Connections

Issue 2 • Volume 3 • April 10

LEVERAGING THE PORTFOLIO

ICON Materials and Utility Vault Provide Traffic Barriers in Washington
By Jim Radich, president

ICON Materials and Utility Vault, both Oldcastle companies, have done business together for quite a while in the Seattle market. ICON is a general contractor, purchasing precast products from Utility Vault for its construction projects, and serves as a material supplier for Utility Vault, which produces concrete in-house for its precast products. At times the customer-vendor relationship is blurred, but over the years, the internal growth due to the combined unique skill sets and partnership has provided significant advantages.

Always attempting to develop new markets, Utility Vault approached ICON Materials with a proposal to sell aggregates nearly 75 miles away, farther than numerous competing aggregate suppliers. The opportunity to Leverage the Portfolio was to propose a precast barrier system as an alternative to the state designed cast-in-place system. The state accepted and required 10,000 linear feet of barrier to be available for traffic within 60 days. With ICON Materials producing and delivering the 15,000 tons of concrete aggregate at varying shifts, Utility Vault was able to integrate this new work and deliver the barrier to the project.

Over the years, Utility Vault has educated ICON's construction group on the benefits of incorporating precast units on projects to the mutual benefit of both companies. Likewise, ICON Materials has been able to provide custom aggregate blends to Utility Vault – ultimately reducing production cost and increasing quality. Moving forward, needs and opportunities to Leverage the Portfolio will continue to arise in today’s competitive environment.

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