Business Spotlight: MTS Contracting Inc.

For Kansas City-based MTS Contracting Inc., opening a Springfield branch in 2004 was logical.

The company was winning an increasing number of bids in southwest Missouri, and managing projects from afar was difficult, recalls Mark Spears, vice president and Kansas City branch manager.

"We saw the community and thought there's some real potential here," he says. "We told ourselves if we're fortunate enough to get another good job down there, we really need to think about how we're going to do this."

About that time, Tom Burch joined MTS after a dozen years at a similar company. Burch, who had family ties to Springfield, had been bidding on projects, securing work with Missouri State University and Springfield Public Schools, among others.

Those jobs led to a move to Springfield for Burch, who now manages the local branch office.

Spears says the company has been on a steady climb since its founding in 1996. At a recent sales meeting, it was announced the company had grown for the 12th consecutive year.

"We never hit a speed bump," Spears says, declining to disclose revenues. "We're a little nervous this year. I don't know if 13 is going to be the unlucky number."

Spears and Burch point to service when talking about MTS Contracting's success, as well as "a lot of tricks in our bag," as Spears puts it.

In addition to masonry and stone restoration, the company performs caulking and waterproofing, concrete restoration on parking garages and sidewalks, and exterior cleanings and coatings.

While the company has worked on large, highly visible projects, devoting the same level of service to smaller jobs keeps customers coming back, Burch notes.

"We like to see these pictures (of big projects) around ... (but) we do jobs weekly for $1,000 (or) $500. We're not just out here for million-dollar jobs," Burch says.

But a big job won the company acclaim. MTS won bids for the restoration and repair of MSU's Carrington, Hill and Siceluff halls, built between 1908 and 1927. The projects - carried out consecutively over three years beginning in 2004 - provided a number of challenges.

"The building envelopes had deteriorated," explains Bill Tierney, project manager for maintenance and repair at MSU. "They were no longer weather-tight. We were experiencing accelerated deterioration on the exterior, but we were also getting damage on the interior of the building due to rain and moisture coming inside."

While damage was significant, there also was the variety of building materials on hand. Carrington, for example, features Carthage limestone, granite and concrete. Each required different cleaning and restoration approaches.

It took "numerous samples to find the right recipe," Spears says.

There also was the complication of having to work on an occupied building. Carrington Hall is the university's administration nerve center.

"Probably the most challenging was the window replacement," Burch says. "We were replacing windows at night. We had to schedule with the people in the offices and tell them, 'OK, this is when we're going to be in your office. Please have your personal items moved.' Then we'd have to go in and move stuff away from the walls, tear windows out, put them back in, put that office back together so the next day they come in and go to work."

For its work at MSU, MTS Contracting last year received an Award of Excellence from the International Concrete Repair Institute, a trade group based in Des Plaines, Ill.

The award didn't surprise MSU's Tierney. "When they cleaned (Carrington), that building really came alive, it really popped," he says.

Since then, MTS has completed restoration of Boonville Lofts, 600 Boonville Ave., and is working on Cox South, 3801 S. National Ave. The company also has projects in Oklahoma City; Des Moines, Iowa; and Omaha, Neb.

But those jobs in other states are not indicators that an office expansion is imminent.

"The economy's a little spooky right now," Spears says. "We are staying busy at this point. ... There's no expansion in sight this year for sure. But we're always checking things out."