Another winter has come and gone and spring is quickly approaching. At the time of writing this, we probably have another 3 weeks of cold weather to get thru, but the county and state agencies are getting anxious to see us start again. One reason for that is because we worked right up to the snowballs and weren't able to fully complete some projects. If the weather will cooperate, we are looking at the week of April 4th to kick out the crews.

    The Subdrain crew will start out on a project about 2 miles south of Chelsea then head to Black Hawk county for a couple of days. From there, they will settle in on the Benton county project to subdrain and place the rock shoulders. That will take the better part of 2 weeks to finish. By that time the Des Moines airport should be ready for their first phase. This crew presently has over 500,000 feet on the books. We have had some luck in the past lettings and hope to easily fill this crew out for the remaining season.    

    In the Sealcoat - Stabilization area, they too, have an early start date. They actually will start with a small subdrain project in Elberon, then move to Jasper county to start a large fly ash stabilization project involving 14 different locations that will probably take 3 months of work to complete. They also have a one-month project to complete in Missouri at Lake Thunderhead. I am getting concerned that we may have to borrow some help in the grading department to keep the stabilization program going and to complete our sealcoat commitments. The stabilization division seems to be coming along well with several projects pending to easily fill this season.  Virg is now out and about calling on our small cities and towns to fill up the sealcoat schedule. It has seemed to be a hard winter on the existing sealcoat roads and this will probably add to the workload.

    As we return to work, a safe and accident free season is priority one, while constructing the highest quality projects possible. We need to strive for zero incidents.  Not just say it, as usual, but also make it happen! This all comes down to working with the right attitude, that it not only costs the company, but it also costs you. We are responsible for ourselves and our fellow employees. If you see someone doing an unsafe act, point it out to them and work together to correct it. I am looking forward to seeing everyone come back for another construction season. It is truly a great feeling to have the years of service and experience return each year. It speaks volumes for this company and what it stands for. Lets have a safe, zero incident 2005 construction season!