Since its inception, the employees of Summit Contracting have formed many relationships with Fortune 500 companies and completed numerous multimillion dollar projects across the nation. Summit's unique mix of services allows them to wrap their arms around a company and serve them in a multitude of ways, leading to the strong relationships they have established throughout the years.

The founder of Summit Contracting and several members of upper management began working in the environmental industry more than 30 years ago when the industry was in its infancy. In January 1999, Eric Dodd started Summit Contracting, a hybrid environmental and specialty civil services company. The combination allows Summit to offer remediation, Haz-Mat response, industrial cleaning, demolition and site development services to their clients.

"The depth of our knowledge in both environmental and civil construction allows our employees to approach projects from a unique perspective. This knowledge and experience leads to substantial value creation for customers by effectively anticipating future challenges and generating solutions before they arise," said Andy Wehr, Summit's manager field operations.

Striving to be a top service provider

Within its first five years Summit's ability to provide value to its customers led to signed master service agreements with Temple-Inland, CSX Transportation, Marathon Petroleum Co. LLC and DuPont, as well as a site preparation project for a new Toyota Manufacturing Facility in Princeton, Ind.

"We were getting opportunities to perform projects for these companies and we were wowing them with our knowledge, work ethic and professionalism," said Andy Shoulders, Summit's senior vice president, accounting and administration. "We do not want to be just another contractor on our clients' list, we want to be their top service provider."

As a testament to this mentality, through CSX's ER Preferred Provider Program, Summit received Contractor of the Year in 2003 and four employees have been presented Field Service Awards since then.

Within the past year, Summit renewed the National ER & Waste Management Agreement they have had with Temple-Inland since 2000, completed the third landfill closure project for Aleris International Inc. and the third facility site preparation project for Toyota Manufacturing.

Upon the completion of the latest Toyota project, John Elizalde, Toyota Motor Sales' project development manager had this to say about their relationship with Summit, "As a truly valued contractor, Summit has performed beyond expectations on a number of our Vehicle Distribution Center (VDC) projects. The VDC and Railyard project in Mississippi is yet another example of that performance. Summit's management, quality of work and sincere interest in constructing what best meets the needs of the customer is unfailing. They unwaveringly act as stakeholders in the success of each project. We look forward to the next opportunity to have Summit as part of our team."

Industry leading safety, training program

"We tend to let the satisfaction of our clients speak for itself, but we feel like it's important to communicate the standards of excellence we place on ourselves as a company," said Mark Winchester, Summit's executive vice president and COO. "We work for a vast array of companies, from the very small to multinational. Many of them provide us with some of the strictest rules and regulations in the world. We pride ourselves in not just meeting those strict requirements but setting our own standards in excess of what is imposed upon us. We have found that doing so further solidifies our relationships and elevates client confidence levels."

In both the environmental and civil construction industries, safety is of the utmost importance. Summit emphasizes this importance by requiring that all of their employees attend a week-long "safety shutdown" in January. During this time important skills and certifications such as confined space entry and rescue, CPR and first aid, and OSHA HAZWOPER are renewed. A combination of internal and external industry experts are selected to lead these sessions.

According to Jim Reed, Summit's manager of Health and Safety, "We feel it is important to have a mixture of both internal and external instructors to ensure we strike a balance between teaching our employees about specific situations they will encounter on jobsites and ensuring we learn the latest best practices in industry."

In order to perform work for certain clients, Summit's employees routinely obtain specialty training and certifications such as API - Tank Entry Supervisor (TES), Railroad Emergency Response Advanced Tank Car Specialist (40-hr), NCCER Pipeline Training, TWIC, Association of Reciprocal Safety Training, among many others. In an industry where the average EMR rating is typically 1, Summit's average over the past 5 years is .70, reflecting the success of their strategy for performing excellent work safely.

Investment in state-of-the-art technology

"Due to the scale of projects we perform for our clients, we feel it's important to make investments to ensure we are using the latest technology to aid in delivering impeccable results," said Winchester.

For instance, it was the relationship Summit developed with oil spill containment equipment manufacturer, Elastec American Marine that landed them the opportunity to provide services during the cleanup of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year.

"Elastec received a contract from BP to provide Hydro-Fire boom for use during the in-situ burning of the oil at sea and their oil skimmers for use as the oil approached the shore. Elastec contracted us to captain the in-situ burning ignition vessels and to instruct cleanup crews on how to operate their skimmers because they knew our employees had experience in effectively utilizing their equipment," explained Jamie Bergeron, Summit's general manager of Environmental Services.

Summit has also invested in state-of-the-art technology for their civil project managers and site supervisors. Project managers use professional earthwork quantification and modeling software, allowing them to develop accurate site models from which to develop estimates and project timelines.

"In the field, our site supervisors have GPS capable and robotic total station equipped machinery, allowing our crews to produce finished sites that are always within grade specifications. This technology makes each project move at a faster pace and makes our field operation much more efficient and cost effective," said Don Sawyer, Summit's vice president and general manager of Civil Operations.

During the final certification of a recent 30-acre landfill closure project, Don Pedigo, DDS Engineering's survey division manager, had this to say, "We have worked with Summit on two landfill closure projects for Aleris International in Morgantown, Kentucky.  Summit's work is consistently within tolerance and is closer to design grade than the majority of other construction companies we have worked with on projects of this type."

An additional way Summit incorporates new technologies is by investigating alternative ways to perform routine services. An example of this kind of application is utilizing dry ice blasting for cleaning and decontaminating in industrial, refinery, pharmaceutical, and food and beverage environments. This cleaning application can be used for the delicate removal of contaminates or can be modified for more difficult industrial situations where higher pressure is required. The benefit of this application for Summit's clients is the dry ice pellets sublimate (change from a solid to a gas) upon impact and leave behind no secondary hazardous waste.  This process significantly reduces the disposal costs associated with the cleaning project.

The value Summit provides is not only recognized by their clients, but by their competitors as well. Shoulders chuckled as he remembered a time when he was bidding on a tar tank cleaning project and the client told him, "Andy, I can't find anyone to bid against you." The client explained that when he called a competitor about the project they told him, "That's a job for Summit," because it involved hazardous waste and they did not have enough knowledgeable, adequately trained employees to perform the job.

Through continued investment in the development of knowledgeable, experienced employees, continuous training and certification, and technological advancement Summit is dedicated to continue to grow and provide expert remediation, hazmat response, industrial cleaning, demolition and specialty civil services for their clients.