Month: May 2023

Every Covia facility is responsible for upholding our high standards of safety and health performance. Every year, we recognize plants that display exemplary performance and dedication to Safety First.

We presented our 2022 President’s Safety Award to our plant in Elco, Illinois. The President’s Safety Award recognizes the Covia Plant that achieves that highest level of safety performance in all categories of our critical Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), including reportable incidents, lost-time Incidents, safety-related actions completed on-time, dust sampling (not just on-time, but exposures highly controlled), and near-miss reporting – all of which demonstrate an exemplary Safety First culture.

Through their collective efforts, Team Members at Elco achieved the following results, which led to their selection as the 2022 award winner.

Completed 8 Years without a lost-time incident (LTI)No reportable incidentsElco’s near-miss incident rate was better than the targetCompleted 100% of incident investigations within 28 daysCompleted 100% of incident investigation actions and incident alert actions on timeCompleted 100% of dust sampling on timeNo regulator or internal housekeeping citationsHighly controlled exposure to respirable crystalline silica

At a celebration for Covia Team Members at Elco, Andrew Eich, President and CEO, presented the President’s Award Trophy to the site. The trophy will be displayed on site as a reminder of their achievement and inspiration to continue their dedication and effort to Safety First.

Maintaining exceptional safety standards takes constant vigilance, improvement, and a high degree of commitment from all.

For more information about Covia’s commitment to Safety First, please visit https://www.coviacorp.com/esg/positive-social-impact/.

OVERLAND PARK, Kan., May 4, 2023 /3BL Media/ — Black & Veatch announced today that it has acquired Bird Electric Enterprises and Bird Electric Properties both part of BASElectric Holdings, LLC (collectively known as Bird Electric). The agreement, driven out of growing demand for construction solutions to address megatrends impacting the world, accelerates the growth of both companies by combining key industry engineering, construction and procurement talent and business enabling resources.

Bird Electric is a U.S. self-perform electrical construction services provider to electric utility clients with a national reach in emergency power restoration – a key area Black & Veatch is focused on growing. Bird, with more than 600 employees, also has long-established relationships with fuels producers, and its capabilities are relevant and applicable to other adjacent linear and distributed construction markets and solutions that Black & Veatch serves. 

“The addition of Bird Electric and their operations is a historic event that builds upon Black & Veatch’s world-class capabilities and integrated solutions offerings,” said Mario Azar, Black & Veatch Chairman & CEO. “It also aligns to both companies’ vision to expand our solutions in the markets we serve, bring construction capabilities to a wider client base and provide broader career and personal growth opportunities to our professionals – all opening the door to an exciting future.”

Bird Electric will operate as a Black & Veatch Company with enhanced capabilities and reach in the growing Grid Solutions market – both new T&D infrastructure and restoration – and will also operate in adjacent linear and distributed infrastructure markets and solutions such as EV charging, renewables and connectivity. Driven by the global push for decarbonization and sustainability, those markets and solutions are amongst the highest potential, making the investment timely and poised to produce greater value to the company and its employee- owners.

“Our companies existing strong relationships, having worked together in a collaborative manner with services provided for several utility clients, creates great opportunities to expand the reach and apply the knowledge we have gained working together to meet clients’ growing demands in new markets,” said Brian Bird, Bird Electric founder and now President of Bird Electric, a Black & Veatch Company. 

Bird Electric and Black & Veatch both have industry leading safety records, strong training programs and a solid geographic footprint. Bird Electric also brings an industry leading apprenticeship program that is certified by the Department of Labor to the combined company.

Editor’s Notes: 

Bird Electric has a seasoned management team with decades of experience and more than 600 professionals that they bring to the combined company.Bird Electric also brings a large fleet of well-maintained, highly capable equipment, along with facilities that when combined with BV’s, provide greater operating capabilities and an expanded network making the company more competitive in its offerings to clients.The structure of the agreement includes Bird Electric joining BV as part of the company’s Grid Solutions portfolio within the Energy & Process Industries (E&PI) sector. It will also align with BV Operations for best practices and as a construction resource for all other relevant BV solutions.  Advisors for the agreement were Husch Blackwell LLP as legal advisor and BNP Paribas Securities Corp. as financial advisor for Black & Veatch and Capstone Partners as financial advisor and Wick Phillips as legal advisor for Bird Electric.  Financial terms of the transaction are not being disclosed.Click here for a link to photos and the company logo.

About Black & Veatch
Black & Veatch is a 100-percent employee-owned global engineering, procurement, consulting and construction company with a more than 100-year track record of innovation in sustainable infrastructure. Since 1915, we have helped our clients improve the lives of people around the world by addressing the resilience and reliability of our most important infrastructure assets. Our revenues in 2022 were US$4.3 billion. Follow us on www.bv.com and on social media.

Media Contact Information:

MEGHAN LOCKNER | +1 201-977-1628 | locknerm@bv.com
24-HOUR MEDIA CONTACT | Media@bv.com