ALGC is a grading and utilities contractor that manages site and infrastructure projects.

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A.L. Grading Contractors (ALGC) Inc.’s entire existence has been based on providing a high-level of service, CFO Rick Leeson says. “That is why we are successful,” he declares. “We are very close with our clients and we’re very attuned to their expectations and needs.”

To stay in touch with customers, the company’s associates go as far as giving out their home numbers, so they can be reached if their clients have any concerns after hours. “We have done an excellent job of getting out there and staying in front of our clients,” Leeson says.

Based in Sugar Hill, Ga., the company is a grading and utilities contractor that manages site and infrastructure projects. The company is owned and managed by members of the Wood family, whose roots in grading go back to the 1930s, Leeson says.

The Wood family began providing grading services for clients in Atlanta in 1935. By the late 1970s, the Woods had earned a strong reputation from their expertise in managing large, difficult work sites and ALGC was engaged to grade and construct site infrastructure for many projects in the north Atlanta area of Georgia, including shopping centers, apartments, warehouses and office buildings.

Today, Tony Wood and his sons Lee Wood and Benjamin Wood lead ALGC by committee, heavily relying on each other’s expertise in the different areas of the company. “The family works very well together,” Leeson says. “It’s a very fine-tuned machine.”

Lee Wood explains that the Wood family’s approach to client service is unique to the industry.  They approach each project as an opportunity to provide value added services and to establish mutual trust and dependency between ALGC and its clients.  

Each family member works endlessly to energize company personnel to perform at their highest levels and each brings a genuine enthusiasm to all work performed.  “Personal, face to face contact with our clients is a key reason for the company’s success,” Tony Wood says.

“Value engineering and our extensive expertise in our industry ultimately save our clients time and money in completing their projects,” Lee Wood says. “We start every project having the end in mind. By understanding our clients’ expectations and goals, we are able to establish a solid basis for long-term, rewarding relationships with our clients.”

Leeson adds that clients enjoy ALGC’s family leadership, and it has nurtured much repeat business. “Almost all of our work is repeat,” he declares, adding that the company maintains a prestigious client list that includes many of the larger, national and regional general contractors and developers.

ALGC’s projects include shopping centers, large residential tracts, schools, athletic fields and stadiums, convention centers, town house complexes, golf courses, water and wastewater treatment plants, and reservoirs. Lee Wood reports that the company “should exceed $42 million in revenues this year.”

Contributing Factors
One of the factors that enable ALGC to compete in its market is its fleet of equipment, Benjamin Wood says.

“We run over 120 pieces [of machinery],” he says, noting that ALGC’s large versatile fleet of equipment allows the company to move great amounts of dirt in short periods of time.

Its grading, excavation and pipe-setting equipment includes excavators, loaders, dozers, scrapers, articulated off-road trucks, dirt compactors, hammers and rock crushers. “We have just an amazing fleet,” he says.

Its scrapers and dozers, for instance, allow AGLC to have flexibility for large grading assignments as well as detailed finish work, he says. In addition, “Our larger backhoes allow us to install large-diameter, reinforced concrete pipe,” he states. “They also give us the capacity to dig through trench rock, thus reducing requirements for blasting.”

Lee Wood says the company also has strengthened its production and estimating abilities with state-of-the-art technologies. “Our project managers are able to more efficiently and accurately control daily job costs using our bar code scanning system for tracking trucks and equipment,” he states.

“Our estimators can integrate data from ALGC survey crews into [computer-aided drafting and design] files to produce layouts on our robotic total design stations,” he continues. “This process ensures precise take-offs and quick turnaround on job pricing.”

The company says it also has assembled a very talented, capable staff. “ALGC project managers, field superintendents, grading crews and pipe crews have a complete grasp of all the unique skills and equipment required to tackle even the largest and most complex site development projects,” Tony Wood adds.

He says that the Wood family has personally trained and helped employees develop critical skills to perform their work the “A.L. Grading way.”

ALGC says its superintendents and crew foremen continually receive supervisory and job-specific training. “Tool box meetings are held weekly and safety inspections are performed frequently, at each job site,” the company declares. “We know that drug-free and safe job site conditions are critical to quality and cost-effective construction, and our safety record backs up our commitment.”