Mechanical, Inc. -- People building value

BY JOHN MESENBRINK,

chief editor

Congratulations are in order to Mechanical, Inc., Freeport, Ill., Phc News’ 2008 “Contractor of the Year.” With Mechanical, Inc.’s quality service offering and a commitment to customer service, its employees and sustainable building design, it’s no wonder that this 40-year old mechanical contracting firm is turning heads in the Midwest. (Mechanical, Inc. ranks 43rd on Phc News’ 2008 Top 100 Contractors listing.)

Mechanical self performs plumbing and all types of piping work, including automotive paint systems, orbital welding for food and pharmaceutical plants, renewable energy plants and power plant piping. Mechanical provides total mechanical, as well as hvac sales and service, and is one of the largest plumbing contractors in Illinois handling commercial plumbing projects of any size. The company provides industrial process piping capabilities and can design and install systems for any application. The company has the ability to mobilize its workforce anywhere in the country.

Vision is 20/20

The mission statement is clear: Conduct business with openness, fairness, and integrity and expect the same from customers, and toe the company motto line: “We do what we say.” And the company’s vision? It is even clearer: “People Building Value.” 

Recently, Mechanical, Inc. was selected to receive the prestigious Gilbane Construction’s Subcontractor Excellence Award. The company also has received a 2007 mcaa Certificate of Commendation for having an osha lost workday incident rate 25% below the industry average. And, Mechanical also received a 2007 award from the Chicago mca for having the best safety record in the 350,000-500,000 man-hour category. 

Executing approximately one million man-hours in 2008 -- which is 480 full-time equivalent employees and 650 peak season employees -- workplace safety is a priority.

“Mechanical has one of the best safety records in the industry. We place the highest value on the safety of our employees, and we employ a staff of three full-time safety professionals that provide training on our job sites. We make enforcement of our safety policies everyone’s responsibility on our job sites. Here at Mechanical, Inc., we make sure that nobody walks past an unsafe act or condition -- it is stopped and corrected,” said Brian Helm, president of Mechanical, Inc.

From the beginning

Mechanical, Inc. was started in 1968 as a small plumbing company that primarily performed wastewater treatment plant work. Throughout the ’70s and ’80s, Mechanical, Inc. worked on various types of commercial and industrial facilities in northwest Illinois. In the 1990s, Mechanical started performing pre-fabrication projects for special customers throughout the United States and made an effort to get into the Chicago market. In 2003, Mechanical bought Borg Mechanical, which was a major healthcare and industrial contractor in the Chicagoland area.  Mechanical Inc. has added offices in Gary, Indiana and Milwaukee, Wisconsin within the last three years.    

All-star recruiting

Hiring and retaining quality employees is key. “We provide extraordinary opportunities for employees by attracting aggressive, enthusiastic people, training and challenging them, and by providing a safe, respectful and enjoyable work environment,” said Helm.

Mechanical is fortunate to have union partners that are able to staff work with the best employees in the business, so field staffing hasn’t been a pressing problem. The bigger concern is getting young high school and college graduates to start their career in the construction industry, and Mechanical is working with apprenticeship programs and local school districts to educate prospective plumbers and pipefitters.

“We think we provide the best place to work. Our employees want to be challenged, but also want support to be effective in their roles.  When foremen and project managers run projects for us it is like they are running their own business, but we give them all of the internal resources necessary to make them successful,” said Helm.

One example of finding the best of the best, Mechanical Inc. recently hired 30-year industry veteran Mike Cullinane as vice president. Immediate past-president of the mcaa, past president of the mca of Chicago and the Chicagoland Better Heating and Cooling Council, past chairman of mcaa’s Investment Advisory Committee and the Industry Improvement Funds Committee, Cullinane is nationally known and highly respected in the industry. In his new role, Cullinane will oversee Mechanical, Inc.’s Hillside, Illinois office and will coordinate business development efforts throughout the Chicago region -- specifically developing hvac and plumbing projects in Chicago and its suburbs. In addition, he will serve industrial customers and engineering firms nationwide in the process piping market. He continues to serve on mcaa’s Executive Committee. “We’re very excited about Mike joining our organization. His years of experience have given him a great depth of knowledge and earned him enormous respect within our industry,” said Helm.

“Mechanical offers a vast number of services and have a reputation for excellence and great integrity in everything they do,” said Cullinane.

Green thumb

Mechanical Inc.’s commitment to sustainable design is evident. The mechanical contracting company has 10 leed accredited professionals on staff and has built a number of leed certified facilities. The engineering group also performs leed commissioning work for its customers. “In addition to leed projects, we work on geothermal systems and renewable fuels projects. Well before the most recent green movement began, we provided energy-savings solutions to industrial and commercial customers through hvac and plumbing system efficiencies,” said Helm.

For example, Mechanical, Inc. continues its solid track record of successful hospital and green building projects, highlighted by the Sherman Hospital’s $310 million replacement hospital project in Elgin, Ill. Scheduled to open in late 2009, the hospital will be mainly heated and cooled by geothermal energy from a 15-acre artificial lake next to the facility.

The lake will have a natural clay liner and be filled with rainwater. Water and methanol-bearing coils of piping, or heat exchanger rafts, are stationed at the lake’s floor. The steady temperature at the bottom of the lake will be the heating and cooling source for the solution passing through the coils. This solution, in turn, is circulated by a lake loop heat-pump system.

When the circulating solution reaches the water source heat pumps, the energy is converted to warm or cool air to regulate the temperature of the majority of the hospital’s rooms. The emergency room and surgical suites will employ a traditional heating and cooling system, since they require cooler temperatures.

Mechanical, Inc. is installing the hospital’s intricate heating and cooling system, including 275,000 feet of two-inch piping in the geothermal heat exchanger -- a component which uses the lake’s natural geothermal properties to heat and cool the hospital. Mechanical, Inc. is also installing the medical gas piping and the plumbing in the facility.

The crystal ball

The current state of the economy has many businesses in the “wait-and-see” mode. For Mechanical, it has not yet seen much of a slowdown in the types of work it typically pursues. “We know that a big slowdown is coming and we are just starting to enter a slowdown in our markets. I think it may be two to three years before we see work as plentiful as it has been the last few years.” said Helm. Currently, the biggest change is that Mechanical is spending more time pre-qualifying its customers and subcontractors to determine their financial capacity. “We think we will be able to weather the economic storm fairly well, but we need to spend more time with due diligence on the projects that we pursue,” continued Helm.

Over the next five years, the trend is the movement toward building information modeling (bim) and total project integration, which will make the mep contractors a more critical part of the project team. “As mep contractors get brought into projects earlier in the design process, we will be able to cut schedule time drastically. Really, the mep contractors have the biggest influence on decreasing total construction cost and schedule time, but we need to be brought into the process as early as possible. This is the change that general contractors and engineers are starting to recognize and I think project owners will start to embrace this trend very soon,” said Helm.

If Helm could give the one piece of critical advice to the struggling contractor, “Don’t chase work unless you know there is real money behind the project.”

For more information on Mechanical, Inc., please visit www.mechinc.com.