From Washington state to New York City, you can find
Granite Construction | Granite Power working on anything from building bridges to underwater trenching to creating innovative power solutions in a variety of facilities across the country. Their versatility is one of their greatest qualities, as it gives them the flexibility to take on projects anywhere across the United States while holding to their core values of safety, honesty, and integrity that are at the forefront of this publicly traded company.
Headquartered in Watsonville, California, Granite Construction bids jobs around the country. While Granite Construction has many full-time employees and a large fleet of equipment that they own, at most of their jobs they source a majority of their equipment and workers locally. “We’ve found that it’s more practical and economical getting the equipment and workers we need locally than to bring it in from out of state,” explained
Curtis Manary, Project Foreman for Granite Construction. “We’re a union shop so we go through the local unions to locate the workers we need and then we work with local equipment rental companies to source our equipment. We will bring our own specialized equipment in if we need to but otherwise, we generally rent what we need in whatever area we’re working in.” The jobsite that Manary and his crew are currently working on is located in Montana. “We’re working on a pair of Amtrak stations in Shelby and Wolfpoint, MT,” said Manary. “We’re updating the facilities to be ADA compliant, which means changes to the bathrooms, curbing, sidewalks, and entrances to the facilities. For the project we needed mostly smaller, compact dirt equipment, and we decided to go with Titan Rentals out of your Great Falls, MT location.”
Currently Titan Rentals has 6 pieces of equipment out with Granite Construction – a Skyjack SJ1056 telehandler, a Case TR340 CTL, a Case 580SN backhoe, and 3 Case excavators ranging from a CX37C mini up to a CX145D minimum tailswing excavator. “The equipment that we’ve sourced through Titan Rentals has been great,” said Manary. “Although I started with a Case 580K backhoe years ago, I haven’t been around Case Construction equipment that much lately. At Granite, we’ve generally run other brands of equipment on most of the jobs that I’ve been on, so it’s been awhile since I’ve had a chance to run it. I’m very, very impressed with the Case equipment we have on the jobsites. We have great visibility out of the machines, good safety equipment, remote cameras so you can see behind you, and the equipment is dependable and ready to work when you turn the key.”
Manary has been with Granite Construction for 4 years. The current project in Montana started in the spring and is scheduled to run through the end of the year. During that time, Manary expects to stay in Montana. “We can go home once a month, but normally for these kind of projects I’ll just stay in the area that we’re working,” he said. “My kids are grown and out of the house, and I find it easier to just stay in the area until the job is done. I’m hoping to have the Amtrak jobs done by the end of October so we can be out of here before the winter hits.”
Manray has been a part of the whole process of a project start to finish. Granite Construction does not sub-out much of the work as they can execute each part themselves. “Generally, when we take on a project, we’re going to do the work ourselves from start to finish. We can do everything from site prep to finish grading and building and everything in between. That way we have complete control over the quality of the work and the safety of the jobsite.”
Safety is a key focus for Granite Construction. “We don’t cut corners on safety,” Manary declared. “When we hire, we look for safe workers who are dedicated to following safety guidelines and exhibit professionalism. If someone we hire locally doesn’t fit into that culture, they get removed from the team and we keep looking until we find the people that we can count on to live up to our culture of safety and professionalism.”
Granite Construction uses the same approach to sourcing their rental equipment. “We look for quality rental companies when we get to our new jobsite,” said Manary. “The equipment has to be in good shape and the customer service needs to be good. We require that our workers do not cut corners on the job so we want to make sure that we source quality equipment from a company that doesn’t cut corners on customer service and safety as well.”
Granite Construction is rated #24 in ENR’s Top 400 Contractors list. “Our culture of professionalism and safety are a big reason for that success,” Manary continued. “We hire based on those traits and we do business with local suppliers that exhibit the same
commitment as our company. That’s what we’ve found with the team at Titan Rentals. They’ve been nothing but professional and do a great job getting back to us when we have questions. The equipment and the service have completely lived-up to our high expectations.”
The typical Granite Construction project takes anywhere from 1 to 5 years and 7 to 200 construction workers. Then it is on to the next job, wherever that might be. “We’ve got another one of these Amtrak station upgrade jobs that we won the bid on in Chicago,” said Manary. “If that’s where I end up going next it would be quite a transition to go from Montana to Chicago for the next project, but that’s what we do. If you don’t mind traveling and living in a hotel, it’s a great way to see a lot of the country.”
Their ability to travel across the U.S. and maintain their high standards wherever they go takes a team that’s fully bought into the company culture of accountability, reliability, and integrity for themselves and everyone they work with. “If there’s one thing everyone should know about our company, it’s that we do everything with professionalism and safety as our top priority, and we all take pride in our work.”