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Michael King served in the Marine Corps as a combat engineer and spent most of 2003 in Iraq on a combat tour. He took on a variety of projects while in Iraq, learning his construction lessons the hard way. Andrew Pennor grew up in the construction demolition business and seemed to have the itch to start his own construction company from as far back as he can remember.
Andrew Pennor and Michael King grew up together and when Andrew decided to go out on his own, he immediately thought of Michael as a business partner. Since 2004, Andrew, Michael and AMPCO Contracting, Inc. (AMPCO) have been providing commercial and industrial site demolition services for private and public agencies throughout Southern California. Through hard work and determination, the AMPCO team has earned a reputation as one of Southern California’s premier demolition contractors. Now in their tenth year in business, AMPCO has successfully completed some of the largest demolition projects in Southern California. Their expertise has expanded to large structural demolition and industrial site clearing.
These projects create the opportunity for the company to vertically integrate their services throughout the entire preconstruction process.
AMPCO’s turnkey services includes all hazardous abatement, structural and select demolition and earthwork, including hazardous soil remediation, as well as finish grading and excavation. When the company can bring all of this expertise to one project, they create a model of efficiency unique to the demolition and environmental remediation industry. This efficiency model helps clients realize their tight construction schedules and allows AMPCO to be one of the most competitive in the industry. When you add AMPCO’s experienced interior demolition/abatement team and earthwork division, there is not a project in the market that AMPCO cannot tackle.
Recently AMPCO has moved into the energy and manufacturing industry by performing the environmental abatement and decommissioning of power plants and manufacturing plants.
For many of these projects, the client requires impeccable project management expertise and strict safety guidelines, both of which are AMPCO’s strongest traits.
To put it more clearly, AMPCO offers demolition, site clearing, environmental remediation and earthwork services throughout California. However, the company now offers those same services in Idaho, Washington and the rest of the Western United States. They have earned and maintain a comprehensive licensing portfolio that includes: CSLB A, B, C-21, C-8, ASB, Certificate, HAZ Certificate and DOSH License for abatement.
Michael King is the company’s executive vice president and oversees much of AMPCO’s day-to-day operations. “We started out back in 2004 performing primarily demolition and asbestos abatement,” says King. “It soon became obvious that our heavy equipment could be used for more than just knocking down buildings. Combining earthwork and demolition is a big leap and is obviously not as easy as simply playing in a sand box.”
On the demolition side, AMPCO utilizes a variety of excavators, with the bulk of their excavator fleet consisting primarily of Volvo machines. “We had link belt’s in the past and are replacing these with Volvo excavators. We currently have six Volvo excavators in our fleet with the newest addition being a 2013 Volvo EC460CL,” says King. “Our sales representative is Dan McCausland and he is not your normal everyday machinery sales person. He is knowledgeable, honest and reliable. Dan has never sold us a bill of goods and has always stood behind what he is selling. We looked at Volvo before, but when Dan moved to Volvo (Volvo Construction Equipment & Services, Inc.), we gave it a closer look and it made a lot of sense.”
AMPCO also has a Volvo wheel loader and a mini excavator in their fleet of close to 75 machines. In addition, they have several Cat machines, a couple of John Deere’s and quite a few Bobcat skid steers. The amount of heavy earthmoving they do is nicely illustrated by the fact that they have 12 Cat 637 scrapers and several John Deere motor graders in the lineup. Finally, AMPCO rounds out this impressive fleet with a Terex/ Power Screen crushing plant.
AMPCO performs private construction work almost exclusively, with public works being done more on a selective basis. They are currently demolishing the Old Lakeland Refinery in Santa Fe Springs.
The refinery closed a few years back and they have been dismantling portions of the infrastructure ever since. AMPCO was recently contracted to salvage the hydrogen plant portion of the refinery, including the reformer and all of the fractionator columns. Additionally, they are salvaging all of the pipe rack equipment, tanks and other ancillary equipment. “Our job is to salvage everything possible and then bring the project to grade for the construction of a future industrial project,” says King. “When we eventually get into the earthwork, there will most likely be extensive soil remediation. A job like this allows AMPCO to really shine and showcase our diverse abilities.”
AMPCO is also currently on a very large power plant decommissioning project up in Stockton, as well as demolishing a building that once housed schedules and allows AMPCO to be one of the most competitive in the industry. When you add AMPCO’s experienced interior demolition/abatement team and earthwork division, there is not a project in the market that AMPCO cannot tackle.
Recently AMPCO has moved into the energy and manufacturing industry by performing the environmental abatement and decommissioning of power
For many of these projects, the client requires impeccable project management expertise and strict safety guidelines, both of which are AMPCO’s strongest traits.
To put it more clearly, AMPCO offers demolition, site clearing, environmental remediation and earthwork services throughout California. However the company now offers those same services in Idaho, Washington and the rest of the Western United States. They have earned and maintain a comprehensive licensing portfolio that includes: CSLB A, B, C-21, C-8, ASB
Certificate, HAZ Certificate and DOSH License for abatement.
Michael King is the company’s executive vice president and oversees much of AMPCO’s
day-to-day operations. “We started out back in 2004 performing primarily demolition and asbestos abatement,” says King. “It soon became obvious that our heavy equipment could be used for more than just knocking down buildings. Combining earthwork and demolition is a big leap and is obviously not as easy as simply playing in a sand box.”
On the demolition side, AMPCO utilizes a variety of excavators, with the bulk of their excavator fleet consisting primarily of Volvo machines. “We had Linkbelt’s in the past and are replacing these with preconstruction process.”
