It was just a day after the levees broke that phone calls began trickling into the tidy, board-and-batten cottage with rec-room-panelled walls on Hamilton's bay front.
U.S companies were calling Bermingham Construction Ltd.'s head office, inquiring about pile-driving equipment to repair damage caused by hurricane Katrina.
"There's only a limited number of these big pile drivers around and people are phoning to try to tie them up," Peter Smith, general manager and vice-president of Bermingham, said of firms that called from Florida and Houston.
He wasn't surprised that calls arrived. This $40-million-a-year company has built a worldwide reputation in foundation and marine construction -- indeed, one of its innovations in this field has literally been earth-shaking.
Unless you read trade journals, such as European Foundations or the Engineering News Record, you likely haven't heard of the 108-year-old family-controlled company, although if you're in a Toronto condo or office high-rise, crossing a bridge or railway trestle or mooring a boat, there's a chance you're on terra firma by its handiwork.
From its Hamilton base, Bermingham has supplied equipment or expertise for a Peruvian copper mine's loading dock, for testing the integrity of piles for the world's tallest building in Taipei, for Boston's Big Dig tunnel and for laying the groundwork for the Vancouver convention centre cruise ship dock -- among scores of other works.
Days after Katrina wrecked New Orleans's levees and knocked out bridges and Gulf of Mexico oil rigs, company president Patrick Bermingham was off to the Beaufort Sea to oversee Bermingham's equipment installing 24-inch-wide steel casings 200 metres beneath the seabed for the Devon Energy Corp. natural gas project.
Bermingham does foundation and marine construction work itself, mainly in Ontario and the Maritimes, but it has diversified into manufacturing and claims to be the only firm in North America that makes pile-driving equipment.
It has applied its experience from construction into the products, and uses that connection to market them at trade shows and by word of mouth in the industry.
"We had refined a system in our construction company that became part of the product. Our success has not been the lowest price but our methodology," Mr. Bermingham said. "Our equipment works better,"
It has caught the eye of the U.S. Army, which awarded a $20-million, four-year contract for 120 portable pile-driving machines, a couple of which are believed to be in Iraq, Mr. Smith said. They come packaged, ready to assemble, in large steel boxes, which can be parachuted into the field.
"We're shipping these in green and desert tan," Mr. Smith said, adding he plans to market them to other military organizations as well as for commercial applications.
The company has been involved in foundation and marine construction since 1897, when William Bermingham established the firm in Kingston, Ont., and scored a contract from Canadian Pacific Railway for railway bedding at the Crow's Nest Pass. Through the 20th century, it was on the ground floor of Canada's infrastructure boom, while remaining in Bermingham family hands, although that is changing as the company shifts to a management-ownership structure.
Today, Bermingham is among the largest of about 50 companies in Canada dedicated to foundation construction, which Mr. Smith estimates to be worth upward of $750-million a year in Canada. The company's 150-member work force is evenly split between construction and manufacturing.
What helped set it apart has been how it has furthered the art and science of foundation and shoring.
Chief among these has been a patented device called the Statnamic.
To understand its impact, you must first appreciate the importance of a sturdy foundation; traditionally, it involves pushing steel, timber or concrete beams into the ground until they hit bedrock forming a solid base. It's a building technique that goes back two millennia -- although it was apparently overlooked by the builders of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. "Believe it or not, there are piles that were sunk by the Romans that are still in use today," Mr. Smith said.
