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Over the years the company has added excavation, waterproofing, flatwork and silt fence installation. "It helped our sales on the housing side. A builder could give us a set of plans and we could do it all - he didn't have to deal with four subcontractors," Gary adds.

The CFA also introduced ABI Corp. to a number of the technologies it has embraced through the years. ABI Corp. was one of the first contractors in the area to purchase 9-foot aluminum forms, eliminating the need to join 8-foot and 1-foot forms to produce the taller walls builders wanted. The company was also an early adopter of crane trucks and laser layout tools. "We were performing our layout with electronic transits when our competitors were still using string line and tape measurers," Gary explains. "And we were the first in the area to get a Geodimeter Robotics Transit," Dan adds. "That changed the way we did business. The layout of any complicated structure went from a three-man crew to one person laying out in one-third of the time with much more accuracy.

"On commercial projects, GCs were amazed we set bolts electronically. We did a trench footing job for a block wall contractor where we used the system to lay out block rebar stalks and he told us it was the first time his rebar placement was correct," Dan says.

Auto Crete, a software program for concrete contractors, is another technology that has helped ABI Corp. increase productivity. The system allows a contractor to lay out a job in a two-dimensional format so he can tell what forms to take to the jobsite and how much concrete to order; the program also supplies crews with information about wall heights, blockouts and general job specifications.

The technical nature of many of ABI Corp.'s residential jobs and its belief in keeping up with the latest equipment technologies poised the company for an easy transition into commercial work. The difficult part was establishing the company's reputation with commercial GCs in the area.