Company Profile
CTEC AG

Reprinted from Grain Journal May/June 2016 Issue

Being in business for 20 years is an accomplishment any company should be very proud of, and York, NE-based C-TEC AG recently put that milestone in its rearview mirror.

The company is a nationwide leader in the construction and repair services industry and has excelled in servicing the agriculture industry since 1995 by delivering quality and safety in facility restoration, preventive maintenance, and complete facility modifications.

Founded by husband-and-wife team Greg and Amy Wurst, C-TEC was built from the ground up with longevity in mind and has grown piece-by-piece with strategic acquisitions that helped to position the company for success in meeting the needs of its customers.

“Greg had worked for Batterton Waterproofing, one of the first companies that did construction, concrete, and restoration work on grain silos,” recalls Amy Wurst, who serves as CFO. “He worked for them for 13 years, when he decided to start his own business. He grew slowly through the years, and back in 2012 we actually purchased Batterton Waterproofing, and manyof those employees still are working for us today.

“Then, in 2014, we also started two new divisions, C-TEC Mechanical and C-TEC Electrical,” she continues.

Today, C-TEC is the umbrella company for its four divisions (Construction, Electrical, Mechanical, and Waterproofing), and currently staffs between 60 and 90 employees in the United States and Canada, where it conducts the majority of its business.

Expertise and Resources

At C-TEC Construction, repair is the company’s primary focus. Consequently, C-TEC has hands-on expertise in the highly specialized techniques applicable to structural integrity.

The company provides a full range of construction and repair solutions to all facets of the agriculture industry including grain elevators, grain processing plants, feed mills, flour mills (wheat, corn, and soybean), and shipping and rail terminal facilities. It also offers a full scope of services to solve a facility’s problems ranging from roofing and coatings to concrete and gunite structural repairs, as well as new construction.

“For construction services, we offer steel-reinforced gunite liners. We also offer crack repair, insulation, coatings maintenance, drip coatings, disaster services such as debris cleanup, and then also structural restoration of grain silos,” Amy explains.

On the millwright side of the business, CEO Greg Wurst notes that CTEC Mechanical, its newest division, took some time to develop fully, because the company sought to hire experienced professionals who would be able to deliver the same quality experience with customers as it does on the construction side.

“The guys who are involved in the mechanical side have years of experience, so they bring a lot to the table with their vast knowledge. It’s been a very good fit,” he says.

“It took a while to put it together, but once we did, we had a business model that we wanted to implement, so that when we did come to the marketplace, we had the experience to back up the projects. It all came together for us,” he explains.

Both Greg and Amy agree that their skilled employees and the depth of knowledge they have is what truly sets C-TEC apart from the rest of the pack. “C-TEC’s niche is its resources,” Amy points out.

C-TEC has the right people on staff who will take on the safety and training requirements, and the administrative type of work that many of its Fortune 500 customers require. Some smaller bidders may not have the resources to handle all of that, she says.

“We have supervisors who have 30-plus years of working in this industry, and we’ve got right-hand men and guys out in the field who have about the same  amount of experience,” Greg explains. “We’ve got valuable employees who have the vast knowledge and the time in the industry that you just can’t train into somebody.

“I would say that gives us the opportunity to staff up on projects and run 24 hours a day if we have to, to get a project turned around in a quick period of time. I think that’s probably our biggest strong point in the industry,” he notes.

A Philosophy of Service

When it comes to a business philosophy, C-TEC believes that every employee works for the customer – an ethic to which Greg has held fast since his days working in the field as a superintendent at Batterton Waterproofing. His top priority was meeting and exceeding customer expectations, and that mindset lives on today in C-TEC’s employees.

“It’s embedded into our employees that the customer is the important key in the project,” Greg says. “Our top priority is to make sure that we get the job done safely and to the customers’ expectations.”

Greg explains that the company reinforces that message by helping employees in the field understand that they are putting their names on a project, and they should be proud of the end result. When they are, customers are satisfied – and there’s no better advertising that money can buy.

“I’ve always said that our customer service is our best advertisement. We strive to make sure that customer needs are met, and their time frames are met,” Greg explains. “There are some projects that we get into that are very time-sensitive. We try not to overpromise anything that we can’t deliver,” he says.

At the end of the day, Greg says that knowing the importance of customer relations is how the company has survived and will continue to thrive in the long term.

A Place to Feel Good About

“I take a certain pride in the fact that we’ve tried to provide a work environment, a culture where people can take pride in working for a company that they feel good about,” Amy says.

Greg points out that even though C-TEC is a somewhat large company, it strives to maintain a family-type atmosphere, where employees truly feel like part of a team and that their input and participation is valued.

“We want to make them feel that they they’re part of the business, that they have importance in the deal,” Greg explains. “That’s something we’ve had comments about, that we are more of a family-type organization, where people are appreciated, and the comradery that is there. We honestly feel like everybody is valued and needed to make the whole process work,” he adds.

Part of keeping the process running like a well-oiled machine involves constant improvement. Amy says that Greg is the type of owner who always is looking for additional services the company can offer to customers that would be of value to them.

“He’s always doing research and development on different things,” she observes. “It always amazes me how his mind is constantly working and thinking up ways to improve the business.”

Greg suggests that innovation is driven by what the customers want and the feedback the company receives from them.

“We’ve got a great customer base, and we constantly look at how we can provide needed services for that base. It’s a constant, ongoing development,” he says.

Greg points out that C-TEC doesn’t offer any new services that it hasn’t put a great deal of thought into, so that “when we do offer it, it meets the standards that our customers expect,” he says.

Staying in tune with customers’ needs requires a very hands-on approach, and as a result, Greg says he doesn’t spend a lot of time in the office.

“I’m out on projects a lot, so that I have that input from customers. You learn a lot more being in the trenches than just sitting and talking to them on the phone,” he says.