I’m a college football junkie. So much that while I’ve enjoyed watching this year’s Superbowl (great win for the Patriots!), I am looking through spring and summer to what I consider to be the best time of the year – college football season! Admittedly, I long for the days of brisk sweater weather and tailgating under a panoramic view of fall-colored leaves as I eagerly await kick-off at my college’s football stadium. Even better yet, I long to study college football coaches’ leadership lessons, the dynamism of college players, and the unpredictability of the college game. My wife will tell you there are two seasons in my life – college football and other.
For those of you like me who thoroughly enjoy college football, I’m sure you share my joy of watching ESPN’s College Gameday Saturdays. Herb, Rece, Chris, Lee and that annoying Desmond (I hope my Michigan friends don’t take that personally) are a great team to kick-off exciting Saturdays. Boy, I just can’t wait until college football kickoff!
My fellow college football junkies will know that Lee Corso’s signature catchphrase is “Not So Fast my Friend!” He’ll typically use this when one of his colleagues, in his view, incorrectly predicts the victor of an upcoming game. Every time Corso uses this statement, you can’t help but smile – he says it with a big smile and endearing wink of his eye to his colleague. His marquee catchphrase will go down in the broadcaster’s hall of fame.
It is this statement that came to mind during a customer visit a short time ago.
Environmental Specialties is an industry leader for the installation of geosynthetic lining systems used in many industries for containment purposes. The most common purposes are bottom liner systems, temporary covers, final closure and other similar liner systems used in the solid waste, power, mining, oil & gas, aqua/agriculture and in other industrial applications. Examples of the markets we serve, and the types of project services we provide, are featured in the projects section of our website.
As you will note from our website, we have installed more than 2 billion square feet (5,500 acres) of geosynthetic liner materials. It’s a remarkable achievement. Incredibly, we installed 240 million square feet of geosynthetic lining materials in 2016 alone. At our current installation rate we will double the amount of geosynthetics installed in the first twenty years of our company, in the next eight years.
Fun fact: The amount of geosynthetic lining materials we installed last year is equivalent to lining 4,230 football fields!
In discussing this bit of information with my customer, I sensed that he felt we were most interested in constructing the industry’s largest projects. This belief was reinforced by our discussion of a 358-acre project we completed at a gold mine in South Carolina last year. My customer was interested in using our services for a lining project that was less than 20 acres in size, and I sensed he felt his project was too small for our company. My sense was confirmed by his comment that he’ll keep us in mind for his larger projects.
Not So Fast My Friend!
I was quick to point out that while we worked throughout 2016 on the 358-acre project, we also simultaneously worked on numerous projects in similar size to his. I further emphasized that the smaller projects are the core of our business, and provided examples of similar-sized projects we performed last year with customer testimonials received. One of our company’s core competencies is project management. We successfully manage projects of various sizes, locations and complexity simultaneously. In fact, last year we completed over 100 projects that were 10 acres or less while completing many larger projects, like the gold mine previously mentioned.
ESI has a very talented team of professionals who manage not only complex projects but complex logistics and production schedules quite well. Our team works well with customers of every size – from Fortune 50 companies to privately owned, smaller enterprises. We have the expertise and the capability to provide superior performance on any size project and treat our customers with the same care, regardless of the job size. This is a commitment from our president that permeates throughout our organization.
You, our customer, deserve our commitment to perform, our attention to detail and our desire to please. We thank you for your ongoing business and look forward to working for you this year!