an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure… and sessions like this one should be Standing Room Only.

Travelers recently launched an enhanced Risk Control Web site offering customers and agents easier access to industry-specific risk management tools for the construction industry. The centerpiece of the website is Construction TravSources which is a collection of safety and risk management resources dedicated to help contractors meet today’s risk management and safety challenges.

Topics in the resource include: contracts/contractual risk transfer, OSHA 1926 safety and associated training topics, fleet safety for both non-regulated and regulated fleets, and building green.

The other significant feature of the website is an advanced, easy-to-use search function. The aim of this is to allow for more targeted search results. As there are more than 1,500 tools and resources, these items can be sorted quickly by category, topic, product type, language or any customized combination

The Associated Builders and Contractors has launched a new website, TheTruthAboutEFCA.com, to help educate the public about the sweeping economic and workplace consequences of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), or “card check” legislation.

TheTruthAboutEFCA.com will track the latest news from the mainstream media and social networking sites, highlight academic studies and public opinion data, and contain video ads and interviews to expose EFCA’s threat to the U.S. economy and an employee’s right to a federally supervised private-ballot during union organizing activities.

An article in the Los Angeles Times reports that thousands of mostly Latino workers will share in an $8.5-million settlement with a national construction firm they had accused in a class-action lawsuit of violating California’s wage and hour laws.

The suit, believed to be among the state’s largest class actions involving wage claims by Latino workers, alleges that the company failed to pay the workers for a full day’s work when warranted.

Masco Contractor Services Inc. and its California subsidiaries, Western Insulation and Schmid Insulation Contractors, “deny any liability,” according to Kathleen Vokes, a spokeswoman for Masco Corp., which owns Masco Contractor Services.

Building America’s Future (BAF), a bipartisan and national infrastructure coalition, launched a stimulus-watch webpage on its main website: www.investininfrastructure.org/stimulus. The portal links to the majority of the state’s stimulus/economic recovery websites, as well as related local news.

The mission of the portal is to “serve as a one-stop-shop to track how elected officials are using stimulus funds to improve local infrastructure,” says Polly Trottenberg, executive director for Building America’s Future.

Living just outside of Chicago I can attest to a recently published truck driver survey that I-55 and I-90 are two of the worst roads in the country (and they don’t get much better once you drive on them outside the Chicago metro area). Not a good thing, as the reason the roads are so bad is we’ve neglected them for so long. As a recent overview of road construction in Parade magazine, How We Can Save Our Roads, points out, those years of neglect might just be the needed push the country needs to get the economy working again.

John Horsley, executive director of the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO) points out that as a country “we just haven’t been keeping up with the maintenance and preservation.”

But, Horsley says, we’re ready to start. He says 3000 road projects could be up and running within a few weeks if the dollars become available, and that will put one million people to work over the next year.

So let’s get going. As those 3000 (hopefully more) projects get underway contractors who prefer high-volume paving and roadway repair will shift themselves back into that market, leaving behind the commercial and industrial paving and pavement maintenance market they had been working in just to maintain their cash flow.

Thanks to the struggling economy many small business owners are putting a freeze on raises and bonuses. According to this week’s guest Ed Hess, that makes it all the more critical to show your appreciation in other ways if you want them to stick around for the long haul. And lucky for you employees do not respond solely to cold hard cash. Listen to this episode of the Construction Business Podcast as Ed Hess provides some insights on creative ways to keep your troops happy with little to no money out of your pocket.

Guest:

Ed Hess
Contact: hesse@darden.virginia.edu
Get the Book: So, You Want to Start a Business? 8 Steps to Take Before Making the Leap

 Recession-Proof Employee Loyalty Plan [10:08m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (405)

Considering the state of the economy we decided late last year to ask a variety of people what steps contractors could take to get more work for their business. I envisioned running a listing of “quick fix” things in our March/April issue — and we got a lot of great ideas that might help. You can see some of what we came up with in one of the “sneak peek” articles on www.pavementonline.com, but you’ll have to wait until you receive the March/April issue for even more ideas. (And we’re going to write about some longer-term ideas on our May issue.)

But more than just providing ideas to the industry, we’re hoping that the ideas we’ve come up with are just a starting point. We’re hoping that those ideas get you thinking and encourage you to add a few ideas of your own right here. The ideas can be inexpensive or costly, simple or complex, obvious or not so obvious, easy or difficult — it doesn’t matter. Anything you do that you think will help another contractor generate more business will be appreciated.

Okay, not really. Thanks to the folks in this industry I have learned quite a bit over the years, but when I need information I turn to Pavement readers and National Pavement Expo speakers to find out what I need to know. But I’m still an Asphalt Ace because the Asphalt Institute says so. The AI had a well-attended day-long workshop at NPE (one of the best-attended sessions in Charlotte) where Mike Sonnenberg, Dwight Walker, and Wayne Jones were teaching.

But on the exhibit floor those three and Brian Clark were dealing — cards. Just like the sharks in Las Vegas they lured me into their booth to play AI blackjack, assuring me I’d be a winner. Yeah, right. I hit on a 14 against a dealer’s face card and I busted (the dealer would have 20 anyway, so the play was right even if the result wasn’t).

But true to their word I was a winner and took home my Asphalt Ace license plate, which if you can’t win it as easily as I did you can buy from AI at their site for a buck. And while you’re there check out the 7th edition of MS-4, the industry “red book,” which is probably the most-thumbed book in my office.

Concrete paving and whitetopping have been pretty hot topics over the last year. With the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association (NRMCA) stepping up promotional efforts on parking lot paving and the American Concrete Paving Association (ACPA) encouraging people to “kick the asphalt habit” in general, contractors have been finding support in venturing into this service. My magazine, Concrete Contractor, published an article on concrete whitetopping in the January 2009 issue, detailing the specifics of a concrete whitetopping job at a strip mall parking lot. If you’re looking for further education on concrete overlays, the ACPA offers a free 75-page publication called “Guide to Concrete Overlays: Sustainable Solutions for Resurfacing and Rehabilitating Existing Pavements” downloadable in PDF format. At the same site you can access a PDF of a “Summary of Concrete Overlays” poster, which would be an educational addition to any concrete company’s office wall.