On Monday, March 23, Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle kicked off the official start of work that will expand and upgrade the I-94 North-South Freeway that runs from Milwaukee to the Illinois state line.

The $1.9-billion project, the single largest transportation project in Wisconsin history, will expand the freeway from six to eight lanes, move all exit and entrance ramps to the right-hand side, replace deteriorating pavement and structures, and provide aesthetic treatments for those who live next to the freeway.

The project is expected to create more than 2,300 jobs and be completed in 2016.

Work is being started with $24...Read More

Comments (0)

Case equipment distributor Miller-Bradford & Risberg, Sussex, WI, is hosting a National Utility Contractors Association competent-person training session at its De Pere, WI, training facility today, March 17.

Gary Stephens of Efficiency Inc. will conduct the class.

The class covers OSHA subpart P -- excavation standards, definitions, general requirements, protective system requirements, soil classification, and handling an OSHA inspection.

The cost is $100 per person.  Space is limited to 45 participants.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires that a competent person oversee all excavation and trenching job sites.

OSHA defines a "competent" person as one "who is capable of identifying existing and predictable hazards in the surroundings or working conditi...Read More

Comments (0)

The U.S. Department of Agriculture - Wisconsin (USDA) is holding its biennial conference from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday, March 11, 2009 at the Wisconsin Rural Water Headquarters at 350 Water Way, Plover, WI 54467.

The conference will discuss the USDA Rural Development program and funding issues that affect engineers and their clients that are applying for funding for water and wastewater utility projects.

The conference will also cover the stimulus funding resources for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

For more information or to RSVP, phone Angela Hanz at 715-345-7615 ext. 136 or e-mail her at Angela.Hanz@wi.usda.gov.

Comments (0)

The Common Ground Alliance for Damage Prevention (CGA) is holding a free information summit for anyone interested in preventing damage and injury to/from underground utilities.

This very worthwhile non-profit nationwide organization of volunteers is working to develop procedures, reporting systems, and information resources to help contractors, surveyors, utilities, and anyone else who owns or works with underground utilities, avoid costly and potentially deadly accidents from with gas lines, electrical lines, fiberoptic lines, water lines, sewers, and other buried utilities.

The information summit will be held February 12^th, 2009, at the offices of Ruekert & Mielke in Waukesha, WI,...Read More

Comments (0)

The December 8 edition of the Washington Post featured an editorial by Emil W. Henry, Jr., a conservative former member of the Bush administration calling for conservative Republicans to support the current call for investment in infrastructure.

Mr. Henry served as assistant secretary of the treasury from 2005 to 2007. He is now managing director of an investment management firm.

He says conservatives should overcome their instinctive fear of the creation of another permanent bureaucracy and support legislation to invest infrastructure because the country's infrastructure needs immediate attention if the U.S. is to remain prosperous and globally strong.

Henry argues that investment in infrastructure is an investment that will protect the country's prosperity and would help the country achieve the traditional conservativ...Read More

Comments (0)

A story in today’s Wall Street Journal speculates that the coming year might be a good one for construction projects, especially if the stimulus package proposed by the incoming Democratic administration is enacted early in the year.

To show that investors seem to believe in the possibility, the article notes that investors’ anticipation of a surge in public-works spending has recently raised the value of construction and engineering stocks. It notes that the stock prices of engineering and construction company URS Corp. rose 34%, Fluor Corp. rose nearly 17% and Granite Construction Inc. rose 22%.

As further evidence, the article says that a stock analyst says 11 engineering firms he t...Read More

Comments (0)

The U.S. Department of Labor recently added flexibility to the requirements for the national registered apprenticeship program.

These are the first changes to the program’s regulations since 1977.

They give apprentices and employers options in training registered apprentices for the changing needs of industries that have traditionally used registered-apprenticeship programs.

The revised regulations also meet the needs of emerging industries, says the U.S. Department of Labor.

The most significant changes:

Comments (0)

It’s November 5, 2008, the day after democrat Barack Obama won the presidency and the Democratic Party has picked up additional seats (and therefore more control) in the U.S. Senate and House.

As happens most days after the election, various groups are issuing their congratulatory messages to the victors and stating the hope that what’s important to them will become a priority for the new administration and the new Congress.

The widely held perception is that democrats are “tax and spend” types who will run up the national debt even higher than it already is, and that Republicans are the “cut costs” types who tend to balance the budget by cutting programs, serv...Read More

Comments (0)

Talking to the mainstream media this week, Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle said that because of the nation’s economic turmoil, he expects to have to make “very deep cuts” in the state budget that will run from July, 2009, through June, 2011.

The effect of the national downturn could put Wisconsin at a deficit of as much as $3 billion over the period of the next two-year budget.

The governor will present his budget proposal to the Wisconsin Legislature in February, for lawmakers to wrestle over and modify before it’s sent back to him for approval.

The governor further said that he has ordered state a...Read More

Comments (0)

Late on Wednesday, the U.S. Senate finally approved the $8-billion trust fund fix that the House passed more than a month ago.

The approval came as the federal government had begun reducing its payments to reimburse states for work being done on already-approved-and-in-progress projects.

Contractors had invested money in materials, equipment, and labor and were doing the approved work, only to be told, in effect, that the federal government didn’t have the money to pay for the work it had approved.

In fact, the trust fund was in danger of going completely dry within weeks.

Comments (0)

The starting gun for the presidential election race of 2008 has sounded.

Both pairs of presidential and vice-presidential candidates are off on the mad, two-month dash to convince voters that their plan for a better America is the one we should choose for the next four years.

A recent article by two Reuters writers noted that neither the Democratic ticket of Obama-Biden nor the Republican team of McCain-Palin gave more than a passing mention of infrastructure in their speeches at the recent party conventions.

The article also noted that infrastructure was not among either presidential candidate’s top ...Read More

Comments (0)

Western Builder’s Project of the Year, 2008, competition is giving contractors the chance to tell about their successful current projects – and to possibly win prizes for doing so.

Sponsored by Case Construction Equipment, the Project of the Year competition is looking for stories about how contractors succeeded despite challenges, especially if it involved the innovative use of equipment.

Although contractors from anywhere can enter, the projects have to be located in Wisconsin or the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and must be currently in progress or have been completed in 2008.

The third-qua...Read More

Comments (0)