Lundy Construction News and Awards

Lundy Construction Co., a general contractor in Williamsport, has reached the $45 million sales level with Butler Manufacturing, according to a news release. Butler provides design-build construction solutions and innovative building technology to the nonresidential market. This designation is awarded to Butler Builder for cumulative sales through the years. In 1993, Lundy Construction reached the $15 million sales level.

Founded in 1933, Lundy Construction Co. has 60 employees and has been an authorized Butler Builder since 1958. Recent projects include United States Gypsum in Washingtonville and Murray Motors in Hughesville, the news release said.

Frank B. Lundy, III is the third generation to have owned Lundy Construction Co. In addition to furnishing and erecting Butler Buildings, Lundy Construction offers industrial construction, remodeling and renovations, health care construction and many other industrial/commercial construction.

WYSOX – Williamsport-based Eureka Resources recently opened a new frack water de-wasting plant that can process up to 5,000 barrels each day of flowback and produced water from Marcellus Shale gas wells.

“We are proud to be able to take a large waste stream and turn it into basically no waste at all,” Eureka CEO Dan Ertel said.

Eureka Resources’ new plant takes wastewater from fracking and recycles it, disposes it or returns it to the hydrological cycle, Ertel said.

“Unlike other wastewater treatment plants, we don’t stop at pre-treatment. We do full-scale thermal treatment so we can ultimately discharge the effluent directly,” Eureka Director of Engineering Jared Bodger said.

Eureka plans to build a quarter-mile pipeline to discharge some of its treated wastewater into the Susquehanna River, according to Bodger.

The state Department of Environmental Protection regulations for discharging gas well waste are stringent, Ertel said. To his knowledge, no other plant in the state has the technology needed to treat fracking wastewater to a direct discharge standard.

“You cannot make water that’s consistently going to meet state standards for discharge if you’re just distilling or crystallizing. You need to put another suite of technologies together,” Ertel said.

In addition to its $8 million crystallizer, Eureka also will utilize a membrane bioreactor, which removes volatile organic compounds from distilled wastewater vapor prior to discharge. The patent-pending technology was developed in consultation with engineers from Switzerland, Ertel said.

“Their technology was the most advanced and they were the first willing to let an American company utilize it,” Ertel said.

Not all waste will need to undergo additional treatment beyond crystallization. About ten percent of the wastewater is processed into high-purity sodium chloride, which is used by the gas industry for winter de-icing, Bodger said.

Waste also is solidified and hauled to an approved landfill, depending on its constituents.

A gas well will produce flowback water initially after fracking and produced water continuously throughout its lifetime. Such water is regulated as a hazardous waste by the Department of Environmental Protection, in part because wastewater can comingle with geological formations that may contain naturally occurring radioactive materials. Eureka is required to monitor each incoming truckload of wastewater for radiation.

“We have been treating this water for five years. We’ve had a total of two instances where we had a minor excursion from background levels (of radiation). We haven’t seen any major issues,” Ertel said.

The Wysox plant, designed by Williamsport-based Lundy Construction, still is under construction but has begun accepting wastewater. The facility, which currently employs 14, probably will employ 20 to 25 people after construction completes, Eureka Vice President of Operations John Stanton said.

“We intend to be a good neighbor and a steward of the environment,” Ertel said.

To Frank B. Lundy III and his sister, Anne, it was just some old uniform she could cut the arms out of to make it into a Halloween costume. When he was 10 years old, Lundy found the jersey in the closet of his grandfather, Richard H. Lundy, an original Little League team sponsor. The jersey belonged to Frank B. Lundy II, who wore it at the first Little League Baseball game in 1939.

Frank II was not part of the team because he was too young and his uniform was an extra that his father purchased for his children.

“I was 6 years old,” Frank II said.

That historic game, won by Lundy Lumber, started a youth sports program that now is enjoyed all over the world. It was once of only twice that Frank II wore the uniform. The other time he wore it was to get his picture taken. Other than that, it sat in various closets through the decades.

“It was preserved by the grace of God,” Frank III said.

Lundy Construction, formed from a partnership following Lundy Lumber, now is the oldest Little League sponsor still in operation, Frank III said. Carl E. Stotz contacted Frank III’s grandfather, Richard H. Lundy, with an idea that he had about getting together some children to play sandlot baseball and providing them with a jersey and a hat. Every child would be able to play in every game.

“There’s nothing worse than a kid on a team who doesn’t get to play,” Frank III said Monday.

Richard told Stotz to get some more sponsors involved and he would sponsor a team. The public will get a chance to see the uniform at tonight’s parade, which steps off at 6 p.m. at the intersection of Susquehanna and West Fourth streets. Frank III’s cousin, Charlie, will wear it.

Following the parade, Frank III said he will have the uniform restored to fix damage from the Halloween costume and time, then use it for the company’s 80th year celebrations next year.

He also will sign an agreement to loan the uniform to the Peter J. McGovern Little League Museum every year in August so that people can see it during the World Series. At the end of August, it will return to Lundy Lumber to be displayed.

The Business Magazine’s “Risking It All” section highlights the entrepreneurs who made sacrifices to build their businesses in our region. This month, we met with Frank Lundy III, chief executive officer of Lundy Construction Company in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, to talk about the history and success of this 80-year-old family-owned business. Soon after Maurice Lundy left his home in Slido, Ireland as a stowaway bound for the U.S., he found himself in a flourishing career in the lumber industry in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

It was a huge risk during one of the worst years of the Great Depression, but one that would become the Lundy legacy. According to CEO Frank Lundy III, these entrepreneurs not only had to overcome fear, but the conventional wisdom of the time — to steer away from investing in a new venture, coupled with the challenges of procuring building materials and securing credit for construction during a fragile and weak economic time. “But, not being scared of hard work, believing in one’s self to accomplish personal goals and the ability to move against conventional wisdom prevailed,” says Lundy, “and we are here 80 years later to prove that challenges can be identified, met and overcome.”

Proudly pointing to such projects as the east wing of Divine Providence Hospital and the original Roosevelt School — built during World War II and when the basic building materials of concrete and steel were in short supply — Lundy Construction Company is truly a model of success. The company is today widely considered one of the most recognized contractors for industrial and commercial construction, remodeling and renovations in central Pennsylvania — a credit to its wide range of services and core competencies. “We can design, estimate and deliver sophisticated light and high-tech manufacturing facilities with our staff, procedures and our highly skilled, dedicated and proven field personnel,” explains Lundy. “We are able to provide design construction services to most industrial, institutional, health-care and commercial customers that could locate or expand in our geographical area.”

Lundy, for one, saw a new future in the area when he drove up from Philadelphia one day to assist his father with some business issues and noticed a convoy of what appeared to be drilling pipe loads on tractor-trailers heading toward Williamsport — at the beginning of the Marcellus Shale boom. “I learned a long time ago that if you want to build, you have to have someone to build for,” he says. “So, when you see others investing in an area, part of the collateral impact is construction. So follow the money.” At Lundy Construction, however, there is no secret to the company’s success. Notes Lundy, “It is what you can see that is our winning formula: Hard work, a desire to retain customers, a top-down requirement that the customer is the most important element in our business plan, and, finally, what feels like an inbred commitment to the Golden Rule.”