When you think of landfills, images of dumps with refuse sticking up and foul odors emanating come to mind. But the landfills of today are far different from the landfills of the past. Today, federal and local requirements mandate that waste be compacted and covered up the same day that it is dumped.

After a landfill pit has been excavated, groundwater pipes are placed strategically throughout the pit. Semi-permeable plastic liners are then placed at the bottom of each pit and covered with dirt. The waste is then dumped and compacted, and additional dirt is placed over the waste.

The cycle continues until a mound reaches its targeted height. At that point, grass seed is sprayed atop the dirt. Once the grass sprouts and grows, the result is an aesthetically pleasing mound that may become home to a host of animals.

A Mississippi company, Grayco Construction Co., is rapidly making a name for itself in landfill expansion and maintenance throughout the Mid-South. The company is headed by Renee Gray, a second-generation construction company owner, and managed by her husband, Shawn Gray. Gray refers to his wife as "the backbone of the company."

Grayco is headquartered in Falkner, Miss., which is located approximately one hour or 50 miles southeast of Memphis. Founded in February 2002, Grayco has experienced some significant growth since its inception. Today, the company has 21 employees and has averaged $9 million in revenue the last two years.

"We did $11 million in revenue last year," Shawn Gray said during a recent interview at the BFI Landfill on Mabelvale Pike in Little Rock, where the company is involved with an 11-acre cell construction project. The project includes excavation, pipe work and liner construction for BFI.

The project was started the first week in September and has a scheduled completion date of December 1st. When the project is completed, Grayco will have moved approximately 450,000 cubic yards of dirt on the 11-acre site.

"The actual excavation involves going down about 26 feet and digging out the pit," Gray said. "At this point, we have gone down about 18 feet, where we have reached some rock. We'll have to rip that and then excavate it."

Gray, a native of Kilmicheal, Miss., moved to Falkner when he was two years of age. He went to work in the construction industry straight out of high school after working construction during the summer before his senior year. He and his wife have been in the construction business together for 26 years.

Renee handles the office and Gray oversees each job personally. A mentor to both Gray and his wife is her father, Eugene Hill, who has had extensive involvement in construction. He still works for Grayco as a superintendent.

Other key employees include Robert Fox, a superintendent and operator; Kenneth Goolsby, a superintendent and operator; and Richard Hill, the brother of Renee Gray and a superintendent and operator. The couple also has four children. Seventeen-year-old son Cody is working on the BFI project. Two 11-year-old twin sons and a 9-year-old daughter reside at the family residence in Falkner.

Grayco works a four-state territory — Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Tennessee — specializing in earthwork, storm drainages and utilities. Current projects include three jobs in Oxford, Miss. — an airport construction project, a site job and a recently landed site job that entails moving 500,000 cubic yards of dirt; a state aid road project in their home base of Tippah County, Miss.; an industrial park project in Starkville, Miss.; and another landfill project for BFI in Memphis.

Additionally, Grayco just finished another landfill project for Waste Management at the Two Pines Landfill, which covers North Little Rock, Sherwood and Jacksonville, Arkansas.

Most of the company's work is competitively bid.

For the BFI project in Little Rock, Grayco is running primarily Caterpillar equipment including three Cat 735 trucks with a load capacity of 35 tons, a D400 truck with a load capacity of 40 tons, a 325CL hydraulic excavator, a 330CL hydraulic excavator, an 815F landfill compactor, A D6R LGP track-type tractor, a D6N LGP track-type tractor, a D6R track-type tractor with a ripper, a Multiquip 80-kilowatt generator, and a Sullair 185 compressor. Two John Deere tractors pulling Reynolds scrapers complete the equipment list.

Despite owning several pieces of equipment in Mississippi, Grayco rents all of its Cat equipment in Arkansas from J. A. Riggs Tractor Co.

"It's more efficient for me to rent the equipment than to bring all my equipment over from Mississippi," Gray said. "We have lower overhead and that is advantageous in doing business.

"Riggs also has all in-house modern service equipment to work on this. We are well pleased with Norris Cox, their field service supervisor, who does an outstanding job, as well as Dean Conrad, a field serviceman who will come out on Saturday or Sunday and work all day if necessary."

Gray said he has been doing business with Riggs for the past three years. George Wiggins is the sales representative who calls on Gray.

Gray utilizes the Cat dealer for equipment, parts and service: "Equipment availability has been our main concern, but Riggs has been able to meet all of our needs. We have been 100-percent satisfied with them. They are on call 24 hours a day."

Gray said the best attributes of the Cat equipment are service and parts availability versus competitive makes of equipment. He also cited the truckload capacity and the willingness by Wiggins to go above and beyond the call of duty. That effort has also resulted in Gray utilizing the equipment he rents from Riggs on some of his jobs in Mississippi when the equipment he needs is not available from local dealers.

Gray calculated that his company has constructed approximately 2,002 acres in cell and closure construction for landfills during the last three to four years: "We have constructed 38 acres on this BFI site alone."

Despite that success, Gray is not eager to grow the company for the sake of growth alone.

"Basically, we want to maintain what we are doing now. We don't really want to get bigger. We just want to do work that we can see after ourselves. I am a hands-on guy and our employees have been with us for periods ranging from eight to 20 years. Everyone who works here knows me and knows what I expect. Everything has gone smoothly and I am content.

"We can bid a job anywhere from $100,000 to $15 million. Our success is based upon remaining versatile and diversified. We don't want to put all our eggs in one basket."

For the last two years, Grayco has been able to work straight through for 12 months, a rarity in construction circles. Gray said the company landed another job recently that will carry it through the coming winter.

Despite that ability to work year-round, weather is one of the biggest challenges the company faces. Another challenge is the cost of fuel.

"Everything is going up," he said, "but dirt prices are remaining the same. Our industry is very competitive. A lot of people don't have work."

His biggest source of satisfaction is completing projects on time or ahead of time, Gray said.

"We moved more than 1,750,000 cubic yards of dirt on the Oxford Airport project in eight months. We finished five months ahead of time. On the BFI project, we are moving about 8,000 cubic yards to 9,000 cubic yards of dirt a day.

"We have been fortunate. We have had a good relationship with all the owners we deal with, including Wayne Mangum, the district manager at the Two Pine Landfill, and Yohann Linker, the Little Rock BFI landfill manager."