BusinessWest

Chabot & Burnett Builds on Its Legacy in Masonry Construction

Current president Kristin Capell remembered the first days of her tenure at the company her father and his business partner built, Chabot & Burnett Construction.
“When I got started 16 years ago, my father threw me into it and taught me everything,” she told BusinessWest. “I’d sit in a back room and learn how to estimate masonry. And dad had a grand plan. He and Dan knew when they wanted to retire, because they worked so hard their entire lives.”
Joe Chabot, her father, and Dan Burnett had started the company that bears their name in 1971, when both men were still in their teen years.
“They just did everything together from the start,” said Kristin. “They raced motorcycles, motocross, rode planes, but they were also workaholics, working 12-hour days.”
In an industry dominated by male ownership, Capell said that it is a mark of pride to be at the helm of a construction firm these days, especially one that has erected scores of brick and stone buildings, with project costs totaling in the tens of millions of dollars. But she is quick to point out that, while she is the president, two other partners have joined her in both ownership and leadership, and continue to help lay the foundation for of the area’s premier masonry-construction firms. Jim Carrier, current vice president, and Dan Burnett Jr. are both given equal credit for a business that enters its fifth decade with a rock-solid future before it.
While the economy has hit this niche of the construction sector as hard as every other trade, there have been strong signs of life for this style of structure that is built to last. The brick and stone edifices on college campuses have been a lifeline for this firm, Capell said. “For me in my career, higher education has been about 90% of our projects.”
During that time, the collective wisdom of the men who started the firm helped give Capell and her co-owners a good template for riding out the recession. While this sluggish economy dovetailed with the final days of Chabot and Burnett’s final years of succession, the pair offered advice as solid as a brick wall.
“But in comparison to other recessions, to them, this one was really ugly,” Capell noted. “It was unfortunate that it happened right at the year of their retirement. That big celebration of 40 years just wasn’t as celebratory as we might like.”
She and her partners took over the firm fully in April 2011, and with that lull just behind her, she said 2012 has a good book of work ahead, and that’s generating optimism.
When asked what her predecessors, enjoying their retirement in Florida for the winter, think about this year with $13 million of work on the books, she simply said, “they haven’t once even thought about coming back up to help out. If they were even slightly concerned at all, they would never have left.”

From the Ground Up
Capell said that masonry, and entrepreneurial spirit, were always in her father’s blood.
“My grandfather was a mason tender, and thus my father knew the trade from him,” she explained.
Chabot and Burnett were friends from high school, where they both attended Springfield Tech. Both men had taken jobs with construction firms as teens, and quickly proved themselves to be able masons.
“But they wanted to do it for themselves,” Capell said. “They knew each others’ skills, and they started originally by building chimneys to raise capital and to eventually support their payroll.”
When asked how two 19-year-olds could successfully build themselves a masonry-construction operation, Capell said solid word-of-mouth referrals built the business and enabled it to enjoy steady growth.
“All of the smaller general contractors in this area, Berneche, Fontaine …  they just got to know the two from working with them, and took a risk and hired them — and then realized how good they were,” she continued. After one initial job which the two leveraged into a bank loan to create the company, the rest is history.
“There are probably five or six buildings in just about every town around here that we’ve built — from public schools to banks, tons of work at Smith College and Mount Holyoke College. We built most of the dorms at Western New England University.”
Amherst College is the site of many Chabot & Burnett projects, both administrative and residential, including a dormitory built entirely of granite. “For a while right before the recession, in 2006, 2007, it was a building boom. At the college, we just hopped from one building to the next,” she explained.
UMass Amherst has been a source of significant work for the company as well. Over the past decade, Chabot & Burnett has built the North Apartments, a five-story, four-building student residential complex; the Studio Art building designed by Graham Gund; and the first Integrated Science Building.
Looking back — and ahead — Capell acknowledged that the industry has changed from those early days.
“All the paperwork and all the compliance, safety, LEED … this is a totally different landscape from when Chabot and Burnett were building,” she explained. “They could just go out and build a good building.”

Ton of Bricks
Her father and his partner had put into effect a 10-year succession plan for Capell, Carrier, and Burnett Jr. to eventually take over the firm. During that time, the pair were actively involved in all facets of the company — toward the end, during the recession, even helping out with no compensation.
“They went out into the field again, too,” she said. “Here they were, at the age of 65, coming back into the office at the end of the day all scratched up. Anything they could do to help.”
During their own time, the two had seen their own share of economic expansions and deep recessions. And to Capell and her partners, they offered their own strategic advice.
“‘Put your head down,’ they would say,” she remembered. “‘Trim as much as you can while still keeping the business competitively strong.’ And I did. I got rid of cleaning people, kept a small workforce going.
“Also, I bid everything,” she continued. “I was bidding $500 projects. We did some of the tornado work, just to make sure there was a revenue stream continuing. I went after everything. We did go out of our traditional geographic range, taking a $4 million job in Worcester. Big jobs like that were few and far between. We looked at it, I knew where we had to be with numbers, and I knew I had to take something like that on. Maybe we didn’t make as much money as we historically had, back in the good days. But that’s what the recession did to everyone.”
Overall, Capell said, thanks to the lessons and inspiration provided by her father and Burnett, the company has done more than survive the recession. Indeed, it is on fairly solid footing, and with a number of jobs in progress and in the pipeline.
The new Easthampton High School, a LEED-certified structure, is on the books, and UMass Amherst continues to be a solid client; the firm is building the second of the new science buildings, along with the new UMass Honors College dormitories. Much like the expedited timeline of the North Apartments, built in an-unheard of nine months, this one has a ribbon-cutting date of Dec. 1. “And we haven’t started it yet,” she said with a smile.

Sunshine State
Down in Florida, lifelong friends Chabot and Burnett are now part of the company’s proud history, Capell said, and she’s pleased to report that this first full year of their retirement has been blissfully uneventful for them, from a business perspective.
“Since we took over, they have left us alone,” she said — perhaps the best compliment from the founders of a company who were wholly engaged in the business since they were young men.
“If I ever have a question, of course they will be happy to help,” she continued. Otherwise, “they don’t worry too much about what we’re doing here. They have confidence in us. But this will always their baby, and it was emotional for them in their final year to let go.
“They both live near each other down there,” she added. “They play golf and see each other almost every day. They’re still the best of friends.”
For the new leadership team, Capell and her partners take pride in carrying on the legacy created by the two men.
“I am very proud of the reputation we have,” she said. “When we’re hired on a job, they’re happy to have us. That’s right across the board from the architects to construction managers to the other trades. We offer a professional business, getting things done fast.
“My father and Danny’s reputations preceded them, and that is carried over to us now,” she added. “A company knows that, when they hire us, there’s a history of honesty, of standing behind everything we do, and that’s what I’m most proud of.”

A chart of general contractors in Western Mass.

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Baystate Project Lifted a Troubled Construction Sector

Late in 2008, just as the economy began to slide into the Great Recession, officials at Baystate Health were having second thoughts about moving forward with their planned $250 million Hospital of the Future expansion. They eventually decided to press on, much to the relief of hundreds of workers in the construction trades — most of them local — who found the project a lifeline at a time when opportunities were scarce.

When the economy fell off a cliff late in 2008, the construction industry was already suffering — and the region’s largest health system had a big decision to make.
The issue before Baystate Health was whether to move forward with a $250 million expansion and renovation project dubbed the Hospital of the Future. Project executive Stanley Hunter said there was real anxiety about breaking ground when the economy was on such shaky ground.

“We were at the point in 2008 when we were set to start construction, and that was the time — in September and October — when the economy took a real dive, and we really thought it through, as a campus, whether we should continue the project or not,” Hunter told BusinessWest.
“We went back to reassess the finances and the long-term medical impact, and through the course of a four-month evaluation, in early 2009, we decided to stay with the project,” he went on. “We held off on going to financing and making a final decision until the board decided to move forward with it, but that was a big decision, and it has really proven to be a huge benefit for the community that we went forward.”
The first beneficiaries — long before patients will reap the benefits of a new, state-of-the-art Heart and Vascular Center and, later this year, a new Emergency Department — were the builders and tradesmen — and women — who have reaped the benefits of steady work for almost three years, at a time when their industry really needed the jobs.
“As the project came along, a lot of the construction industry — union and non-union — was at an all-time high in unemployment,” said Fiore Grassetti, business agent and industry analyst with the Ironworkers Local Union No. 7. “This came at the perfect time for the building trades.”
That’s clear from a look at the numbers.
“Obviously, the crews there were different at various times, but we consistently had 250 to 300 construction workers on the site for more than two years,” Hunter said. “That’s a huge amount of jobs, and what we’ve been able to do is focus on using as much of the local workforce as possible.”

Hire Ground
That was certainly important for Grassetti.
“We wanted to protect our labor agreement with the hospital and guarantee that local workers were put on this project, as well as responsible contractors, meaning companies with health insurance and pension plans, and who actually train with apprenticeship programs,” he said. “The hospital really went out of its way to make sure the reps were contacted and local workers got the jobs.”
To break it down, Hunter tracked four categories of workers who labored on the project: those based in Springfield, those from outside the city but within the Pioneer Valley region, females, and minorities. Two-thirds of all workers over the course of the project to date have hailed from the city or surrounding region — “well beyond the expectations we had at the beginning of the project,” he said — while women and minorities comprised 15% of the workforce.
“That was something we were very pleased with, seeing those jobs stay local,” Hunter added. “We worked with local trade organizations to set that as a priority at the very outset of the project. And they were responsive to that; they wanted to help us, to really emphasize that as an important part of this project.”
Baystate also tracked the businesses it hired to work on the Hospital of the Future, and 40% of them are headquartered locally, while 55% of employers fall into one of the four aforementioned categories (Springfield-based, regional, female, minority).
“It’s been interesting; some guys — and women — worked on the job the whole three and a half years, like the company that did the site work and landscaping, Northeast Contractors out of Ludlow,” Hunter said. “They were here in the beginning, doing excavation, and are still here now doing landscaping.”
Meanwhile, Adams and Ruxton of West Springfield was brought on for casework, millwork, and general carpentry for the project. “They’re a small company that we’ve used before this project on smaller jobs, and when this larger job came up, they were able to help out with part of it.”
Baystate also hired Harry Grodsky & Co. for HVAC work. “Grodsky did mechanical systems and plumbing systems; they’re a pretty common name here, a Springfield company,” Hunter said. “They’ve been a great partner on this job, but also on many jobs.”
The new building is 640,000 square feet in size, which Baystate is fitting out in phases. Just under half the building will house the Heart and Vascular Program, which comprises an ICU floor for the most serious patients, two regular inpatient floors, space for outpatient procedures, and a spacious operating suite with cutting-edge technology and large monitors looming above the surgical tables.
Later this year, Baystate will unveil a much larger, state-of-the-art Emergency Department in the new building, replacing a current ER that was designed to handle much less traffic than it does. Other floors have been left unfinished as shell space so that the hospital can meet future needs that may not be apparent right now — hence, the Hospital of the Future moniker.

Kid Stuff
Hunter said many workers take pride in helping to build a facility they might have visited in the past, or might need in the future.
“This is the hospital they’d go to if there was an issue with their health or their family’s health,” he said. “To have worked here for that amount of time, they’re very proud of that.”
For many of the ironworkers, the project got personal when they started working under the watchful eye of patients and staff at Baystate’s Children’s Hospital. The kids would watch the workers, who in turn started communicating with hospital staff.
“The steward was talking to the nurse and heard a Wii game got broken or stolen from the hospital, so the guys took up a collection to replace the game,” Grassetti said. “it just snowballed from there.”
Indeed, not only did the workers supply a new Wii, but they added a new Xbox for older pediatric patients, several other donations of presents, and about $1,000 from their pockets to purchase whatever else the kids might want. Later, workers discovered that the chidren’s play area was outdated, “so we hit other contractors up, other unions, and some side organizations I worked with, and we collected about $10,000 to help fix up the children’s room.”
“From there,” Grassetti added, “it snowballed even more.”
He was referring to the beams.
Those started with a sign, one of many the children had set to making for the ironworkers. It read, “hello down there from the kids up here.”
The kids started using the signs to introduce themselves, and the workers started spray-painting their patients’ names on the steel beams they sent up into the grid — similar to the well-documented beam-painting effort at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute during one of its expansions several years ago.
“Every day, we’d get a couple new names and put them on the beams, and fly the beams up,” he recalled. “It was all about putting smiles on kids’ faces. Something as simple as a name on a beam could do that.”
The effort even extended to the topping-off ceremony, which incorporated a white beam decorated with the kids’ painted handprints, as well as a pillowcase fashioned into an American flag, teddy bears, and other items.
“It was pretty exciting to be part of that project, to work with the nurses and see the smiles on the kids’ faces,” Grassetti said. “We don’t get a lot of those opportunities, to give back to the community quite like that.”
Hunter appreciates those gestures. “They made some major donations to the Children’s Hospital and made several collections for gifts around Christmas. It was a really positive experience.”
Still, it all comes back to having the opportunity to work at a time when so many in the construction industry are still struggling.
“We had high unemployment in our industry, across the building trades,” Grassetti said, “and this put a lot of our members back to work, in many cases just as their unemployment benefits were running out. Baystate really did the right thing by working with us and with all the building trades and giving us the opportunity to work with them. We formed a good relationship.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at bednar@BusinessWest.com

Forish Construction Marks Another Milestone in Its Long History

Eric Forish is a man of contrasts.
On the one hand, the man at play is a passionate and dedicated seeker of extreme winter sports. His adventures on ski slopes that few will ever traverse would give just about anyone a head of gray hair.
But the man at the helm of Forish Construction, the second-generation owner and current president, considers himself a conservative businessperson. “I always have been,” he told BusinessWest recently, “and I’ve always taken the attitude of slow and steady growth. That’s how we’ve been able to maintain ourselves over the last few years, which we have done despite the economy. We reinvest in our company — whether that’s tools or employees and staff. We continue in a controlled-growth mode.”
That approach to his family’s business is clearly a good blueprint for success in an industry that has taken some hard hits in not only this recession, but every other in its seven decades of operation. Since Forish Construction celebrated its last milestone, 60 years in business, the company’s founder (Forish’s father) passed away.
“That’s been the biggest change,” he said. “Dad’s no longer here. He was the one who created and developed this company, and of course there’s a void with his absence.” After the succession of operations to his son, Leonard Forish still came to work every day, and his legacy of how the business developed is one that the new generation credits for its success.
“Dad was always someone who embraced new technologies,” Forish explained. “But he did it with machinery and tools for doing certain operations. We always had the newest equipment to be able to increase productivity, to have the ability to do a better job, to be one step ahead of the next guy.
“And we’ve pretty much continued that tradition,” he continued. “When dad was here, he saw that, and I know he enjoyed that I was doing the same as he, in a different way — in my own field of interest.”
To that end, he said that, in construction, it is a mandate to stay current with not only the newest technology, but also training, education, regulations, licensures — all the products of an industry that is constantly changing.
“Staying current, no matter what your profession, is essential,” he said, “or else you really are moving backward.”
But as the company’s 65th year in business came to a close, and Forish looked ahead to his next milestone, it’s clear the business his dad built is headed onward and upward. “I know for a fact we’ll be here in another five years,” he joked. “So I guess the next milestone is 75 years.”

Industrial Revolution
Sitting in front of a wall of framed photographs showing the structures his firm has built over the last half-century, Forish said that a big difference in the scope of its work has come from the changing nature of the area’s business sector.
“We were living in a region of different industry,” he said. “There were still paper mills up and down the Connecticut River Valley. My dad focused on maintaining and working on all those paper mills and factories.
“We are still fortunate, though,” he was quick to add. “Our region has high-tech tooling, medical-related manufacturing, and many other types of industries that still prosper. And we still participate in activities at those sites and businesses. However, we have also focused and increased our volume of building construction over the years. Years ago, where we might have been more involved in a maintenance style of construction, now we have increased our volume of building-related activities.”

As an adjunct to building services, Forish has also added design services. “By self-performing the design aspect, we are able to keep a tight control on the final product and the ultimate cost. Design/build services often save time as well as money for the end user.”
Over the past decade, Forish has made a foray into publicly funded works, also. It is this facet of the construction industry that he said has not only helped his own firm, but, in many ways throughout this downturn, helped to keep his industry alive.
That changing face of the construction industry was a common refrain in his conversation with BusinessWest. And with so many years of growth and development, Forish said that his business has had a chance to perfect what it takes to not only get the job done right, but to get that job in the first place.
“Clearly in the private sector, the volume decreased,” he said. “Therefore, whatever activity is out there is highly sought. We’ve been successful because of the team we assembled over the years.
“As much as we’re diversified in our activities,” he continued, “my personnel is also diversified. Some are very well-versed in public sector, others in private, but overall, it’s a very strong team. That’s what is necessary in any business through difficult times. You need a strong staff to complement your organization.”
That team is vital to Forish’s own perspective on the concept of legacy. “I don’t have someone within my immediate family ready to follow me,” he said. “So what I’ve been doing is surrounding myself with good people, finding that team that can carry us forward.”

Solid Build
Forish cited another legacy that gives him a great deal of pride — the finished projects that dot the region.
“I’m proud to drive through areas and see buildings that my father completed, and then projects that we did after. Everyone in the organization feels a similar pride in our finished products. When they pass a facility that they worked on, they proudly tell their families, and their families proudly tell their friends. We all work together to create something that will last a very long time, and take great pride in doing so.”
He listed the names of several clients that have been repeat customers — Dirats Laboratories, Governor’s America Corp., as well as numerous auto dealers, public and private colleges, banks, municipal offices, and many others. Most recently, Forish completed the Steve Lewis Subaru expansion on Route 9 in Hadley, and is currently undertaking the full rebuilding of Curry Honda in Chicopee into that brand’s Generation 3 image program.
Like many other current owners of a family business, Forish said he knew early on that one day he would enter the profession of his father. The earliest address for Forish Construction was the homestead, he said, and his Tonka trucks were overshadowed by their real-life counterparts across the yard.
“I’ve always enjoyed being around construction projects and construction equipment,” he said. “It was just always part of my life. I became a civil engineer in order to gain the skills and knowledge to actually be able to go to the next level within the industry — to be the conductor of the orchestra, putting these projects together.”
He chuckled when he told the story of a recent late evening, when he stopped off at the School Street Bistro in Westfield for dinner before heading home. As he sat alone, “in walks John Reed, 95 years old, the owner of Mestek,” he said. “There’s a man who built himself a legacy.
“John told me again the story of how my grandfather worked for him, my father worked for him, and so did I,” he continued. “Not only has he used Forish Construction services for 65 years, but those of my grandfather, who was a stonemason before that.”
Forish clearly swells with pride in retelling and remembering the buildings that were built by his forebears. He calls it “an emotional connection” to the work and the region.
“Whether it’s the legacy of the family company,” he said, “or those who have worked with us, who helped us create these structures that go on for many years, I’m proud of what we do. Everyone here is proud of what we do.
“I’m thankful that we’ve had such good customers, good employees, and good opportunities,” he continued. “I’m thankful for everything that we’ve been blessed with in the past 65 years. Now let’s sit here and talk again in 10 years.”

Caolo & Bieniek Makes Some Green Statements

Architecture, like any of the construction-related industries, has been sorely tested by the recession and the heightened competition that has sprung from it. The situation is no different for Chicopee-based Caolo & Bieniek, but this firm, launched in 1955, has weathered those challenges by focusing on personal service and community involvement, garnering repeat business, and leading the way in the surging field of ‘green’ design.

Caolo & Bieniek Associates has been around for more than 50 years, providing architecture, planning, and interior-design services from its Chicopee headquarters. Its work can be seen across the Pioneer Valley, but the name doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.
“We have a lot of repeat clients; people recognize the name, simply because it’s hard to spell and pronounce,” joked Curtis Edgin, one of CBA’s three principals. Then he added, “I would like to think we get repeat business because we provide good service. This is a service industry.”
Caolo & Bieniek — for the record, it rhymes with ‘halo’ and ‘scenic’ — has indeed forged a solid reputation, largely in the public sector.
“That’s not our sole focus, but I would say 70% to 75% of our work is public in one form or another,” Edgin said. That includes projects at UMass, Westfield State University, STCC, and HCC, as well as public schools — everything from preschools to high schools — in Springfield, West Springfield, Chicopee, and other area communities.
“We don’t only do education work — we do a lot of police and fire, public safety, libraries, senior centers … it’s a pretty diversified firm,” he added. “Are we number one in any of those sectors? Probably not, but we’re usually a contender. And we don’t pursue things a long way away from home; we tend to keep it within an hour, hour and a half radius from here — all of Western Mass. and parts of Central Mass.”
That speaks to a community focus that Edgin spoke of several times as he sat with BusinessWest.
“I’ve been with the firm since the mid-’80s, and a lot of our staff is long-term as well; they’ve been here for many years. Continuity is not a bad thing.”
However, “it’s becoming more and more challenging for us in the education sector, especially with the K-12 segment, in that control over who gets the jobs is coming out of Boston, and they don’t give much of it to firms out here. We’re competing against both Boston firms and Connecticut firms coming up here,” he said.
“The difference is, we live here, we employ people here, we pay taxes here, we buy groceries here, we shop at hardwares store here, and we give back — any number of our people serve on nonprofit boards, municipal boards, planning boards, giving back to the community.”
Even so, Caolo & Bieniek can boast several recent public projects that are making an innovative mark, particularly in the realm of ‘green’ design. For this issue, BusinessWest talked with Edgin about those jobs, and how this firm is keeping its name alive during a challenging time for the industry.

LEED by Example
Caolo & Bieniek has taken jobs as far away as Ohio for a Veterans Affairs hospital, and conducted some far-flung work for the U.S. Postal Service, but most of its signature projects have been in or not far from the Pioneer Valley — from the aforementioned schools and colleges to work for MassMutual, Spalding, Raymour & Flanigan, Polish National Credit Union, Rocky’s, Boys and Girls Club of Chicopee, Subway, IHOP, and many others.

The economy has been challenging for the private sector, he conceded, but the public well hasn’t been as deep as in past decades, either. Much of the federal stimulus money that poured into Massachusetts over the past few years was earmarked for roads and bridges — “horizonal projects for the most part, not vertical, so to speak.”
One area in which Caolo & Bieniek has stayed ahead of the curve — and is now riding a growing wave — is green architecture and sustainable design, as evidenced by its work on the new UMass police station, the first LEED-certified building on the Amherst campus, but very likely not the last.
LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a federal program that lays out stringent, and often costly, guidelines by which new buildings can earn ‘points’ toward different levels of sustainability. The UMass project earned gold status, the top level.
“It involves air quality, types of materials used, things like low-VOC [volatile organic compounds] paints, right down to the furniture you choose,” Edgin said. “You can make a great building and then put in furniture that defeats the whole purpose, because there might be formaldehyde in the table core or chairs. So you have to be careful there.
“It’s also efficient use of water, electricity, and natural resources,” he added. “In the case of UMass, that building has a geothermal heating and cooling system drawing heat and cold from the earth, which helps to make it more efficient to operate.”
Many municipalities, schools, and businesses are starting to see the value in green building design, Edgin said; even if they can’t afford the up-front costs of LEED certification, many are at least incorporating many of those energy-efficient and sustainable ideas into their structures.
One project, the new Easthampton High School set to open in 2013, has earned certification from Mass CHPs, a LEED-like green-building program for the Commonwealth. Among the considerations are bigger windows to maximize daylight, a photovoltaic array being installed on the roof to harvest solar power, and LED lighting.
“There’s a commitment to sustainable building” in many communities throughout the region, Edgin said, and that’s partly because clients are starting to look beyond the up-front project cost — which is often more expensive for green initiatives — to the lifetime costs that a structure will entail, and how sustainable and energy-efficient designs often pay for themselves many times over.
“Clients are starting to understand it’s not just about the first-dollar cost on bid day; it’s about the life of the building — and that’s encouraging,” he continued. “If they’re informed, if they’re given the facts and educated on opportunities presented by taking these extra measures, they realize it’s in their best interests.
“It’s a buzzword now,” he said of green design and construction, “but we’ve been doing it a long time. It’s been a hard sell in society in general, but now, it’s becoming much more common.”
Such building design, he said, can be educational for people who use the facilities.
“You can use the building as a teaching tool,” Edgin said. “Although people are becoming more accustomed to these buildings and beginning to understand what they actually do, many people don’t have a clue about the mechanical system, or why the lighting is what it is.”
Even including bike racks or being located near public transportation comes into play. “That’s all considered in sustainable design — the location of the building, the orientation of the building to maximize sunlight, all kinds of factors.”
He compared the trend in green architecture to separating and recycling trash. Many Americans may have questioned the importance of that practice 20 years ago, but today, most households do it without a second thought.
“Maybe this education won’t be necessary in 20 or 30 years because everyone will do it, and it’ll be common practice,” he said of sustainable design. “But now, the building can teach. Maybe kids in a science class [at EHS] can go outside and see the bioretention swales that are holding rainwater instead of it getting sent to the city storm sewer. Those are things we can make people aware of, and that’s beneficial.”

Personal Touch
There are plenty of factors that go into building a name in the business world, Edgin noted, but one stands out.
“We sell service,” he said. “There’s a reason we have a lot of repeat clients — they know we do our best to make sure every job is successful. Every project has a number of roadblocks; how you solve them is what’s important.
He said CBA cultivates a culture of teamwork, starting with his partners, Jim Hanifan and Ken Jodrie, and their associates.
“We’re all involved together,” he said. “We’re large enough to take on some pretty significant projects, but small enough to be responsive to our clients’ needs. We work together, share resources, and discuss projects among ourselves. It’s not just one person. Everyone here contributes, from the youngest guy to the oldest guy. Everyone’s filling a role or, in many cases, multiple roles. No one person or entity makes a project successful.”
That teamwork is a benefit in keeping up with time demands that have become more challenging in the digital age.
“People want things now,” Edgin said. “It used to be, you mailed something, and the client mailed something back. Then faxes came about, and you prepared something and faxed it back. With e-mail, you push a button, and they expect you to respond. And you’re always in touch — on the road, on vacation — and people expect a response. That’s fine, but you still have to put the effort into making an informed response. There’s a time element involved in making good decisions.”
He can cite plenty of good decisions that led to notable buildings — and that repeat business. For instance, Caolo & Bieniek has been working on projects at Westfield State for a quarter-century. “To see the transition there — that’s probably one of the most desirable state colleges in the system. Not because of us, but we’ve contributed to the changes out there.”
The company also designed a series of new buildings for STCC in the ’70s and ’80s, as well as multi-unit residences for the Springfield Housing Authority and the Holyoke Housing Authority. “It’s fun to drive around and say, ‘oh, I was involved in that project’ — and I’m always looking to see what we could do better next time.”
He said diversity is the other key to staying relevant in a competitive marketplace.
“Some firms just specialize — do just hospitals or schools. That’s fine, but in Western Mass., you really don’t have the luxury of one project type, unless it’s residential,” he said.
“We can do almost any project type. There are exceptions — we’re not going to design a nuclear reactor, for instance. If there’s a need for some specific knowledge, we can bring people in and collaborate,” he said, citing as one example laboratory facilities in a college science department. “But in most cases you can sit and talk with a client and understand what they’re trying to achieve, and work with them to provide a solution.”
CBA will call in consultants when it needs to, such as historic-preservation experts when it repaired the clock face on the Old Chapel at UMass. Edgin also cited the Indian Orchard Branch Library, where Caolo & Bieniek restored a brilliant rotunda that had been painted over and forgotten by time. “It was kind of a gem that nobody knew was there,” he said.
“Those are fun stories,” he added. “But we also do a lot of nuts-and-bolts work, keeping people warm and dry and safe.”
And, increasingly, green. n

Joseph Bednar can be reached at bednar@businesswest.com

Raymond James Restoration Has This Art Down to a Science

A century ago, craftspeople spent endless hours doing intricate work on the exterior of buildings that is seldom replicated today.
So, when an old structure such as a museum, library, or brick apartment complex needs restoration, many people believe it will be impossible to reconstruct portions of the original façade or match it exactly without spending a lot of money, especially since colors of brick and mortar change and fade over time.
But Raymond James Restoration Inc. of Worcester and Springfield has been debunking that notion for 15 years. “Restoration work is an art, and a lot of projects can be expensive. But restoration is all we do and because of our background, experience and knowledge, our repairs match so well no one ever knows they were done,” said Raymond James Simoncini, who founded the business. He added that although perfect matches take extra time, the company’s well-honed methods allow them to complete projects at reasonable prices.
Details are important to Simoncini, and like the craftsmen of yesterday, he has dedicated his career to restoring buildings to their former grandeur so people can continue to enjoy their original beauty for generations to come.
“I want things to look right. I love old buildings and their history,” he said. “Appearance is very important to me and it doesn’t take that much more time to do something correctly, which is one of the secrets to my success.”
Simoncini grew up in the construction business and sharpened his skills under the tutelage of a dedicated mason who had taught the craft at a vocational high school and loved restoration work. Since that time, he has gone from working for others, to operating a one-man operation, to managing a business which employs eight people with services that range from masonry restoration of building facades, to historic revitalizations, to the many aspects of masonry repair, masonry cleaning and protection services, and maintenance consultation services. His roster of services also encompasses concrete precast repair and replacement and waterproofing coating and painting.
The majority of the work is done in the commercial arena. Currently, the company is engaged in the first phase of a project on one of the buildings that make up Stockbridge Court in Springfield.
“It’s made of concrete, and some of the material was falling off,” Simonici explained, adding that water had seeped in behind the façade. The job involves treating the steel frame, which has rusted, and re-coating the entire structure with waterproof paint.
However, many of his projects are far more challenging and range from sites in Worcester and the Boston area to UMass Amherst. And since some sites are large and the work must be done in stages to accommodate budgets, Simonici also does consultation work and develops plans that prioritize the importance of repairs that need to be done.
“They can range from safety issues to cosmetics,” he explained. “So, I fine tune the jobs so people know where to spend their money.”

Concrete Examples
Simoncini’s introduction to the construction business came at a young age when he began working for his father. He studied business in college, and although he continued working for his dad, he began taking on jobs of his own. In time, he was hired by a masonry-restoration company whose work included many high-end projects in Boston, on Newbury Street, Beacon Street and Commonwealth Avenue.
While employed there, he was mentored by Michael McCarthy, a mason and teacher who cared deeply about restoration work. “He taught me how to match bricks and mortar, which has allowed me to separate myself from my competitors,” Simoncini said. “He sculpted me into restoration.”
During that time, Simoncini gained two clients who had so much for him to do, the time he spent on their projects soon equaled the 40 hours he was putting in at with his employer.
When the firm’s business began to slow, Simoncini did some work for other companies, as he had joined the local mason’s union. But at age 24, he made the decision to go into business himself, and quickly became extremely busy due to word-of-mouth referrals, which to this day is how he gets most of his work.
“I can find any brick and make it look old, and can match any mortar in a wall,” he said, adding that his company has doubled the amount of work it has done each year for the past three years.
Simoncini has never shied away from a challenge, and has faced many during his career. A good example is the historic Edgell Memorial Library in Framingham, which was built in 1872 to commemorate the service of Civil War soldiers.
The slate roof was being replaced, and that meant the library’s two stone chimneys needed to come down and put back up exactly the way they had been built.
“Every stone had to come off and be labeled; we took photos and made a diagram, but putting something like that back together is not foolproof,” Simoncini explained. “The biggest challenge was that the mortar joints had to be exactly the same size as they had been and had to line up perfectly.”
The crews were able to accomplish the painstaking job to Simoncini’s standards, which he said are often higher than those expressed by the clients who hire him.
And that’s one of the reasons why there are many similarly challenging assignments in the company’s portfolio. Another example is the work undertaken at the   Worcester Historical Museum.
Crews from Raymond James tore down its chimney, and, while rebuilding it,  discovered that 100 of its 300 bricks were not salvageable. Rather than putting all of the new bricks in one section, they carefully mixed them into the design so they were not visible.
Simoncini said it would have been easier to put them all at the top or bottom of the chimney, but his focus has always been on restoration that is not visible.
It was also difficult to match the 50-year-old mortar, but the ability to do such detailed work is what sets him apart, he said, adding, “I am very, very particular in everything I do.”
Another assignment that came complete with a number of challenges was the courtyard of the Rhode Island Federal Courthouse, where some of the pillars needed brick-replacement work. Simoncini explained that water had gotten between the bricks and the steel supporting rods and had pushed the bricks out. In order to get an exact match for 300 bricks, he purchased 1,600 so he could carefully pick and choose among them. “When you order bricks, they come in cubes of 500, and the shades are different colors,” he explained.
But he wasn’t content until he had found a perfect match. “I believe that the work I do is a direct reflection of me, and I won’t use something that isn’t right,” Simoncini said.
“Some people have been told that a certain color brick doesn’t exist anymore,” he told BusinessWest. “But it’s not true. In 15 years, we have never run into a brick we couldn’t find.”
He added that he does a good deal of work for property managers. “They are always trying to save dollars, but they want things to look right, and the reason I have been successful is because that is exactly what I do.”
His company also did brick-replacement, repointing, and sealant work on the Student Union at UMass Amherst. “The sealant was challenging because we were removing mortar in between the capstones and replacing it with the sealant and it had to match the original mortar that we removed. But the project engineer for UMass told us it was the best caulking job he had seen during his career,” Simoncini recalled with pride.

A Full Slate
By utilizing its own team members, Raymond James Restoration is able to control quality as well as project timelines and budgets, since it doesn’t have to wait for subcontractors, which means there no scheduling delays.
And although Simoncini said he could choose to take on more-costly projects in large cities such as Boston, his goal has always been to use his expertise to restore old buildings at rates that people could afford — providing a perfect match even when others have said it cannot be done.
And that has helped him cement a reputation that is, well, rock solid.