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Long Life Treated Wood Alban Tractor

After 85 years, George & Lynch has grown to be “one of the largest and most diverse infrastructure contractors in the Mid-Atlantic area,” President and CEO Dennis Dinger reports. Based in Dover, Del., the company’s areas of work include airports, bridges, concrete, underground utilities, roads and highways, landfill construction and operations, sitework, and water and wastewater treatment plants.

Founders Harland George and John Lynch started the company in 1923. Since then, it has found success by diversifying its operations in multiple areas, Dinger says. “When one area of our market is down, we can pick it up in the other areas,” he says.

For instance, “Right now, the housing market is down,” Dinger says. “We’ve been able to redirect our business away from housing developments to other areas so that [our] volume hasn’t suffered.”

Approximately 80 percent of George & Lynch’s work is self-performed. This has not only allowed the company to rely less on subcontractors, but also have more control over schedules and costs.

Along with construction, the company is in its second year of a five-year contract to operate the Kent County Landfill in Sandtown, Del., for the Delaware Solid Waste Authority, Dinger points out.

“We have been operating that landfill for 20 years since its inception,” he says.

Satisfying Work
George & Lynch’s current work is primarily in Kent and Sussex counties in Delaware and Maryland’s eastern shore, but the company has also worked in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and the eastern shore of Virginia.

George & Lynch also has nurtured a strong rate of repeat business. Dinger believes that clients “just feel that they’re getting good quality work [from us] for a fair price. They [also] know we’re not trying to gouge them for every dollar we can get out of them.”

Another one of the company’s longtime clients is the Dover Air Force Base, which it has served for over 25 years. Currently, George & Lynch is in the second year of a five-year maintenance contract at the base.

“We do a lot of asphalt milling and paving along with concrete work on the runways, airplane parking areas and taxiways,” Dinger says. The company is working as a subcontractor on the removal and replacement of Runway 14/32.

“Our portion [of the project is] $23 million,” he notes.

Avoiding a ‘Nightmare’
George & Lynch has earned numerous awards for its work. This has included the Delaware Contractors Association Construction Excellence Award in 2001, for its work on the reconstruction of Interstate 95. “That [project] really established George & Lynch as the premier contractor in the area,” Dinger says.

That year, a seven-mile section of “I-95 was totally closed for two separate three-month periods where we totally demolished the road and rebuilt it,” Dinger remembers. “The state highway administration [had anticipated] a total nightmare of a project.

“We were totally closing one of the most heavily traveled roadways in the United States,” Dinger says. “They were deporting all that traffic onto auxiliary roadways.”

Instead, the company completed the reconstruction of the north and southbound sides of the highway with little difficulty. “We actually got it done early and earned a $1 million bonus,” Dinger adds. “We put our best people up there and we did a good job of managing the project. It [all] just clicked.”

Growing George & Lynch
Dinger has been with George & Lynch for 14 years, and says he has enjoyed the company’s practice of rewarding its employees beyond monetary bonuses. For instance, company employees enjoy participating in local and charity golf tournaments and sporting clay shoots, and often workers share the company’s season tickets for the Philadelphia Eagles and Flyers’ games.

In addition, “[We have] a really great bunch of guys here,” he says. Dinger notes that many of the younger members of the company’s staff represent the next generation of management, including Vice President of Operations Chris Baker, who has been with the company for more than 20 years. “He’ll actually be the next president,” Dinger predicts.

In addition, George & Lynch continues to search for ways it can grow. Currently, the company is working to acquire a second asphalt plant and expand its asphalt milling and trenchless technologies divisions.

“We’re trying to go into different geographic areas for those two businesses,” he says.

Targeting a Hot Market
Recently, George & Lynch opened an office in Elkton, Md., which it expects to be a hot market “in the short future,” Dinger says. He explains that many projects are currently being completed at the Aberdeen Proving Ground, which is the U.S. Army’s oldest active proving ground.       

“They’re supposedly bringing thousands and thousands of jobs there, which is going to lead to a mass of people coming in,” he predicts, “and we’ll be there to supply the necessary infrastructure.”