Business View Magazine | June 2019

125 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE JUNE 2019 P I TTSBURG TANK & TOWER GROUP In the maintenance area, Pittsburg does some in the municipal arena and a tremendous amount in the private sector. A tank has a lining that protects the steel from whatever product is being stored in it, and at some point the lining deteriorates and has to be replaced or repaired. That means reviewing the condition of the tank every 10 to 15 years to see if it needs maintenance upgrades. Something built in the 1950s or earlier, before the Occupational Safety & Health Act was promulgated, probably has deficiencies of current OSHA regulations. That’s a fairly common maintenance service provided by PTTG. The company also does design and engineering in all 50 states and a few Canadian provinces, including new construction, re-evaluation of structures, and seismic upgrades. The latter is becoming common practice, as more is understood about seismic activity. PTTG’s structural engineers do those analyses for seismic design upgrades. Another area of growth is the installation of cellular antennas on water tanks and putting additional antennas on communication towers. “Obviously, any time you add to either one of those, you have to analyze it to ensure it will support the additional loading,” Johnston explains. “That’s another part of the engineering we do. Depending on what code or standard a tank is built for, whether it’s AWWA (American Water Works Association) or NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) or API (American Petroleum Institute), there are different intervals in which they’re required to inspect, analyze, and collect data on their tank. We’re very active in that arena, where we’re monitoring the tanks over long periods of time through inspection criteria and documentation.” As for competition, Johnston admits, “Ten years ago I would have said we were probably one of the most well-known construction maintenance service companies in the industry. It was incredible the amount of repeat referrals that came through the door. Then comes this crazy thing called the internet, which we all love and hate. Now, anybody that has a website and is intelligent enough to use a certain amount of search engine optimization pictured PTTG employees and their family members wore special lightweight purple hoodies emblazoned with a bright green image of a welder running for a 5k race that benefitted Henderson Habitat for Humanity. Pittsburg won the “Habitat for Humanity Largest Corporate Award” for having 170 participants in the race that was held in Henderson, Kentucky this spring.