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Although much of its work is unseen or literally beneath the surface, Standard Waterproofing Inc. has got some serious chops in the construction industry and is looking to leverage that with a recent acquisition.
The Winslow company acquired New England Fireproofing in Freeport to offer additional services to customers.
“This forward-focused approach will allow our company to continue to serve New England’s businesses, municipalities and academic institutions while ensuring that the quality and execution of our services will be our top priority,” said Theresa Thompson, Standard Waterproofing’s owner and president.
The commercial waterproofing company, in operation since 1991, serves a broad range of clients, from new construction to retrofitting and repair work for general contractors and building owners.
The company has experienced continuous growth that has allowed it to diversify services, including moisture protection, waterproofing, spray foam insulation, air vapor barrier, masonry restoration, joint sealing and installing building expansion joints. The acquisition of New England Fireproofing adds fireproofing.
Recent projects include the Harold Alfond Athletic and Recreation Center at Colby College, Lockwood Hotel in Waterville, a subcontract for Cianbro on new construction and renovations at Maine Correctional Center in Windham; a contract for Sheridan Corp. at the new Thomas College Sports Center, and a job at a new Northern Lights addition in Bangor.
Thompson’s parents — her father a farmer and carpenter and her mother a nurse — bought the business in 1991, when there were two employees and the focus was on joint sealants and masonry restoration.
They ran it for a while at their home in China, converting a cow barn into storage for the business.
As the company grew, they bought a warehouse at 55 Grove St. in Waterville.
“It used to a bus depot, so it was one big long building, about 8,000 square feet,” Thompson said.
Thompson came into the business in 2005 as the northern Maine project manager when the company had expanded to about 15 employees and services such as air vapor barriers and below-grade waterproofing had been added.
Today, below-grade waterproofing comprises 30% to 40% of the business.
The plan was that Thompson would one day buy the business from her parents, allowing them to retire.
In 2014, her dad retired and her mother followed in 2016. As each retired, Thompson bought out their shares, gaining full ownership and becoming president in 2016.
Since 2016, she said, the business has grown 10% to 15% per year on average.
“All of a sudden, it exploded,” she said.
A factor in that growth has been a team of experienced workers.
“We’ve got people who have been here 27 years, 20 years, 15 years,” she said.
Four years ago, the company broke ground on a new facility on 3 acres at 1020 Augusta Road in Winslow.
“It’s been a game-changer for us,” she said. “We were up against where we had maxed out of our 8,000 square feet.”
With Lajoie Brothers Inc. in Augusta as the general contractor, the new building is over 9,000 square feet and includes a 6,000-square-foot warehouse space with twice the height to maximize material storage, plus a 3,000-square-foot space with 10 offices, a conference room and other areas.
In 2019, the company moved into its new digs. It was also named Mid-Maine Chamber of Commerce's "Business of the Year" that year.
With continued growth, though, Thompson said she’s already contemplating another expansion.
“I didn’t anticipate outgrowing quite this fast, but we’re right up against it,” she said.
It will be part of the same campus and will include building additional garage and warehouse space.
While there’s no time frame yet, it will likely be in the near future due to the recent acquisition of the fireproofing business, whose team has moved from that company’s former office in Scarborough into about 4,000 square feet at Standard’s original facility in Waterville.
“Every day our people are on boom lifts and scissor lifts, so we rent and own aerial lift equipment,” she said. “We own six boom lifts and two scissor lifts. We also have a division of our company that does spray foam, so we have three spray foam rigs. Those take large box trucks with generators. With the air vapor barriers and below-grade waterproofing, we have high-powered pump spray equipment in box trucks.”
The fireproofers use spray equipment as well.
Today the company has 42 employees and completes over 200 contracts per year on average.
“At any point in time, we are on a ton of projects and all of them are at different phases of construction,” Thompson said. “Right now, we have 85 open contracts that we’re working on. We have three project managers, a safety office, 32 in field crew, $6.5 million of work on hand and about $1.7 million of contracts that we anticipate coming in from general contractors.”
Thompson attributed the origin of the growing clientele to her father’s ability to build relationships, which generated a network of relationships and word-of-mouth.
“My father is a very outgoing man and did a great job building relationships,” she said. “When I came into the business in 2005, he mentored me and we’d go to job sites and hang out with the project managers and other people on the job.”
Another factor is the inherent demand in a booming construction industry and expanding project sizes.
For example, “As Cianbro became a larger and larger general contractor, we also grew to meet their increased demand,” she said.
Standard Waterproofing went into fireproofing three years ago with the goal of growing that part of the business.
But demand escalated for its longstanding lines of work.
“All of a sudden, we were incredibly busy,” she said. “We ended up tabling fireproofing.”
But fireproofing remained a goal.
New England Fireproofing is Standard’s first acquisition.
“It came about because I am one of those people who is very excited about taking on work,” Thompson said. “I love to land contracts.”
Earlier this year, two general contractors in Madawaska and Bangor reached out to Thompson in search of fireproofing services, she said.
“I said, ‘I’m not going to pass on this opportunity, but I don’t have the manpower. How can I say yes?’” she recalled. “A light bulb went off.”
She contacted the owner of New England Fireproofing and asked if he’d like to subcontract to Standard.
Soon the owner, who was looking to retire, offered to sell the business to Thompson.
“Things seemed to come together,” she said. “I saw that anyway as the focus of our next marketplace growth.”
She and her team met with the workers and with the lead field manager, Rusty Ingalls, closed the deal July 1, and started moving the fireproofing team to the Waterville facility.
“It felt like a great fit to add to our thriving company to better service our customers,” she said.
Standard Waterproofing typically focuses its geographic scope in Maine, with occasional jobs in New Hampshire. New England Fireproofing has been operating throughout New England and Thompson will continue to do so under the Standard name. Six of the seven employees agreed to be hired by Standard, which closed the fireproofing company’s Freeport office and Scarborough warehouse.
The deal was an asset purchase, with additional cash payments scheduled every three months for a year for the goodwill.
The fireproofing line of service has been well received.
“General contractors are saying, ‘Great, can we have you on our next project doing fireproofing?’” she said.
Thompson expects to be hiring in anticipation of needing a second crew by next spring for the fireproofing line.
In the construction industry, she said, it’s useful to note that hers is a woman-owned company.
“If women see that for myself, who had never done construction, I have come in here and have been able to be successful, then they can also do it,” she said. “It opens up opportunities and career paths for people.”
She added, “I love working construction. I couldn’t imagine being in a different field, because there’s such diversity and it’s so fun to build the state of Maine. I know the bones of so many buildings in this state.”
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