Behind the facade

Masonry Construction, April, 2004 by Diana Granitto

Rapid growth in recent years has culminated in annual sales between $60-$65 million, putting Masonry Arts at #9 in MASONRY CONSTRUCTION' S annual "Top Contractors" listing, which was last published in the October 2003 issue. Currently about 60%-70% of sales come from government and university projects. As Masonry Arts looks to the future, Swindal intends to control growth and increase margins, while upholding the company's commitment to the well-being of its employees.

"When I was an apprentice, a brick-layer could go out and buy a new truck every two years, buy a house, send his kids to school, and the community thought highly of him," says Swindal. "That scenario has changed, and it has hurt the construction business in general. We want the mason and his family to regain that respect. Masonry contractors must attract educated people to work in our industry. Our company's goal is to restore the image of a mason to what it was 20 years ago"

Beauty and Brawn

Blast-resistant Construction is a rapidly Emerging market.

Single-source cladding capabilities nave given Masonry Arts an edge in one of today's paramount growth markets--blast-resistant construction. The facades of high-security structures may be sacrificial to internally networked support systems, but "they don't have to look like bunkers," explains Swindal. Some of these facilities display beautiful facades of brick, natural stone from all over the world, and intricate glass.

Perhaps the most high-profile of these lobs was the Phoenix Project which was the reconstruction of the Pentagon following the terrorist attack of September 11,2001 (see MASONRY CONSTRUCTION, September 2002) Prior to the attack, the Pentagon was in the midst of a 12-year. $750 minion renovation in which Masonry Arts was providing blast-resistant windows, masonry and wall system reinforcement, This project represented the first renovation of the structure since the Pentagon was built in 1945. Therefore the work performed had to meet both rigid historic requirements to replicate the facade of the half-century-old building and the new blast-load requirements.

The first chase of the renovation was near completion when Flight 77 crashed through a section that had already, undergone reinforcement to the inner and outer walls. According to the official report on the effects of the attack, the new blast-resistant components slowed the aircraft and delayed the collapse of the upper levels for 35 minutes, giving many occupants the opportunity to escape Masonry Arts returned to the site as cart of the Phoenix Project to supply and install replacement windows and the surrounding brick, to salvage and restore the limestone facade, and to retrofit the steel reinforcement,

This market emerged in the mid-1990S as government initiatives began to emphasize blast-resistant construction. Masonry Arts worked on the construction of the new Oklahoma City Federal Campus, the building that replaced the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City following the bombing of 1995. In 1999, the cladding contractor supplied a blast-resistant exterior for the U.S. Embassy in Moscow encompassing 4700 windows. 4.2 million Bounds of limestone, and 900 metal panels. The company currently is working on several overseas projects for the United States Department of State.