Enhanced Vision

Hindsight may be perfect, but success tends to come from looking ahead rather than behind. For Veit Cos., a specialty contracting and waste management firm based in Rogers, Minn., success has come from never resting on past accomplishments.

"Veit’s growth has evolved from enhancing what we’ve already done," says Greg Boelke, the company’s president. "It’s about always trying to be better."

The company’s quest for continual improvement has been a priority since Frank Veit started it with a single truck and a handful of employees in 1928. Now in its third generation, the family-owned business employs more than 500 people and serves its customers from four offices—its corporate headquarters in Rogers, and additional locations in Duluth and Rochester, Minn., and its newest location in Milwaukee.

The company provides a variety of specialty contracting services to general contractors and customers in private industry, as well as municipalities and local governments. It specializes in site preparation projects that require earthwork, demolition, environmental remediation, utilities, foundations and industrial cleaning. The company’s projects often include a strong waste management component as well.

Veit strives to recycle as much material as possible on its demolition sites, and has achieved 90-percent recycling rates on select demolition projects, says Chuck Geisler, director of sales and marketing.

Earlier in 2008, the company added a material recovery facility to its Minneapolis location to capture and recycle more construction and demolition debris.

The sort line, designed by Erin Systems, recycles mixed loads of debris that are generated from a number of new construction, demolition and remodeling projects.

"We’d been recycling at that facility since it opened," Geisler says, adding that the location opened as a C&D material transfer station in the early 1990s. In the early stages, the company focused on recycling traditional materials like steel and concrete. However, the team at Veit saw the market evolving and opportunities opening up for other materials, including wood, cardboard and other paper products and carpet.

"We were looking at the end markets," says Boelke of the design approach to the sorting system. "We felt there was a cost savings in being able to recycle more products, and those markets seemed to be opening up."

The advent and growing popularity of green building and the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program, has put a greater emphasis on recycling C&D debris, according to Geisler.

Veit has seized on the growing demand for LEED projects by offering its customers C&D recycling services to help them earn LEED points and certification.

The C&D recycling efforts reflect Veit’s longstanding commitment to sustainability. "Our green efforts have been going on for decades now," Geisler says. The company has supported the reduce-reuse-recycle attitude since 1942 when it built its first shop in Brooklyn Park, Minn., primarily out of materials salvaged from a barn demolition, he adds. "Even today, we are deconstructing, rather than demolishing, and reusing materials whenever possible."

Where others might see unwelcome challenges, Veit sees opportunities to do its best work, Geisler says. "Our mantra is that we can solve your toughest job site challenges, and our record proves this."

Furthermore, Veit prides itself on applying inventive techniques to solve such tough job site challenges. "We’ve introduced innovative solutions such as the use of dry ice blasting to prepare precious historical monuments for refurbishing and preservation," Geisler says. "We’ve also used cast-in-place pipelining to reline a process pipe at an industrial manufacturing facility while facing myriad challenges. Where others have failed, we’ve been up to the challenge and have succeeded time and time again."

For a company that specializes in specialty contracting services, headlines about the declining availability of credit, stagnant construction spending and a volatile stock market are hardly welcome news. Likewise, for a company that takes pride in an innovative approach to business, tough times could dampen an inventive spirit. However, at Veit, tough times are when the company shines.

"Actually the tougher times bring out the best in us because we’re always in the mindset of being innovators," says Boelke. "We take these times as opportunities to use that thought process even deeper because we need to. It actually puts an added kick into our step."

Market conditions in Veit’s hometown of Minneapolis and the surrounding region continue to feel the effects of the credit crunch, says Geisler. "When economic conditions become difficult, like they are right now, the number of competitors we come across seems to escalate," adds Geisler. "We use these opportunities to differentiate ourselves beyond the price equation. Given that’s part of our culture, the way we do business, we continue to innovate."

Veit applies its innovative approach to the equipment it selects, as well as to its demolition techniques and contracting services. The company has always strived to be an early adopter of the latest equipment, and has often been the first in the Midwest to operate certain types of machinery, Geisler says.

The Erin system operating at the Minneapolis material recovery facility is an example of Veit’s emphasis on investing in the right equipment. It is designed to capture more recyclable commodities from a mixed C&D stream, including cardboard, metal, wood, concrete and other aggregate materials. Once sorted, aggregates and metal are trucked to recycling facilities. Wood is ground at the facility for a variety of end markets, including mulch, biomass fuel and animal bedding.

End markets, like those Veit has found for its recyclable wood, are vital not only to the company’s success but to the recycling industry’s viability as well, according to Steve Halgren, senior vice president of Veit’s waste management division. "People perceive endless opportunities when it comes to recycling," Halgren says. "But the markets dictate what’s really recyclable."

While many materials from mixed C&D debris, like metal, wood and concrete, enjoy stable, well-developed end-use markets, other materials are more challenging. Markets are just emerging for carpet, asphalt shingles, drywall and some plastics, Halgren says.

Technology needs to keep up with the demands for recycling more and more from the C&D stream, says Geisler. The industry is also facing a challenge as commodity prices fall, which puts added pressure on margins for labor intensive processes, such as the sort line, he adds.

However, with those challenges, Veit sees opportunities. With the USGBC’s LEED initiative driving C&D recycling nationwide and Milwaukee poised for growth through upcoming redevelopment efforts, Veit expects the years ahead to be busy.

The building business has many steps—from site remediation to laying foundations to demolition and C&D waste management—and Veit’s service offerings have grown to include most activities one can find on a job site. "Veit is often the first and last contractor at a job site, from initial demolition and site grading to hauling away the last load of construction debris." says Geisler.

The business today reflects that natural progression. "We started in demolition, and then we looked for ways to improve the management of our demolition debris, so we ended up in the roll-off business," Boelke says. "Then we were looking for better ways to manage that debris, therefore we ended up in C&D recycling." The pattern of vertical integration has suited the company well. "We looked at challenges and took them on internally and became industry leaders as we did it," says Boelke. C&DR

The author is managing editor of C&DR and can be contacted at jgubeno@gie.net.