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A PUBLICATION FOR AND ABOUT McALLISTER EQUIPMENT CO. CUSTOMERS • MAY 2005
Featured in this issue:
AIRY’S INC.
This underground contractor
has taken pride in service to
customers for three generations
See article inside...
Ryan Hill,
vice president
Tom Land,
vice president
CUSTOMER SPOTLIGHT
Airy’s Inc. has taken pride in service to
customers for three generations
I
n highly competitive
industries, successful companies
find ways to stay busy. In the
case of Airy’s Inc., “unparalleled
service and quality work” is
the motto for the company,
which has enjoyed success and
staying power for the past 40
years.
Based in Tinley Park, IL,
Airy’s, Inc. is an underground
contractor specializing in
heavy highway construction,
sanitary/storm sewer installation
and repair, and water main
installation and repair.
Today, Airy’s, Inc. uses five
crews and a utility crew on its
projects. Jobs are usually located
within 25 miles of Tinley Park,
although they have gone into
Indiana and Kentucky in the
past.
Ryan Hill,
vice president
Ryan Hill, a member of the
third generation, joined the
company in 1995 and is vice
president, overseeing all “inside”
work. Tom Land, also a vice
president, is in charge of all
“outside” work.
Other key staff and longtime
employees, include Jim Welling,
Tom Land,
chief estimator; Paul West,
The company was founded
vice president
superintendent; and Danny
in 1965 by Arie Hill, who
Doogan, a loader operator who
worked as a residential
has
been
with
the company for almost 20
plumbing contractor. His wife Estelene took
years. A number of other employees also have
care of the bookwork. Marvin Hill, a member
worked for Airy’s for more than 10 years.
of the second generation, joined them in
1966, and in 1984 became president. At that
Emphasis on high-quality work
time, the company employed 12 people who
Throughout their years in business, Ryan
concentrated on residential plumbing work,
Hill, Tom Land and Marvin Hill all say the
branching occasionally into industrial plumbing
emphasis has been on high-quality work done
and site-development work.
swiftly for their customers.
Under Marvin's leadership, the company
“We like to put multiple crews on a
grew to 55 people working strictly on large,
jobsite and get the work done quickly,”
site utility development projects during the
confirmed Ryan. “We have three large clients
construction season.
who use us exclusively because of how fast we
can get the work done. They’ll tell us they
“When my father retired in 1986, we
want something done in two months, and we’ll
started doing more site work, which I
put the people on the site to make it happen.
personally enjoyed,” recalled Marvin. “We put
We would rather work for a smaller client
on a second crew and have just grown from
base than work for 100 clients and be spread
there. It’s been a slow, steady growth. And we
out and not able to service them.”
really don’t do plumbing work anymore.”
From sewer pipes to manholes
A typical site job involves coming in after
the excavating has been done to install the
sanitary sewer pipe, coming back to install the
water main, then installing storm sewer pipe
and prepping the area for road construction.
“We make sure all adjustments are done and
everything is out of the roadway and ready for
the paving contractor,” said Ryan. “We get all
the testing done and everything squared away.”
Airy’s, Inc. also works for municipalities doing
manhole rehabilitation, emergency sewer repair
and water-line emergency work. A utility crew
handles the paving, whether it’s asphalt or
concrete, as well as curb and gutter work. One
job in late 2003 involved installing a fiberglass
manhole liner 40 feet deep at a site in Tinley
Park.
“Corrosive gas in the sewer line had started
crumbling the concrete, so we put a fiberglass
liner in the existing manhole,” said Land. “The
job involved craning the 40-foot-by-eight-foot
shaft of fiberglass and lowering it into place,
setting it and cutting the holes where all the
other lines were feeding into it.”
A big job last year was at Cardinal Creek, a
900-home subdivision in Beecher. It involved
more than 11 miles of sewer and water pipe,
some of it at depths greater than 30 feet. One
lift station was 42 feet deep and 12 feet in
diameter. The job was started July 1 and
completed by November 1, 2004.
Crews are currently working on another job
in Joliet at the Neu Fairfield subdivision where
they are laying 10,000 feet of directional pipe.
Work started in April on the fourth of five
phases planned for the housing development.
The right equipment
Working on jobs that have to be
completed quickly requires the right
equipment. And for much of their equipment,
the management team at Airy’s relies on Volvo
loaders and excavators from McAllister
Equipment Co.
“We’ve worked with McAllister since 1984,”
said Marvin. “The driving factors in buying
equipment today are serviceability, parts and
having a vendor such as McAllister to give us
the backup we need. The cost of fuel is also
playing a bigger role today, and we’ve been
very pleased with the fuel consumption of the
Volvos.”
“We also choose our equipment for quality
and price,” added Ryan. “We’re looking at
depth and digging capacity and we feel our
Volvos are top-of-the-line.”
Volvo loaders in the company’s fleet today
include one L70 (1988 model), five L90s and
one new L110E. “Every year and a half we
buy another L90,” said Land. “And we really
like the fuel economy, production and power
on the new L110.
“Our operators won’t run any other brand
of loader,” he added. “We’ve run some other
brands but they don’t hold up. Our operators
love the Volvos. You can put a guy in a Volvo
loader for 12 hours and he’s not tired when
he gets out of the machine.”
The operator of a Volvo EC460BLC uses a specialized pipe clamp to swing a 72-inch concrete
pipe into place at a recent storm sewer job on Route 53 in Bolingbrook.
Airy’s, Inc. bought its first Volvo excavator
in 2003, an EC460BLC. At the time, the
company had a job in Bolingbrook that
involved laying 7,000 feet of 30-inch pipe
between November and the end of the asphalt
season, so the excavator was running 10 to 11
hours a day. “The machine was just
outstanding on that job,” said Land. “We went
right down the middle of a 35-year-old
subdivision road to lay the pipe and had a
crew right behind them grading for asphalt
with the paving done right after them.”
The company recently added a second
Volvo excavator, an EC360BLC. “It’s working
fine and the operators like it,” reported Ryan.
“It performs well and is very durable.”
Crews recently completed another job in
Bolingbrook using the EC460 that included
1,200 feet of 60-inch and 72-inch concrete
pipe in an existing ditch line on Route 53. “We
had a pipe clamp on the excavator in order to
be able to reach up and unload the pipe,
swing it into the other side of the ditch and
then install the pipe in the ditch line,” said
Land. “At the same time we had to maintain
the flow of the water in the ditch. The pipe
was 16,400 pounds apiece and had 11-inch-
thick walls. We were in
a muddy, sloppy ditch
and we were able to
track around in it with
no trouble at all.”
Airy’s tried the Volvo
excavators because of
Jim Welling,
their strong relationship
chief estimator
with McAllister and
veteran Alsip branch sales representative Kent
Jager, according to Ryan. In addition, they liked
the competitive pricing and availability. “As our
current excavators age and we auction them
off, we’re switching all our excavators to Volvo,”
he said. “We think they’re great.”
The company employs its own mechanic
who handles most of the routine maintenance
but Airy’s turns to McAllister for other work.
“McAllister has always been there for us when
it comes to service, parts or anything we
needed to deal with,” noted Land.
The right tools plus quality service
Both Ryan Hill and Tom Land believe a
major reason for the company’s success and
growth during the past 20 years is having the
Continued . . .
. . . continued
right tools for the job. “That’s number one,”
maintained Ryan. “We have a lot of money
tied up in our equipment, but we need to. We
have more loaders and excavators than we do
crews, so the right machine is always available
when we need it to do a job.”
Having that much equipment helps them
complete their jobs quickly, Land pointed out.
in and fill the ditch, but we actually
completed it in a week and a half.”
“I think this company stands out because
of our ability to get a job done and meet
tight time frames,” he said. “The engineers for
the job on Route 53 in Bolingbrook figured it
was going to take two months to lay the pipe
Another job was estimated to take two
years, said Land, but crews actually completed
the work in five weeks, before winter shut
everything down.
(L-R) Kent Jager
of McAllister
Equipment Co.
stands with Tom
Land and Ryan Hill
of Airy’s, Inc.
The operator of a
Volvo L70 wheel
loader places a large
section of pipe at a
recent residential
underground
utility project.
“We believe in getting the job done
quickly and getting it done right,” said Ryan.
“We bombard the job with materials, people
and machinery and get it done. We start in
different spots, everybody meets in the middle
and everybody goes home.”
“And I love challenges,” added Land. “I love
it when someone tells me it can’t be done so
we can prove him wrong.”
Marvin Hill also attributes the company’s
success to the work of some longtime veterans
in the company, and to his association with a
number of industry groups where he has
played an active role. They include The
Underground Contractors Association of Illinois
and the National Utility Contractors
Association. He was on the boards of both
groups, president of the Illinois chapter for
two years and regional vice president of NUCA.
“You spend time with your peers and gain
a lot of knowledge through seminars and
meetings,” he observed.
He added that the company has always
been focused on doing quality work, spending
long hours to get the jobs done. “And we’re
very safety-minded,” he said. “We have an
active risk management program with a strong
emphasis on safety for our employees.”
Airy’s crews count on a large fleet of Volvo excavators and wheel loaders to keep their
projects on track.The company has two Volvo excavators and seven wheel loaders,
including this new L110E.“Our operators won’t run any other brand of loader,” noted
vice president Tom Land.“Our operators love the Volvos.You can put a guy in a Volvo
loader for 12 hours and he’s not tired when he gets out of the machine.”
With the company at a comfortable size
right now, Marvin Hill, Ryan Hill and Tom Land
aren’t looking at much expansion in the
future. “We were bigger at one time, but I feel
we’re the perfect size now,” said Ryan. “It’s
manageable, and we can give our clients
quality work. The key is quality and service to
our customers, and we feel we’re at a size
where we can do the best job.”