Echo 24 wins ABC Excellence in Construction Award!

When Ryan Clouse asked me to go to lunch, I had no idea what was on his mind. Ryan is the chief estimator for one of our best clients, Vaughn Industries, an Electrical and HVAC contractor based in Carey, Ohio. Over the years, I’ve had lunch with Ryan numerous times, generally along with some of my staff or some of his.

What made this mysterious was that no one else was invited. Was he looking to make a career change? I had no idea, but I have a great deal of trust in Ryan so I went with it.

It didn’t take long to learn what was up. When I pulled in the parking lot at Hoggy’s Barn and Grill in Gahanna, Ryan was waiting for me in the parking lot. I jumped out of my truck to go say hello and shake his hand and he says, “Hey, before you lock your truck, I have something for you”. I could see a bid package with prints on the seat and figured it was a project he wanted us to bid. Instead he leaned in and pulled out a box and handed it to me. In the box was a porcelain flying eagle on a marble base with the inscription “ABC Central Ohio Excellence in Construction…… for exceptional work on The Ohio State University’s William Oxley Thompson Library Voice Data: Echo 24, Inc.”

I could not have been more honored to accept this award as Vaughn Industries thought to nominate us as their subcontractor. Doing this voluntarily caused them to spend considerable time and expense making the case that we deserved the award. In the past I had always said that the best compliment a customer can pay us is repeat business. I may have to reconsider this position!

Originally opened in 1913, the William Oxley Thompson Memorial Library (Named for The Ohio State University’s fifth president) renovation cost $108.7 million, required 11 years of planning and 27 months for construction. The architecturally unique and sensitive building has 16 levels (12 stories), and is approximately 340,000 square feet. Of this, 250,000 square feet were renovated and the remaining 90,000 was expansion.

For our part, the structured cabling, we installed approximately 2,000’ of cable tray and 2,000 category 6 and RG 6 cables. In addition, we built the distribution frames in 12 Telecommunication Rooms and placed the copper and fiber optic backbone connecting them to the MC.

Echo 24, Inc. thanks Vaughn Industries and the Associated Builders and Contractors for this honor!