As a member of ISNetworld, BROWZ, AVETTA, COR, CERCA, IHSA, and ECRC pre-qualification systems, Accuworx’s esteemed safety record is a valuable asset for bidding projects that require high standards in safety and compliance.  Higher compliance criteria are prominently seen in projects that include the energy sector, refineries, chemical processing plants, and government facilities.  Prospective customers can be assured that employees of Accuworx will comply with strict safety standards and that those standards will be followed while on a customer job site.

In addition, Accuworx’s New Experimental Experience Rating (NEER), a benchmark measure used for insurance premium discounts that compare worker compensation claims to other employers of similar size operating in the same type of business, continues to be reduced due to the company’s record of zero lost time accidents.  Our NEER rating is currently 0.2%, whereas, the average rating in our industry is 2.2%.  This result places Accuworx in the top 1% percentile in our industry for safety performance.

We look forward to the next 1,000 days and beyond. Congratulations to our Accuworx family!

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Success is always a moving target.  Anticipate what’s around the corner, change, adapt, or cease to exist.  Operations at service companies are being disrupted by technological advances and increasingly, project opportunities are becoming larger, riskier and more complex.  So what does that mean for Accuworx? It means we must all sign up to the fact that our company must evolve technologically with the right next-gen systems before we miss the boat.  And it means we have to embrace the fact that as a team, we need to continue learning better ways of delivering our services, sharing the same vision, and capitalize on the larger projects and work opportunities of the future.  Many business leaders like to chronicle fancy writings about what a winning corporate culture should look like. I sometimes get a kick out of reading some of these lofty ideas… In my almost 30 years in the industry, starting as a brush & bucket outdoor sign cleaner, truck driver and now, a company President, I can boil down the most important culture concept to two words: Hard Work!  Undoubtedly, hard work is the principle that has the most staying power, makes the biggest impact, and best defines the enduring company culture at Accuworx.  Sure, many other business leaders will use words like innovation, entrepreneurism, teamwork, integrity, accountability, excellence and sustainability. These are all basic human ingredients you’d want to see in many general areas of life, regardless of the situation, personal or business. But, guess what, nothing is possible in life without hard work.  Progress is not possible by waiting for luck to arrive, or hoping that others will solve your problems for you. Hard work is what helped our distant ancestors evolve from a darker, colder time. OK, it also it’s also important to embrace a few other core values to ensure success, like enthusiasm, ingenuity, fairness, compassion, and a healthy dose of scepticism, so we never forget to keep asking questions.  Here’s a question we need to continue asking ourselves: what will it take to build the successful company of the future?  I’m pretty sure that at Accuworx, we’re sure what the answer is…

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The purpose-built facility in Pearland, TX has been established to serve the area’s diverse private and public markets, with an initial focus on industrial turnaround services, hydro-excavation, offshore vessel cleaning, hydroblasting and hazardous waste management and disposal. The strategic location also makes Accuworx well positioned to capitalize on US-Mexico transboundary opportunities.

“We see this as an excellent opportunity to position ourselves to meet the exciting and growing prospects in the Gulf Coast region. It further allows Accuworx to expand our environmental and industrial services presence in North America and continue the success we have enjoyed over the last 27 years,” says Accuworx President Jason Rosset.

John “JJ” McGinnis has been named Vice President of Accuworx Gulf Coast and will manage the regional operation. McGinnis brings to the position extensive experience in industrial services and construction in the Gulf Coast region, as well as with refineries throughout the US and Edmonton, Canada. He joined Accuworx from Evergreen Environmental Services where he served as operations manager.

“I look forward to starting this new adventure and helping Accuworx continue to grow as a premiere international environmental company,” said McGinnis. “We have a solid team of experienced individuals that will allow us to serve both existing and new customers.  Beyond simply being a team, we aim to build a family to take care of each other and our customers.”

Based in Toronto, privately held Accuworx Inc. (www.accuworx.com) is a leading North American provider of a wide range of environmental and industrial services for both the private and public sectors. Founded in 1989, the company operates throughout Canada and the US, offering a full-spectrum service approach that includes industrial turnaround services, land and water-based emergency response, soil and groundwater remediation, wastewater treatment, disposal and recycling of hazardous waste, dewatering and hydro-excavation.

For more information, contact Jason Rosset at (416) 410-7222 or at jrosset@accuworx.ca.

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The combination of demographic pressures and the need for increased specialization makes for a challenging environment when building the workforce for our future.  Experienced workers don’t exist in today’s pool of available labor, so we have to create our own.

In 2015, Accuworx employees received on average 64 hours of training – while some received much more.  This has been steadily increasing in recent years.  Training regimens are constantly evolving at Accuworx as new equipment, new safety precautions and new processes are constantly introduced.  Newly hired team members begin orientation before they enter the field through our onboarding program; which typically lasts 2 weeks before any ‘on the tools’ exposure takes place.  From there, new hires receive ongoing support and training opportunities to strengthen both their technical and soft skills.

You could say that Accuworx is a ‘people investor’, and we think that the future of our firm will depend on how we much we invest and where we invest.  Our biggest investments will be made in employer-sponsored skills-development programs such as the training regimen mandated in our membership through CERCA, or our ongoing development program with COR.  Apart from conventional classroom settings, we use e-learning, peer-to-peer skills sharing, a virtual field simulator, outside industry experts and we regularly send employees for training throughout Canada and the US.

The preeminent goal of setting all of this as our investment priority is to provide Accuworx’s customers with the very best level of service possible in our industry and guarantee them that safety will be paramount in all of our operations.

 Jason Rosset

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We have been working diligently over the past year to reflect our commitment to safety in our regulatory and non-regulatory statistics with great success and we’d like to share our progress with you.

The following are some of the major strides we have achieved as a team:

CVOR rating:

We have undertaken a refocus on the safety of our fleet including hours of service, driver qualifications, and increased preventative maintenance measures. Months of preparation and a voluntary audit request were spearheaded by a partnership between our Operations and Safety departments. Our efforts have taken us to a satisfactory rating with the Ministry of Transportation.

This means that our clients can be sure they are getting qualified drivers with field experience who can deliver a safe and efficient premier quality service.

NEER rating:

We have made a re-commitment to managing our safety program with a focus on ZERO Lost Time Injuries coupled with a review of our claim costs over the previous 5 years. An in-depth analysis partnered with WSIB to ensure our incident reporting practices and return to work program are sound, resulted in a NEER rating of 0.02 for the first half of 2015.

This means that our clients can feel secure in our reporting practices and know without a doubt that our safety program is preventing incidents and mitigating losses in a proactive manner.

COR Certification:

The management team at Accuworx has recently made a proactive decision to take safety to the next level by pursuing COR Certification. We are aiming to complete our certification process for January 2017 to align with future initiatives to build partnerships with our valued clients.

By putting these initiatives at the forefront of our business, Accuworx has put a stamp on our commitment to safety which we are very proud of. The management team at Accuworx wishes to thank all of our business partners for their continued support in our efforts.  We look forward to a continued journey towards a safe and healthy work environment for all of our workers, clients, and vendors.

Great job Accuworx team!

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Accuworx’s E/R best practices were shared with more than 400 responders from various Peruvian organizations. Our goal was to educate the E/R experts in Peru with tools that can be used in a wide variety of situations. Our program was presented over two courses: “Fundamentals of Hazardous Materials Response” and “Response Health and Safety”; which showcased a broad view of different techniques used within the industry to tackle various emergency response tasks.

Accuworx has been moving to become an industry leader in Peru and larger South America, in order to service the booming natural resource sector that is expanding rapidly in the area.

With our response crews on the ground, the Accuworx team is working diligently with private and federal stakeholders to improve the state of hazardous materials response and environmental remediation in the country.

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On Friday, 6 November 2015, ACCUWORX USA, Inc. achieved the contractual Substantially Complete Status for the Enterprise Alley Remediation and Redevelopment Project in Barre City, Vermont, which is a US EPA Brownfield Project. The 3.5 acre Enterprise Alley site was a blight within the City’s downtown due to subsurface contamination that left the area undeveloped. The historical improper disposal of carcinogenic chemicals from a dry cleaner created a subsurface plume that off-gassed dangerous vapors into the basements of nearby structures, and created a property that was unattractive for development. Due to the serious nature of the contamination, the US Environmental Protection Agency, US Housing and Urban Development, and the City of Barre hired ACCUWORX USA, Inc. to clean up and redevelop the property. The project consisted of removal of approximately 1,500 tons of highly contaminated soils, installation of a subsurface soil vapor extraction system (SVE) and (55) chemical injection wells throughout the property to address the residual contamination. Following the remediation work, the site was completely redeveloped as a mixed use property consisting of the first segment of City’s paved bike path, recreation areas and green spaces, and a redesigned parking area with improved traffic flow. The site is equipped with beautiful decorative lighting, stamped concrete, and granite curbing. The project is estimated at $3.1M USD and the remediation system is anticipated to run for 3 to 5 years.

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Accuworx was asked to dispatch an Emergency Response Team with a specialized high pressure foam fire fighting trailer to support  efforts to douse foam and prevent further explosions at the Lac-Megantic train derailment in southeastern Quebec. The white-hot glow of the fire was so enormous that it was prominently visible on a satellite image of Quebec shot on July 6 from space by NASA. A special fire retardant foam was brought in to aid firefighters extinguish the fires in what reports has described as a blast with a 1 kilometre radius.

Our response team, led by Bill McMenemy, made Accuworx proud for their professional and courageous spirit and a terrific job well done.

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The 15th Annual Canadian Urban Institute (CUI) Brownie Awards were handed out at the Daniels Spectrum in Toronto’s Regent Park neighbourhood. The Brownie Awards program recognizes leadership, innovation and environmental sustainability in brownfields redevelopment across Canada. The CUI bring together urban practitioners from the private, public and not-for-profit sectors to participate in various events with top thinkers, leading experts and decision-makers from Canada and abroad. The 2014 Brownie Award for Sustainable Remediation Technologies and Technological Innovation was awarded to the Greenwich Mohawk Brownfield demonstration project for steam enhanced extraction.

Our dedication to innovation lead us to believe that stream enhanced extraction technology would prove to be a success for the application to brownfields and other heavy oil contaminated sites in Ontario. Accuworx Inc. became the only environmental service provider to hold an Environmental Compliance Approval from the Ministry of the Environment to utilize the technology. In conjunction with our partners, Groundwater Technology, steam was used to heat the soils (> 100°C) at the Greenwich Mohawk Brownfield and an excess of 1,100 litres of pure oil were extracted from the soils in just 3 weeks which in turn ended up being recycled. Triple Bottom Line analysis demonstrated that this in-situ approach produces a smaller carbon footprint than other techniques. The environmental impact of the remediation is evaluated based on CO2 emissions. In comparison, excavation by excavator, hauling away by truck and final soil treatment would generate 40% more CO2 emission than heat enhanced remediation. The success of the Brantford project paves the way for this advanced remediation technology to be applied to the Canadian soil remediation market.

We would like to congratulate all those involved in the project including our partners Groundwater Technology as well as The City of Brantford. The leadership of former Brantford City Councillor Marguerite Ceschi-Smith is particularly acknowledged, her vision and forward-thinking was key to Brantford’s decision to support the demonstration project and bring Groundwater Technology to help advance further research and knowledge in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada. The project was carried out with assistance from The Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Green Municipal Fund and The Netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs under the 2g@there program through the Netherlands Soil Platform. Assistance was also provided by the Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Toronto.

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Last Friday evening, September 19, 2014, Accuworx staff, vendors and clients came together to celebrate a milestone. A milestone of being in business 25 years and a time to recognize, celebrate and reflect. Taking an evening to do this and look back over 25 years was remarkable. As some of you have probably heard, this business was started by the owner 25 years ago out of the back of a Chevy van with a mobile pressure washer – how things have changed from determination and success!! We viewed some photographs that brought back many memories. Memories of early on when the business was born, to when it purchased its first vacuum truck, and to today with the largest fleet of its kind on Ontario. It was a journey of many choices, ones that have strategically placed Accuworx as a leader in the industry and ones that will continue to make us a successful and highly sought after leader. Accuworx Owner and President Jason Rosset gave a short speech thanking everyone for attending. Adding a personal note, he thanked everyone for being part of his team and that he was honored to work with such diverse crowd of people. As we reflected, we also looked forward. We look forward to continually growing Accuworx to the absolute highest level. We continue to invest in new equipment, training , and staff. We will be moving into a state of the art facility by mid-November where our fleet can be stored and serviced indoors. We look forward to the next 25 years of being in business!!

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