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In the News

Mountain States Fence has been featured twice on the cover of the World Fence New and in the Intermountain Contractor, the regional McGraw-Hill publication.

(Salt Lake City, Utah, Jan. 99) Mountain States Fence Company of Salt Lake City, Utah recently completed installation of 1,800 lineal feet of four-foot-high and eight-foot-high aluminum ornamental fencing at Rice-Eccles Stadium on the University of Utah campus. The fencing was provided by Jerith Manufacturing Co., Inc. of Philadelphia. The stadium, which is the home of the University of Utah football team, will also be the site of the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games.

Several factors contributed to making this fence project exciting and challenging, according to Mountain States Fence salesman Terry Waite. The $45 million dollar stadium renovation project was begun immediately after the final game of the 1997 football season, and had a completion deadline of Sept. 10, 1998, the date of the first game of the 1998 season," he said. Layton Construction Co., the general contractor, had been hampered by extremely wet spring weather making an already tight schedule nearly impossible, Waite noted. Making things even more exciting was the fact that missing the deadline carried a $500,000 per game penalty. "With four weeks left before game day, only 25 percent of the project was ready to be fenced, and the likelihood of the fence being completed on time seemed remote," recalled Waite. " I really didn't want to believe that we could be subject to penalties for not completing work that hadn't yet been made available to us, but I've seen too many contractors and subcontractors suffer huge financial losses under similar circumstances. The fence layout called for 84 walk gates, which I knew would be time consuming, as well as fence on top of masonry walls which were still under construction and in concrete slabs which hadn't yet been poured. We were reaching a point where it would be difficult to get the work completed on time, even if we could get started right then!"

Mountain States decided to use the time-proven strategy of staying constantly caught up with the work available, and being in the contractor's office each morning seeking more work. Layton's project manager, Chris Smith, and project superintendent, Herb Biessinger, responded with an excellent job of coordinating the activities of other subcontractors to keep the fence installation going, noted Mountain States general manager and co-owner Rick Higgins.

Paul Luna, Mountain States Fence construction superintendent, juggled manpower to match the quantity of available work each day. At times there were eight to 10 installers on site, while some days required only one or two. Avery Nunley, Mountain States Fence project foreman, coordinated layout, core drilling and the traffic of other subcontractors to maximize the daily efficiency of his crew, Higgins said.

Two weeks before the deadline, it was discovered that in order to accommodate wiring which had been installed for card readers at the student entrance, it would be necessary to change 13 walk gates from four feet wide to three feet wide. Jerith Manufacturing had the gates built and shipped within a week, allowing them to be installed without delaying the project completion, thus earning the company high marks from all the Mountain States personnel involved, according to Higgins.

Working evenings and weekends during the final weeks, Mountain States Fence completed the job with two days to spare. On that same day, they were told that while a great deal of finish work remained to be done on the overall project, the owner was delighted with what had been accomplished, and no penalties would be levied against Layton Construction or any of its subcontractors, he added.

Mountain States Fence Co. was founded in 1963 by Rick Higgins' father, Dennis Higgins, and they co-own the company. The firm completes from 1,000 to 1,500 fence jobs annually, Higgins said, and operates throughout the Intermountain Region, although some of its commercial and industrial jobs take crews farther afield. The company has a residential fence installation division, but most of its work is in commercial and industrial.