Today, depending on the size and design, a high-rise could have 80 to 500 piles, usually beneath the lower floor of the underground parking garage. But tests have to been done on a representative sample of these to ensure their integrity; traditionally, that has involved the time-consuming task of stacking several hundred tons of weight on the pile, leaving it there for a day, then unpiling the weight.
"The industry was crying out for something that was much faster -- to test a pile every day rather than every three weeks," Mr. Smith said.
The Statnamic was dreamed up by Patrick Bermingham in the mid-1990s while, he said, he had time to kill overseeing one of those days-long static tests. "I thought if we could use the inertia of the job rather than the mass . . ."
From the drawing board, the company joined with a division of the Dutch national research council, which helped open doors around the world, notably in the Far East, to sell the device.
The Statnamic, roughly the size of a phone booth, employs a smaller weight, a controlled explosion, Newton's second and third laws of motion and a battery of sensors to simulate a very high load on a pile. It also has tested bridge piers on the Mississippi to see if they can withstand a barge impact, and it can be used to simulate earthquakes.
"The idea was conceived here, the testing was done here, the engineering and the devices themselves are built here and sold around the world," Mr. Smith said, in an interview at the Hamilton office. "It's used all over the world, particularly on the Pacific Rim where all these high-rises are going. Everyday, someone in the world is using a Statnamic test."
It adds about a $1-million a year to company coffers and equipment sales now accounts for about $15-million of Bermingham's $40-million annual revenue.
A key to Bermingham's longevity has been not to get too carried away with itself -- spreading itself thin or biting off more than it can chew -- and remaining satisfied with an 8.5-per-cent growth rate.
"Our success has been not trying to be a contractor in areas where we don't have expertise," Mr. Bermingham said.
The company hasn't always enjoyed success. In fact, it went out of business during the Second World War when John Bermingham (Patrick's grandfather) served overseas. In 1947, he went out on a limb financially and decided to restart the company in Hamilton -- a gamble that paid off with government contracts during the postwar boom.
In the mid-1960s, Patrick's dad, William, frustrated that he couldn't persuade suppliers to provide equipment he needed, decided to make his own. That launched a division, now known as Berminghammer, that Mr. Smith said competes mostly with Chinese companies for the pile-driving supply market.
Now, the company is about to enter a new phase in its history -- away from family control and into a management ownership structure.
"The statistical odds of a family owned company going to a fifth generation are lower than a thousand to one, because of the attrition along the way," said Mr. Bermingham, who took over in 1996 on a handshake with his dad and the understanding that he would sink or swim on his own. "I wanted to broaden the reward and responsibility of running the company as it grows to $50-million.
"All my life I've been steered toward this job. Let's just say I resented the fact that I couldn't look at other opportunities or careers," said Mr. Bermingham, who has also achieved success as a sculptor.
As the company continues to bring innovation to the pile-driving business -- it has incorporated green technology from overseas, such as smokeless drivers now being used on a bridge in the Potomac River, and tubing wrapped around piles for heating and cooling a museum being built in Hamilton -- it will keep its ear to the ground for new opportunities while not overextending itself.
"Ninety-five per cent of construction companies go out of business because they have too much work . . . You fail because you can't execute it," Mr. Bermingham said. "The key is to be realistic of what you can do and how you can do it."
