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A man who can combine his passion with his business – or whose passion is his business – is a happy man. Rodney Frias, COO of S&F Concrete Contractors Inc., is passionate about the family’s concrete business. “Golf is my second passion,” he concedes. “Golfing is a great way to network in this business.” Frias is a frequent player at fundraising golf tournaments for many organizations, such as hospitals and universities.

He also learns patience from the game, while contacts he makes on the golf course enable him to maintain his clientele. This is a critical component of business, especially in these most challenging times.

“One of the most important things in this whole business is repeat business,” Frias asserts. “A lot of times, we’re working for the same general contractor. The quality of work and the relationship are very important.”

S&F Concrete Contractors Inc. usually is a subcontractor unless the owner of a project specifically requests it. “On a case where we have a relationship with an owner, the owner will assign us to the general contractor,” Frias relates. “There’s been instances where we’ve done that. Primarily, we’re a subcontractor. “We bid to all general contractors, and we like to keep it at that level, whereas a lot of my competition that try to perform the same work are also general contractors themselves,” he points out. That combination can conflict with the very same contractors they are bidding to as general contractors.

Interning For Pay

Frias attended Northeastern University’s innovative cooperative program in 1990 and 1991, which enabled him to get construction industry experience in three- and six-month paid, full-time internships. “You have to go for a job interview, and they help place you,” he explains.

Students spend a year working on such internships as part of their education. Frias says the university is a leader in this type of program, which is very popular, and his company now is a participant in it. During his time in the program, he worked as a field engineer for Morse Diesel and spent approximately one year in the estimating department of Clark Construction.

He had been working summers since he was 14 years old at family owned S&F Concrete Contractors Inc. The company was formed in 1965 by his father, Antonio, his uncle Joseph, and Jack Santos, who left the company when it relocated to Massachusetts from Connecticut in 1968. After his intern experiences and graduating from Northeastern University, Rodney Frias joined the family business full time in 1993.

“We have 30-plus family members of our own employed by the company,” Frias notes. “S&F also has many fathers, brothers, sons and daughters of first and second generations working in the crews or office. It is truly a family owned business.”

As mentors, he lists his father; uncle Joseph; Peter Moskos, who is S&F’s chief estimator and executive vice president; and James Finklea, formerly of Clark Construction. “I like the day-to-day grind, the competition, the bidding process,” Frias says. “Just seeing something that’s a big puzzle coming together from A to Z, you try to make it work.”

Up-down Construction

An innovative construction technique the company has used on approximately a dozen jobs over the past 10 years is the up-down or top-down method of construction. Most recently, S&F Concrete used it on the Russia Wharf project in Boston. Building a 33-story structure with six levels of underground parking in two directions at once saved significant time.

The method involves sinking steel columns and the walls of the foundation – which are concrete slurry walls – in the ground to support the structure before excavation for the lower levels starts. Then, as the building is constructed above ground, on the slurry walls and columns, the lower levels are excavated at the same time. 

“In this case, they put slurry walls in, they dig out the ground level only, we cast the slab and that’s the platform to go up,” Frias explains. “Then they dig out beneath each slab and place each slab. You’re only doing 10 feet at a time. The earth is the form for each level. 

“It’s less expensive for the owner,” he points out. “There’s a lot of coordination involved. When they do an open cut for an excavation, they have to do cross-lot bracing to shore the exterior walls so the materials don’t collapse into the hole. This avoids the need for that.”

The project started in November 2008 and was completed in May 2010. The 1.1 million-square-foot, mixed-use structure is a combination of concrete and steel with slab-on-metal-deck construction. 

It features retail on the first floor and includes class-A office space and luxury condominiums. The brick façades of the three existing low-rise mercantile buildings on the site were preserved, although the new structure’s exterior is mostly glass curtain wall. 

Fleet Feat

S&F Concrete Contractors’ substantial equipment fleet reduces the need for rentals and improves quality. “Our fleet is a lot larger than most,” Frias notes. “We own and maintain our fleet of equipment, such as 14 concrete pumps, ride-on trowel machines, laser screed and hundreds of other key pieces of equipment that S&F calls the tools of the trade. Obviously, quality is a lot easier to control if everything is under your own purview.” 

It also allows easier fast-tracking of jobs, which is an S&F specialty.

“We’re basically one-stop shopping,” Frias points out. “If you call S&F Concrete, we do the estimating, we do the project management for the jobs, we buy the materials, we install the materials – whether it be a foundation or slab – while a lot of our competitors only do one piece of the puzzle.”

Hands-On Beginning

From the company’s establishment, founders Antonio and Joseph Frias worked hands-on as cement masons, training their foremen to produce work that met the high standards they demanded. The two brothers always have taken great pride in the expert workmanship and dependable service they provide their clients. 

Dedication to quality and reliable organization have turned S & F Concrete Contactors Inc. into the largest concrete contractor in New England.

One of the keys to this success is the ability to hire, train and retain responsible and capable personnel.The company says one such hiring has been Moskos. With more than 30 years experience in the concrete field, Moskos not only manages selected projects but also reviews all estimates and work in progress.

A Modern Fleet

S & F Concrete Contractors has a fleet of the most modern and up-to-date concrete pumps in the industry. One division focuses on concrete formwork, which offers services such as cast-in-place structural concrete, formwork, rebar and mesh, post tensioning, supervision, layout and engineering, Another division handles concrete flatwork, which includes pump, place and finish for high-rise superstructures, commercial buildings, parking structures, tunnels, ice skating arenas and industrial facilities. 

The company explains its specialty floor division operates distribution and manufacturing facilities and offers products with a variety of hardeners  and deferred toppings. These include superflat, mineral or metallic hardeners, pigmented, light reflective, spark-resistant or deferred toppings. 

S&F Concrete also gives back to the community, supporting the efforts of the Boy Scouts of America, Boys and Girls Clubs, sports teams, high school scholarships, and local charities like Rosie’s Place and St. Francis House.