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Construction Industry Poll

Contractor of the Year

Contractor of the Year Update: Class of 2001

June 12, 2007 |

Editor’s Note: Equipment World’s Contractor of the Year program has honored a variety of contractors during its five years. Now that the program has a few years under its belt, we wanted to go back and check in with our past finalists. We’ll be revisiting these former finalists through April, and then announcing our 2006 Contractor of the Year in May.

Drew and Debbie Andrews Andrews Excavation
McDonough, Georgia
The farmland that enticed the Andrews to McDonough has been eaten up by Atlanta’s sprawl, but the metro area’s phenomenal growth has also allowed the company to expand from a 23-machine fleet five years ago to a 178-piece fleet (including pickups) today.

Although the firm is still centered around residential site development, the Andrews have also taken on a great deal they used to sub out before, including wood waste grinding, horizontal boring, pipe testing and concrete inverts. The company – which now has 160 employees in about 20 crews – will realize close to $20 million in revenue this year. Wary of the continuation of the residential boom, the two also have their eye on commercial and municipal work.

“We still want to grow a little, but we’re almost to the size we want to maintain,” says Debbie, who serves as the firm’s chief financial officer.

Advice: “We try to read everything, stay abreast on what’s out there and promote a progressive atmosphere,” Drew says. “If someone’s got a better way of doing things, I want to look at it.”

George Forni
Aquatic Environments
Alamo, California
Specialization is still the name of the game for George Forni. His firm, Aquatic Environments, concentrates on aquatic construction, habitat restoration and lake and water feature maintenance. “We’ve grown steadily every year,” Forni says. “We’ve found real niches in jobs conventional equipment can’t get to.”

The heart of Forni’s fleet is his five Aquamogs, multi-function platforms capable of clearing channels and serving as shallow water construction barges. Aquatic Environments is the sole manufacturer and commercial operator of Aquamogs in the United States. Forni also has more traditional equipment, including compact tracked loaders and trucks.

He takes his equipment all over the West Coast and even to Hawaii. “It was a situation where our machines were the only ones that could get into the job,” he says. “You have to have good senior operators when you run a project at those distances.”