Paving the Road to Success: Glenn O. Hawbaker Customer Feature
Since 1952, Glenn O. Hawbaker Inc. (GOH) has been a company with a purpose to build, serve and advance its surrounding communities. Starting small, the company was founded by Glenn O. Hawbaker and his wife, Thelma, after Hawbaker acquired equipment from a family member who was a local developer. Steadily growing throughout the decades, today GOH operates 20 quarries and seven asphalt production facilities along with four regional operations centers across Pennsylvania and southern New York. GOH offers asphalt paving, road construction, gas well service and construction, as well as engineering design services provided by a subsidiary known as Hawbaker Engineering LLC.
GOH job sites can be found throughout the two states, but many are centralized in State College, Pa., and its surrounding areas, where the company was founded and is headquartered. Recently, GOH was awarded the Potters Mills paving project on Route 322 in State College.
Improving Safety with Road Expansion
First initiated to alleviate the high traffic and to reduce congestion and access concerns on Route 322, the completion of this 6.5-mile, $82 million paving project improves the local community and will offer a spacious four-lane road versus the previously dangerous and congested two lanes.
A project of this size requires plenty of equipment and services and GOH needed the help of a total equipment solutions provider to complete it on time and on budget. With an ongoing relationship of more than 40 years, GOH knew they could conquer the Potters Mills project quickly and affordably with the trust and support of Cleveland Brothers.
With a fleet of more than 300 Cat® machines, including crushers, pavers, dozers, articulated trucks, excavators and more, organization and efficiency couldn’t be more critical. But thanks to SITECH™, a partner of Cleveland Brothers, the Potter Mills project was elevated to the next level in sophistication.
SITECH Technology Enhances Potter Mills Jobsite
SITECH offers top-of-the-line robotic laser systems and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) to help contractors master the details of any job site. With the GPS technology on Cat machines, coupled with the technology of drones, GOH created three-dimensional models of the live construction site.
Once the information is collected, a three-dimensional image using specific software is created. This gathered information helps to guide GOH and Hawbaker Engineering by calculating volumes of material, which give a more accurate depiction of how much materials are still needed. This helps GOH to monitor the progress of the Potter Mills Project, determine the materials used and the materials still needed, and helps create an overall timeline of the project and is time and cost-effective.
Thanks to the GPS technology and drone work, GOH is also able to reduce time spent on this field work and data processing. Bruce Kirkpatrick of Hawbaker Engineering LLC stated, “This new technology has enabled us to reduce time spent on field work and data processing. What used to take two weeks now takes three days. We have also saved on labor costs, which help us to stay on budget.” These enhancements have saved the company both money and time, and have provided GOH with more accuracy and clarity when starting massive projects.
A Commitment to Cat
While Potter Mills is one of the largest projects GOH has worked on, the company uses Cat equipment on every project, both big and small. One Project Manager, John W. on the Potters Mills job site stated, “We’re running Cat for a reason.” One of the biggest distinguishers is the quality of support from Cleveland Brothers. When a machine is down, GOH only needs to make a single call to get the help they need—and that’s to the Cleveland Brothers team. Mark Dorner, Cleveland Brothers Account Manager, noted, “Cleveland Brothers is proactive, from next day parts availability to technicians working off-hours and routine service updates, we help maintain uptime for companies like GOH.” So whether it’s a part, a field service technician, or a machine the next day to keep projects going, Cleveland Brothers can offer quality and cost-effective solutions and keep customers like GOH running strong and more successful than ever before.