Virg Heishman and Bob Kalinay are still out putting subdrain in the ground trying to finish our final subdrain and shouldering projects.  Usually by now these guys have pulled their equipment into the yard and are driving the deer through the woods.  I know that their hearts might be in the forests right now, but they are completing their jobs as needed.  I want to thank them for their loyalty.

     As you can tell from our late work season, we have done a huge volume of work this year.  In fact, we have sales this year that are $35,000,000 more than one year ago.  If you will remember from an earlier newsletter I wrote this spring that we made a decision to take cheap work early instead of cheap, cheap work late.  We could see the problem coming last fall and we reacted to it.  Interestingly enough we made less money this year than a year ago, even though we did $35,000,000 more work.  This has been a tough year.

    The positive side of this equation is that we filled our trucks with drivers early this year, got the trucks on the road in April, and I am sure most employees had more personal income if they were in our construction side of the house.

     As in most years, we completed all our work and then the estimators must go back to work to figure out how we are going to keep busy next year.  It’s kind of like a grocery store running out of groceries and all the shelves are empty before they go out and reorder new groceries.  That’s our challenge this winter.  Get the shelves full again!  We don’t know at this time where we will get this work, but we always seem to find enough to keep busy.  As always I am optimistic.

     Overall we have had a relatively good safe construction season.  This should help us with future insurance purchasing power.  Hopefully fuel costs continue to drop.  This past season I felt that increased fuel prices probably added over $1,000,000 to our costs.  We use a lot of fuel in our business.  It’s not uncommon for our trucks to use over 75 gallons per day.  With over 200 trucks on the road each day that’s a lot of fuel.

     I recently heard at a meeting that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is looking into the environmental impact of diesel trucks idling and how the unburned particles are spewed into the air affecting both the air we breathe and the health of the people inhaling the particles.  Apparently there is a connection.  This gives us another good reason to turn our trucks and equipment off when not in use to improve our air, health, and conserve energy.

     Lastly, on a sad note, Joan Linder was killed in a vehicle accident after work on a Benton County road between Shellsburg and Vinton.  This is a very sad ending to a construction season that had many highlights.  Joan worked in our quality control department and was very dedicated to her work.  She started with our company in 1991 and became the person we could go to and count on to watch over the testing and reporting of results to both us, and the contracting authority.  She did her job well and we will miss her.  I want to personally offer my condolences to her husband and six children.