Utility & Transportation Contractor December 2019

Cover Story

Creamer Environmental

Celebrates 25 years

By: Zoe Baldwin

As a densely populated and heavily industrial state, NewJersey has an unfortunate toxic legacy to contend with, some of which we are only just uncovering. At the same time, younger generations are choosing to live in cities or dense suburbs which often were the home of old industrial sites that left a legacy of soil and groundwater contamination. Across the state, everyone is looking at how we can make New Jersey a safer and healthier place to live and work.

That’s where Creamer Environmental (CEI) comes in. Established in June of 1994, the firm has built its stellar reputation from its leadership’s unique combination of regulatory, construction, and remediation experience, which is not often found at traditional remediation firms. Managed by President Thomas J. Cawley, P.E. and Executive Vice President Tracy Straka, CEI specializes in the implementation of complex soil, sediment, and groundwater remediation services throughout the tri-state area.

Both Tom and Tracy have been with CEI since day one and both came to their positions similarly.

“Fletch Creamer, Sr. knew my old boss at an environmental consulting/engineering firm,” Tracy tells me. “He and Fletch were talking one day about how JFC wanted to get into environmental construction and remediation work. I found myself nominated to come over to the Creamer organization to start a new environmental company.”

Deep excavation supported by a coffer dam

Sheeting Installation next to an active tank farm

“We both started it up,” Tom says. “I was a Project Manager for J. Fletcher Creamer & Son. I had the most environmental experience of anyone in the company, so I was offered this new position, which was a great opportunity!” He further explained that “In the early days, the vision was that we would be a sister company to J. Fletcher Creamer & Son, Inc. (JFC) and solely support them with any environmental issues which came up on their projects. Prior to CEI, when JFC would do highway, site, or utility work, if they encountered any type of contamination, their clients would stop JFC’s work and bring in an environmental contractor who did largely the exact same type of work that JFC did, just with a little more training. JFC quickly realized this is work that they already did, so the decision to branch out into the environmental world was an easy one.”

This concept only lasted a few months before we realized JFC wasn’t going to have enough work to keep CEI afloat, says Tom. So, the fledgling firm branched out, trying their hand at everything from emergency spill response to environmental consulting and engineering, but quickly decided that they were the wrong markets to pursue. “After about a year, we realized we were really best suited for the remediation construction space, and we focused on growing and becoming leaders in that market space.”

It only took a year or so before the new firm was rocking and remediating. JFC clients began to take note that Creamer Environmental could do environmental remediation work, and independent projects started to come their way. As the firm grew, its expertise expanded to encompass a wide range of innovative remediation technologies including in-situ treatment of soil and groundwater; installation of capping and containment systems including the installation of watertight sheeted cut-off walls, slurry walls, vapor barriers, and caps; soil stabilization; water treatment; and much more. CEI’s client base also grew beyond the initial JFC customers to include many Fortune 500 companies, utilities, and developers throughout the region. It is a testament to the good work that CEI consistently performs that they have been working for many of the same customers since their inception.

Installation of a watertight bulkhead that also acts as a cut-off wall to prevent migration of contamination

CEI and many of its employees have received awards, commendations, and honors from our clients and professional organizations. They have been recognized each of the past 20 years by ENR magazine as one of the Nation’s Top 200 Environmental Contractors.

Their main niche, manufactured gas plants (MGP), became a wheelhouse specialty very early on. “Our first big job was also our first manufactured gas plant. It was in South Amboy around an established apartment complex, and we had to go and remediate with all the tenants there. It was only about a $200k job, but back then it was our first and it was a really big deal,” Tom remembers. “We learned a lot, but we weren’t exactly sure what we were getting into. It turned out to be a major business line.”

“It’s really the legacy of our energy past,” Tracy adds, “because before natural gas pipelines, natural gas was manufactured at plants in most major cities including Newark, Jersey City, and Camden, often along the waterfronts. The manufactured gas was stored in large holding tanks that shaped the city skylines of days past. One of the byproducts of thismanufacturing process was coal tar, which is the primary legacy contaminant at these sites. The state and the federal government gave utilities timelines by which they needed to clean up these old facilities because the coal tar residuals contaminated subsurface soils and leached into the groundwater and sediments.” For 25 years, CEI has been involved with all phases of MGP cleanup from cleaning and demolishing the gas holders to performing any necessary soil, sediment and groundwater cleanup.

We’ve built a reputation for quality work, innovative ideas, and more and more often, our clients come to us and say we want to do this – how can we do it better? That’s the value we bring in our industry.” - Tom Cawley

In addition to its manufactured gas plants, the company has successfully cleaned up chromium-contaminated brownfields, PCB laden Superfund sites, pesticide sites, and landfills and has performed sediment remediation in waterways, often integrating civil construction with environmental work. One of their most complex projects was a 2006 remediation that entailed replacement of an existing gas tunnel that ran across the river and housed two 30-inch cast-iron gas mains, which was located on a contaminated site. CEI was also responsible for remediating and restoring 1,500 feet of riverfront, all while working to meet very tight timeframes.

After two decades of successfully surmounting massive project challenges, in 2015 a new kind of challenge presented itself. The sale of JFC, but not CEI, to APi forced a full separation of the two companies and required the management of CEI to take on an entirely new set of responsibilities. “It was kind of like doing a startup in the fast lane of the highway,” Tracy tells me. “We were cruising at the speed limit and suddenly, while you are managing all of your clients, your staff, and all of your daily responsibilities, you have to recreate all of the support services that went away with the sale. We suddenly found ourselves responsible for IT, accounting, HR, banking, treasury, bonding, audits, and all the other support stuff that JFC had been providing. We had to quickly figure out what we were going to do.”

“In seven months,” Tom adds, “we had to go from having none of these functions to 100% of them. We had to buy a computer system, we had to buy new software, hire a controller and payroll people, buy equipment, find a construction yard, and everything else that we had previously. We also had to reassure our employees and clients that nothing would change for them.

Tracy elaborates, “Neither one of us is an accountant, neither one of us is an IT person, so we had to go out and find someone to do that while also learning enough about these functions to make sure that we hired and supported the right candidates. We had a huge learning curve that we had to figure out ourselves . . . we knew what we needed, at least conceptually, but we wanted to take the time to figure out what would work best for us as a stand-alone company as opposed to just keeping what JFC had been using. So, we actually made the time to do this, and it actually turned out to be a really nice opportunity to look at our processes and how we worked in order to figure out what were the best things for our operations, becausethere are actually a lot of nuances between environmental work and civil work.”

I asked whether they brought in consultants, but a small beam of pride came over the two as they said almost in unison, “No, we just did it.”

“I sat with every single person at JFC who supported CEI and said, ‘Tell me what you do’ and just took notes and made lists and that’s how we started it.” Tracy continues.

“There are a lot of guides to mergers and acquisitions, bankruptcies etcetera, but there’s no guide for going through a corporate separation. These interviews resulted in an 18-page spreadsheet of things to do, and we just kept working through it, task by task until it was completed.”

“The separation wasn’t inhospitable,” Tom adds. “Everyone was very helpful, but when you sit with someone and ask them for a list of things that they do, they tell you the things off the top of their heads that are a part of their routine, and then a month or two later, they call to say “I forgot to tell you this” because it just happened to come up during the course of their work that day. So, the list kept getting longer. We’d knock something off the top of the list and add three more to-dos on the bottom.”

Ultimately, they both believe that the process has made them much better managers who are more in tune with the nuances of their company. “We learned so much, especially about the underappreciated heroes of the organization,” Tracy says. “You know it’s like the IT folks – you appreciate them when your computer is broken, but we really never had a full picture of what happens behind the scenes with backups and virus protection and getting field offices set up and a hundred other things that you don’t realize because they’re out of sight and out of mind.”

They also point to some of their business relationships as key to a smooth transition. “Sax, our accountants, were instrumental with helping us develop our accounting and payroll departments.” Tom points out. After the separation, Sax became a major resource in the transition process. “Sax’s extensive experience with construction helped us when looking at accounting software and finding the right candidate to fill our Controller spot. They went way above and beyond to support us.” Said Tracy. “And still do,” adds Tom.

But most of all, Tom and Tracy attribute CEI’s success to its people. At one point, Tracy points to a picture of her staff from one of the past UTCA magazine covers and points out that everyone in the picture is still with the firm. “We’re all a little bit grayer and a little bit more wrinkled, but there’s very little turnover here. People come in, they start on a career path, and they learn from and build up each other. It’s one big team here where everybody

supports everybody else. Although we’re all many years younger in that photo, you don’t realize how quickly the time went.” Tracy notes, “but by the same token, many of the people that were hired after us are still here. The company keeps growing, so we’ve got this really nice generation of people who are 10, 15, 20 years behind

us and are committed to CEI’s mission and vision. They’re learning more and more every year and eventually will fill our shoes.”

“Because of our employee commitment, we have a natural succession plan of experienced folks right behind us,” adds Tom. “For example, Tom LaViano, our VP of field operations, started right out of school with zero experience and he’s now running all the field crews. Almost all our supervisory staff started out in entry level positions and have earned promotions due to their hard work and commitment. We are very fortunate to have some of the most talented folks in the industry on CEI’s team!”

“Our success really is all about our people. We would not be where we are without our employees. I don’t remember who gave me this piece of advice – it was many years ago,” Tracy starts, “But I’ve always kept it in mind because I believe it matters. ‘You can buy people’s time and buy their talent, but you can’t buy their motivation, dedication, or commitment. You have to earn that’. I hope we do earn it!”

And for CEI, being all about its people means being all about their safety. “Communication is a huge part of a successful safety program, and safety is a really big deal for us,” explains Tom. “We have one of the best safety records in the industry, but it isn’t about the number on the paper, it is about everyone’s constant focus on safety both in the office and on the jobsite, every single day,” explains Tom. “Our people are committed to safety and they’re not afraid to flag safety issues. Every employee on our job can stop the work, and they know it. If they feel something is unsafe, they can refuse the work and go to the superintendent without repercussion.”

Installing water tight sheeting

In-situ soil stabilization at a former Manufactured Gas Plant site

“We’re not safety cognizant,” Tracy adds, “we’re safety elite. Everyone signs a corporate commitment to safety every year, they’re trained and monitored, and sometimes they’re even let

58Utility & Transportation Contractor | december| 2019

go if they can’t meet our safety standards. They know that management sees part of their job responsibility as going home in the same condition they came to work in. We had a job a few years back where we had a few new guys out of the union hall in New York City, and the workers actually sent a letter to us formally thanking us for paying attention to their safety – they’d never worked for anyone on that level before. It was totally unsolicited, and they sent it to senior management.”

As for the future, CEI sees great potential ahead in the ever-evolving industry. Tom told me proudly, “We’ve built a reputation for quality work, innovative ideas, and more and more often, our clients come to us and say we want to do this – how can we do it better? That’s the value we bring in our industry.”

Settled into their new autonomy with a homey office in Cedar Grove and a yard in Denville, Creamer Environmental is poised and ready to take on any industrial mess the tri-state area has to offer. UTCA wishes Tom, Tracy, and their team all the best on this milestone and all of those yet to come.

Dredging of contaminated sediments using an environmental bucket

Utility & Transportation Contractor | December| 2019