But the Harris influence is all over the structure—as well as in many other facilities throughout the East Coast. Established in 1916, Harris is a construction distributor with more than 400 employees at 35 branches and two steel fabrication centers, extending from Maine to Virginia. While the weekend carpenter can walk into a Harris center and pick up a shovel or trowel, the company's reputation has been earned by the work and relationships it has developed over the years with its manufacturing partners and general contractors.

Headquartered in Newington, Conn., Harris carries materials and products covering markets such as concrete repair and restoration; concrete forming; masonry; thermal and moisture protection; and geosynthetics. As distributors of materials that can often become commodities, the company realizes the significance of the value-added concept, even as the definition of "value" constantly evolves.

"Value-add has been the buzzword forever," says Ken Currence, Harris' vice president of sales and marketing. "We like to look at it in a three-dimensional sense: it's about the product, the company and the individual. We can't just tell the customer what the added value is. We have to validate what's important to him and define the benefits of that value."

Robert Parsons, president of Harris, concedes that the commoditization of certain products is perhaps unavoidable. As a result, he knows that once a Harris order is picked up or delivered, that is when the company earns its money.

"The stuff that's in the bag is the stuff that's in the bag," he says referring to Harris' products. "But it's the delivery and ability to apply [the stuff in the bag] with the knowledge that goes behind it…" that creates value for Harris customers.

One such customer is Manafort Brothers Co. This Connecticut-based specialty contractor does demolition as well as concrete and overall site work. They worked on the Mohegan Sun garage with Harris. Mick Tarsi, vice president of engineering for Manafort, used Harris for its expertise in concrete form work, a vital part of the garage construction process as well as in vertical high-rises and concrete walls.

"That project had to be done in a real fast track schedule," Tarsi recalls. "They provided the form work for the elevated decks, from the ground floor up. And they had to supply a lot of concrete form work in a short amount of time. But as crazy as it was, and as demanding as it was, it was a very successful project."

Those concrete forms were manufactured by the Symons Corp., a Dayton Superior company. Harris is an exclusive distributor of the Symons product. Ray Bartholomae, executive vice president and general manager of Symons' Des Plaines, Ill., branch, laughs knowingly at the "fast track" description of the Mohegan project.

"The trend in construction for a while now has been towards the fast track. And that sounds good, but what it can mean is they sometimes start building even before the plans are completely finished. What I most remember from that job is we had to make some [heavy-duty concrete forming] equipment especially for it. And when some of the forms arrived on the job site, the paint was still wet!"

That and the tight schedule made for a few frayed nerves, Bartholomae recalls. "If you can't get out of the starting blocks properly, it can have a domino effect on the entire job. But everybody jumped through hoops to get it all started. Once we got going with Harris' help, it permitted the rest of it to flow pretty efficiently."

Knowing just what value each customer will need is "a culmination of things that centers around the products and processes people use," Parsons explains. "As new products come out from manufacturers, we look for ways to improve the application of that product."

One example Parsons points to is the time a Harris manager worked with a manufacturer of carousel pumps to make the product more efficient and its application more cost- and time- saving. That type of pump allows contractors to pump sealants, or other materials into cracks. This improvement of process enabled the contractor to load up more product while continuing to process it, Parsons says. Contractors also were able to pour, or place, more material faster, rather than applying it by hand with a trowel.

Currence points out that it is not unusual for Harris people to visit a project site and make recommendations that can make that job more efficient.

"We focus on … selling the process as opposed to just the material itself," Currence says. " 'Value' is defining ways to save money, of course. A contractor's biggest cost is labor, so anything we can bring to them from the standpoint of reduced labor [costs] is more value for them."

The typical Harris customer varies according to each market or region, Parsons explains.

"In the highway market, for example, we deal with the major highway contractors," he says. "In residential, we deal mainly with the forming subcontractors. So it's a wide spectrum and anywhere in between. We'll also deal with the excavating businesses for erosion control. And that spans highways, earth movers, land fills— things like that."

In recent years, Harris has made inroads to other tiers of construction-related business, primarily general contractors.

"We service them out of our pick-up locations," Parsons says. "In recent years, that has been where a lot of our growth comes from. We'd already penetrated many of the big contractors, and now are going into the first and second tiers below that level and have been, actually, for the past 10 years. So it's helped us diversify ourselves."

That diversification has enabled Harris to hold its own when business would slow down over the years throughout the overall construction-related industries.

"The benefits we have in dealing with all the market segments or by doing special projects, let us follow construction trends," Currence explains. "But when one area is down, we still have other areas we can focus on and hopefully increase business opportunity."

Through the years, Harris has anticipated and reacted to changes in the overall construction industry. One market that has been down intermittently is highway-related construction. With state budgets as tight as ever, roadwork and related sales have been stagnant in many areas. And while Harris is always on the lookout for highway work, the numbers have changed dramatically over the years, Parsons cites, with Virginia being the sole exception.

"Public-funded jobs have been questionable for the last, say, four years—ever since the budgetary crisis hit. That's prevented states from putting in long-term projects," he explains. "We've seen an influence change [over the years.] In 1979, about 75 percent of our business was road and bridge, now it's 35 percent. So we've diversified quite extensively in other areas."

Harris has also made efforts to diversify more into the equipment rental market. In the past few years, the company acquired New Jersey–based Tool Depot to go along with three other rental locations in Brooklyn and Staten Island, N.Y. While Parsons explains that they do not yet rent the enormous highway equipment other companies handle, he says it does give Harris a foot in the overall rental market.

"The Jersey location handles some forklifts and rough terrain equipment," he says. "The New York ones specialize more in small tools and lifts, for example."

To go along with the concrete-forming equipment that they had already been renting to Marafort Brothers and similar companies, the equipment rental locations give Harris another potential value to offer contractors.

"So we try to be specialists with a generalist mentality, so to speak" Parsons explains, "and service those things so that we can, across the board, do what needs to be done in the various markets."

What needs to be done can vary from region to region. Right now, for example, Harris' work in Virginia is almost entirely concentrated on highway work and repair. In other areas, such as New England, more emphasis is placed on residential and general construction, such as work being done at the Springfield, Mass., civic center pictured on this month's cover of THE CONSTRUCTION SPECIALIST. Ideally, this approach means Harris customers will have to make "Just One Call"—the slogan for Harris' latest ad campaign.

The constant vigilance for improving processes and adding any values that can be created comes somewhat out of necessity with regard to the overall construction business. While Currence and Parsons share eagerly their enthusiasm for the construction work and people in it, how the industry is viewed today is a cause for concern.

"There's a very negative view of what construction is all about," says Parsons. "It's either dirty work or it's too hard… And yet the opportunities in construction for people to progress are incredible. From the laborer to a guy who develops his own business, a lot of hard work can take a guy to the top."

Some trade associations have been taking steps to present construction and its many related industries in a new light, Currence adds, referring to the Assn. of Equipment Distributors, based in Chicago, which has been active in getting people exposed to the general construction industry.

"And the Virginia Roadbuilders Assn. has people who go around to schools and do presentations to let people know there's more to construction than, say, cones on the highway or guys working late at night," he says. "There's a concerted effort to get people to see the other side of the business."

"We're still going to need buildings and bridges and all those [related] things. I really think if there were a way for all of us [in construction] to do a better marketing job, it would serve us all very well," Parsons says. "As a unit, as a group, we don't do anything to promote who we are, what we are and what can be accomplished within these industries."

While Harris has a diverse category of customers, the company still gives thanks for the housing boom felt in recent years—one that still shows little sign of abating.

"Look at our business and what residential has done the last couple of years," says Currence. "They talk about residential slowing down, but it continues to move forward."

"On a percentage basis, housing is the fastest growing area we have. The last four years, it has skyrocketed for us," Parsons says. "We've even seen multiple years of 100 percent growth in some areas."

Harris' experience in the residential housing market has made the firm appreciative, but also able to maintain perspective. Their initial venture into housing was in 1988—"just before the market cratered!" says Parsons, who can laugh about it now.

The company slowly learned the residential construction ropes, and as a result, was in a position in the late 1990s to take advantage of the growth in housing-related jobs. The cycle by which so many successful periods are usually measured has yet to wind down in housing, Parsons explains. It's a pleasing, but unusual, development for Parsons, who has been in the industry for 37 years. He says the inevitable cyclical nature of many construction-related industries hasn't been true to form with this latest housing boom.

"The lag lead was always residential housing," he explains. "Six months before the rest of the market went in the dumper, residential housing did. And six months before the rest of the market came out, residential construction always led us out. But this has been completely out of sequence now for these last six to seven years. Residential just keeps growing and growing…."

Along with residential housing construction, of course, can come other projects as a neighborhood develops: schools, hospitals, stores and shopping centers—an array of potential projects that Harris hopes to be in a position to contribute to. As longtime colleagues, Manafort's Tarsi and Symons' Bartholomae suggest that will be the case.

"We've had a good rapport with them for the last 15 years," Tarsi says. "We rely on them. They're the experts. Their people get us out of binds when we need something."

The Symons-Harris relationship actually goes back some 50 years, Bartholomae says—ever since Symons began selling on the East Coast. In those days, he recalls, the '50s, then-owner Dick Harris would drive to Chicago for business and client meetings and stay at John Symons' house. The successful formula Harris has used ever since is simple but effective, as described by Bartholomae.

"Customer service can be a cliché," he says, "but they live and breathe it. They're manic about taking care of the customer. And they work very hard."