It’s a by now familiar sentiment: “We are definitely on a strict budget with gas.” But the person saying it is not a stressed mini-van mom trying to double up on trips to the pool and Kroger this summer. Those are instead the words of Ted Horn, executive vice president of Martin Horn Inc., the general contractors whose proliferation of trucks and workers around town is as much a sign of the summer in Charlottesville as sudden afternoon thunderstorms. “We have made changes in our fleet of company cars,” he says. “We now own six hybrids and we switched all of our diesel trucks to bio diesel.”
With at least 17 major projects currently underway in the area and roughly 140 employees, Martin Horn certainly isn’t immune to the effects of escalating gas prices. Neither is R.E. Lee & Son, Inc., another local contracting firm. “Sure, the prices are affecting us,” says Vice President John Barret. “They are affecting how we do business as everything else is these days. It’s bad for construction companies too.” R.E. Lee, though, has no changes planned for its labor force.
 Ted Horn, executive vice president of Martin Horn Inc., says his company is looking at moving to a four-day work week and has moved to bio diesel because of the rising gas costs. |
But it’s not just the cost to the company that has Horn concerned, either. Employees drive to job sites all across the region, and the commute is…what’s the word we’re looking for here?…costly.
The firm has been looking at switching to a four-day work week, the so-called 4-10, from a five-day work week, cutting the weekly commute by 20 percent.
“We are definitely looking into it, and it’s up to our superintendents,” Horn says. “They are the guys that run the whole job out there in the field.”
Past that, there’s the ol’ pile-in strategy. “We are going to input all of our employees addresses on Google Maps so that we see who lives closer to which job site,” Horn says. “We want fathers and sons and brothers to carpool as much as possible.”
C-VILLE welcomes news tips from readers. Send them to news@c-ville.com.