The Scope of Expertise

CCL's Gaylord Hotel at National Harbor

CCL USA carries the knowledge and experience of a post-tensioning giant to North American clients

Post-tensioning—the coupling of steel cables with concrete slabs to create high strength structures—is an ever-evolving aspect of the construction industry. Yet there is one company that became involved in the field more than seventy years ago, and today serves as an industry leader on the global level. As early as 1935, CCL Group began producing wedges and cable. Early textbooks on post-tensioning mention the innovative CCL wedge product and certain elements of the post-tensioning method are creations of the corporation. Since its foundation, CCL Group has transitioned into post-tensioning design and service, and the company has grown to become a brand name that is recognized around the globe as a leader in the design and implementation of high quality pre- and post-tensioning systems. Furthermore, with the acquisition of SD Post Tensioning, which became CCL USA in December 2007, the international company has recently made a spectacular entrance into the United States.

“Our vision is to establish CCL USA as a platform,” Marc Khoury, President of CCL USA, said. “CCL Group is present in 40 countries at this point. We are very involved in Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Africa and Asia. But the Group has never been directly involved in North America or South America. Our goal was expansion, and this was the main reason for the acquisition. Our vision is to become a model company for this industry in the United States.”

According to Khoury, CCL USA and CCL Group remain highly interconnected, with the new branch employing the latest technologies and experience of the parent company. The Group’s systems and expert advice are applied to high-caliber buildings, towers, bridges, and tank projects completed by CCL USA. In fact, shortly after its foundation in 2005, CCL USA became involved in the $600 million Gaylord National project. With this high profile project, CCL USA applied its systems to an 300-acre convention center and hotel located in the Washington D.C. area. The company began with 8.5x11 design sketches for the project and worked closely with Perini/Tompkins JV(Joint Venture), a D.C. area contractor. Today, the completed structure holds two million square feet of CCL post-tensioning slabs and beams, with both unbonded and bonded systems.

“It was a major undertaking for us. It was our baby,” Khoury said. “We showed a lot of people what we are made of. At that time not many people had heard of us, and we were a surprise company coming into this market. People didn’t understand why such a large project was given to a company with so little experience in the U.S. market. They didn’t know that we came from a large company that had a great deal of experience with very big and very challenging projects around the world. We did fantastic job on this project, and basically it immediately put us on the map in the United States.”

CCL is a member of the Post-Tensioning Institute Trade Association (PTI). The organization is recognized as the worldwide authority on post-tensioning, with members from the major post-tensioning and pre-stressing materials fabricators in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Japan, and Europe. Originally headquartered in Boston, CCL USA opened additional offices and a PTI certified plant in Jessup, Maryland. At the end of 2007, the U.S. owners also collaborated with the CCL Group by bringing the group as a majority owner in the business, further embedding the relationship between CCL USA and its mother company. Today, CCL USA sees annual revenue of $10 million, and serves the area surrounding the Northeastern U.S. from Ohio to North Carolina.

CCL USA offers diverse building options to clients, including one-way and two-way slab construction and both unbonded and bonded systems. Company achievement is evidenced in the application of these systems in parking structures, residential and commercial buildings, slab-on-grade foundations, industrial structures, and transfer slabs in a number of successful projects. The Wilmot Cancer Center in Rochester, N.Y., completed in 2007, utilizes the CCL bonded flat slab system, with 140,000 square-feet of PT slabs and CCL bonded flat slab anchors and ducts. For The River House condo building in Grand Rapids, Mich., CCL USA collaborated with the engineer of record to develop a special vertical post-tensioning system for the shear walls. For the Natick Mall Deck D project in Natick Massachusetts, CCL USA used a combination of 0.5” and 0.6” unbonded fully encapsulated tendons for the 200,000 square feet of PT beams and slabs to alleviate the rebar congestion on the project due to high structural loads.

While the CCL Group approaches post-tensioning with a design and service model, CCL USA caters to the American construction market by emphasizing the service aspect of the business. The company recognizes that in serving a distinct U.S. market, it must provide a high level of technical post-tensioning knowledge paired with quality service. “We decided that we needed to start from the top down, meaning that we needed to have enough talent on board initially to show who we are,” Khoury said. “It is about the whole team, and to demonstrate how knowledgeable we are in this industry. We have quality service. If clients need to get things done fast, we come in and we develop the product. But we’re also very close to our clients in terms of service. We have their back when it comes to post-tensioning.”

The CCL USA staff consists of 20 highly qualified employees, many of which were on board soon after the foundation of the company. The corporation hires in-house engineers, senior engineers, and drafters with architectural backgrounds, each of whom actively engages with clients to facilitate the construction process. Service at CCL USA is highly driven by the company model entitled PRIMA, which represents the central values of Professionalism, Respect, Integrity, Meritocracy, and Agility. “This is our core, and we started building our team on what we believe are our core values,” Khoury said. “There’s a whole vision that we worked on that put us on the map and showed our clients that we’re not just a contractor trying to get a couple projects,” Khoury said.

The CCL USA team is also acutely aware of a progress trajectory for the corporation, focusing on significant advancement within the next 30 years. Like the broader CCL Group, CCL USA aims to serve as an industry leader in post-tensioning systems and services. Khoury believes that the Group has achieved this goal on the global level. Locally, he says, the primary objective is to fully serve clients and guarantee successful projects. “CCL did not start with the idea of keeping it a regional business,” Khoury said. “The plan is still to be a national company. We want to be present in all of the USA. We want to be a leader in the design and execution of post-tensioning projects. Our vision is to become a model company for this industry.”