Life Is a Highway
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spring & summer 2010 The biannual newsmagazine of the OSCO Construction Group OSCO construction Life is a group Highway: Profile on Transportation Projects Picadilly Potash Mine • Bayers Road Parking Garage • P3 Schools • Irving Refinery • Engineering Spotlight • 2010 OSCOR Nominees what we do pg.8 pg.16 pg.21 What’s Inside... spring & summer 2010 24 Pouring it On: Ready-Mix Update what we do Summerside Seawall Repair; Summerside Waste Treatment; Crandall University 3 Message from the President 25 Irving Oil Refinery Dehexanizer 4 Life is a Highway - Transportation Profile Marque Industrial performs Electrical and Instrumentation installation Fairview Overpass; Larry Uteck Boulevard Interchange; One Mile Inter- change; Princess Margaret Bridge 26 York Miscellaneous Metals Division Updates 8 Picadilly Potash Ocean Steel calls on all three plants for Sussex, NB project how we do it 10 135 North Street 27 Group Safety News FCC Civil; Strescon Precast; Ocean Steel; and FCC Electrical team up on Bridgewater, NS office building 28 Engineering Spotlight Steel Division Engineers; UNB Engineering Tour; Stantec Tour 12 East Saint John Terminal Dock OSCO Group team effort helps bring together Canaport project 30 25 Year Club Dinner OSCO Group inducts largest group ever to long-service club 13 Garden Stone Place Strescon provides architectural precast for mixed-use development 31 OSCORS: OSCO Group celebrates its employees with recognition dinner 14 Bayers Road Parking Garage Strescon precast helps Halifax developer solve parking issues 16 Projects in the Precast Pipeline who we are Strescon Pipe offers complete package to Twin Brooks subdivision; 32 Helping Hands: OSCO Group community contributions Strescon Pipe provides stormwater solution to new Costco 18 Customer Profile: Bird Construction 32 Haiti Relief: $9883.50 in combined employee/corporate donations 19 Two Green P3 Schools for NB 32 The Give Strescon precast helps Rexton and Moncton schools achieve LEED 33 Throwing a Lifeline: Ocean Steel employee saves coworker’s life certification 33 Take Our Kids to Work Day 20 All Wired Up: FCC Electrical & Com Cabling Updates Acadia Broadcasting; MSD Sand & Gravel Plant; Canada Post 34 Curling Bonspiel 20 Marque Industrial Project Updates: 34 Coming Events East Saint John Marine Terminal; Irving Oil Refinery; Irving Pulp & Pa- per; Irving Paper; Lake Utipia Paper; Potash Mine 34 Irving Hockey League: FCC Chiefs take championship 21 Martins Point 35 Strescon Ski Night Strescon design-builds garage underneath Portland, ME health center 35 Fresh Faces 22 Rebar Update OSCO Eastern Wastewater Treatment Facility; NBCC Allied Health Center; CFB 35 Congratulations construction Gagetown tunnels; misc projects 36 Our Locations group CONNECTIONS is the biannual magazine of the OSCO on the cover... Construction Group, published every Spring and Fall to share news and information with our valued customers & employees OSCO Concrete’s Nova Scotia plants pump Comments and submissions are greatly appreciated and may be sent ready-mix for the Fairview Overpass project to the editor: Tammy Legacy, c/o OSCO Construction Group • 400 in Bedford, NS. Chesley Drive, Saint John, NB • Canada • E2K 5L6 • email: legacy.tammy@ 2 oceansteel.com what we do Message from the President Today’s reality is that our customers expect us specified so that quality is never compromised! to perform to a higher standard than ever before. We take great pride in doing a quality job. This is not unique to our construction group; nor 3rd – SCHEDULE: We work very hard keep our to our industry. As individual consumers we expect promised delivery dates; but never at the this same high standard no matter what we buy. expense of taking safety shortcuts or doing a Just ask Toyota if they would like to have a “do- poor-quality job. over” on how they handled their recent vehicle problems! Like our customers, we all have expecta- 4th – COSTS: We all have cost budgets to meet; but our budgets are meant to allow for our tions with respect to pricing, use of our time and Sometimes we quality. Given that one of our CORE VALUES is to employees to perform their work in a safe FOCUS ON OUR CUSTOMERS’ NEEDS, we un- manner, in a 1st class fashion and within the may lose our scheduled time frame as agreed to. derstand the importance of maintaining loyal and focus while repeat customers. The above priorities are extremely important to At the same time, we have to respect the remember when performing any activities for the trying to save hazardous environment in which we work relative Group. Sometimes we may lose our focus while try- some money or to most other industries. Construction projects by ing to save some money or to speed up our perfor- their nature involve assembling a large workforce of mance. This thinking if at the expense of safety and/ to speed up our individuals, who in many cases have never worked or quality is not in keeping with how we want to run performance. together before. These trades people perform sev- our businesses. We must never compromise on this eral simultaneous tasks using products which can principle no matter who is demanding that you do This thinking, if cause severe personal injury or property damage if so. You can quote me personally on that one!! at the expense mishandled or improperly installed. Eastern Canada continues to be an active and For this reason, it’s important that we all clearly relatively healthy market whereas the east coast of of safety and/ understand what choices to make in dealing with the USA is still experiencing severe difficulty. Jobs or quality, is not the overlapping requests of the Group and our cus- are few and far between, mostly in the public sector tomers. using stimulus funding, with contractors fiercely in keeping with Usually there are four competing areas that em- chasing market share by underbidding each other. how we want ployees are often asked to prioritize: safety, quality, We remain fortunate that our reliance on the United schedule and cost. Although it can be difficult to States has diminished to the point that we can with- to run our have to pick one over the other, the wrong choice stand this upheaval for some period of time. We’re businesses. can lead to unintended consequences; both for the looking forward to better days in late-2011 to re- Group and our customer. enter the American market. In the meantime, we’ll To ensure that we always follow the right path, stay focused on the work we have and look forward I want to make it clear that in all circumstances we to more opportunities in the future. should prioritize our work as follows: 1st – HEalth & Safety: Never endanger yourself, any other employee nor any other parties under any circumstance Hans O. Klohn President, OSCO Construction Group 2nd – Q u a l it y : Do the work as designed and/or www.oscoconstructiongroup.com CONNECTIONS • Spring & Summer 2010 3 SECTORwhat pwero dofIlE: TRaNSpORTaTION Life is a with contributions from: ANDREW LEVATTE TRACY DOBSON DAVE DUNNETT Highway & GRANT MAXWELL Strescon Precast & OSCO Concrete Take on Transportation Projects the use of non-reactive stone (approximately 1600T) which FAIRVIEW OVERPASS was supplied by OSCO Aggregates and Tercem3000 cement. Strescon Limited and OSCO Concrete contribute to the The first stage of the project required OSCO Concrete to refurbishment of the Fairview Overpass in Halifax, NS supply ready-mix concrete to footings in -15C temperatures. Drivers and batchers were challenged to keep the temperature The Fairview overpass is part of the busy Bedford, Nova of the concrete within the correct range to ensure proper set Scotia Highway on which thousands of people travel to and times, strength gain and code compliance. The largest single from work daily. Soon after the much publicized 2006 collapse pour was 208m3 for the columns that would support the girders. of a Montreal bridge, the Nova Scotia Department of Transportation (NSDOT) did a survey of all their bridg- STRESCON PRECAST - BOX GIRDERS es in Nova Scotia to see if any were similar in design Strescon’s Bedford plant supplied the thirty-six prestressed (cantilevered abutment). It was determined that the box girders with post tensioning ducts that were required to older section of the Fairview overpass was indeed support the deck structure of the Fairview Overpass. The box similar, so NSDOT quickly came up with a plan to girders were 33” high by 48” wide with lengths of 68’, 78’ and replace the bridge and YMCL Engineering was hired 84’ long and used 45 MPa HPC mix; which is standard for all to come up with a design for the new structure. new bridges being designed for NSDOT. There were many issues for Tom Mosher and Girder production began on December 8, 2009 and was his team at YMCL to deal with during the design phase. completed on February 5, 2010. Due to traffic restrictions, de- Height restrictions became one of the main issues, so they had livery could only be done between 9:00 am and 3:00 pm during to use a precast section that would meet all their needs. The the weekdays and anytime during the weekends. The first round new overpass design consisted of three spans arching over of deliveries started on March 1st, 2010 and by 3 pm on March Joseph Howe Drive and railway tracks. 2nd, twenty-one girders were loaded, shipped and placed. As Joseph Howe Drive had to be closed down in order for the OSCO CONCRETE - COLUMNS cranes to place the center span and the remaining part of the The Fairview Overpass project required 1500m3 of High first span, the remaining fifteen girders were loaded, shipped Performance Concrete Mix (HPC) and needed to be completed and placed in less than eight hours on Saturday March 6, 2010.