2018 proved to another great year for HB NEXT. Tony Middlebrooks, President and Co-Founder of HB NEXT, reflect on the year that saw changes and growth across all 7 of the companies operating business units.
“I want to personally thank our customers and our staff for what has turned out to be another record setting year for HB NEXT. Without the loyalty of our customers and their trust in allowing HB NEXT to support their growth, we would not be able to reach our goals. Without the dedication and determination of our HB NEXT employees, we would not be where we are today.”
In 2018, we continued to demonstrate to our customers and the market, how HB NEXT brings together expert labor and deep industry knowledge enabled with real-time data and technology to deliver innovative solutions to our construction, utility and general industry customers. At the core of everything we do is Sequence, our SaaS (Software as a Service) technology platform which powers all of HB NEXT’s professional services and operations. Additionally, HB NEXT licenses various industry specific versions of Sequence directly to end-use customers and service-based companies throughout the US.
As one of the nation’s premier cloud-based solutions for construction and general industry, our SequenceSM Software products have continued to evolve rapidly in 2018.
To enhance our professional services and deliver unique data tools to our clients, HB NEXT has upgraded the internal software solutions that we use in our daily operations.
Additionally, we have expanded our Software offerings to include four subscription-based products (SafetyCloud, StormCloud, OSHA 300 Cloud, and CMT Cloud). As we move into 2019, these products are set to emerge as the preferred SaaS solutions for construction and general industry.
Beyond our Software Services, HB NEXT has 7 business units that bring together the power of SequenceSMwith years of hands-on industry experience to help our clients works smarter, safer and cheaper. The 7 business units are: Safety, Environmental, Training, Legal, Energy Solutions, EMC Green, and Erosion Control (specifically in Northeast Florida). Each of these business units work together across clients and industries allowing HB NEXT to offer construction, general industry and power utility customers an unparalleled set of technology enabled services.
Our Safety business unit’s unique Compliance Partner Program (CPP) that provides turnkey outsourced safety, saw a growth of nearly 50% in 2018. In this program, HB NEXT virtually manages a company’s safety program at a fraction of the cost of traditional in-house management. The compliance partner program brings together software, field & professional services, legal, and training to create an affordable bundled package that saves our customers money while giving them more safety tools and resources. Aside from this, we continue to service commercial, general industry, and residential clients with mock OSHA Inspections, loss control, full-time on-site safety services, and safety program development, implementation & updates. Due to increased scrutiny from OSHA in the residential construction industry, we have seen an increased market demand for Safety Inspections & support services with regional and national homebuilders. Additionally, orientation automation, has become a major area of focus for mid-sized commercial contractors, manufacturing companies, and large residential contractors. Overall in 2018, our Safety business helped over 500 companies improve employee safety and reduce the cost of on-the-job incidents and accidents.
The Environmental business unit continues to support some of the largest national homebuilders, plus many other companies in the US, providing weekly and in some cases daily NPDES inspections and SWPPP preparation. We also expanded our NPDES Inspection Services with one of the largest power utilities in Georgia. Currently, we provide boots on the ground services for the entire States of Georgia, Florida, South Carolina and North Carolina with some coverage in Alabama and Tennessee.
The Training business unit saw a banner year in the area of Workforce Development and Leadership Training. Currently, we have six workforce development programs in full swing. As of December 2018, almost 1000 students have been trained and credentialed through the Construction Ready Program, and we’ve placed 930 into full-time, entry level jobs, for a placement rate of 93%. Also, the retention rate after one year is about 75% as well.In addition to this, we continue to educate around 5,000 students per year via Public and Private classes, and we opened a second training location in Covington, GA.
The Legal Business Unit has worked on several cases in 2018 to help clients mitigate and in some cases, eliminate OSHA and EPA fines imposed on them. This year, we have been able to successfully contest OSHA citations by showing that a different employer was the responsibleemployer for the hazards andemployee exposure at those jobsites. This was one of the trends we found for 2018. However, to make this defense successfully, clients need good contracts and oversight for their subcontractors.
This year the HB NEXT Energy Solutions business unit outgrew our corporate office location and completed a re-brand. We launched a web-site for this business unit. www.hbnextenergy.com.The business unit is located in Covington, GA. Energy Solutions, continues to morph as more power utility companies find out about our services. We recently added the second largest EMC to our customer list. Now, we can proudly say we provide services for 4 of the top 5 EMCs in the state of Georgia and the largest power utility company in the Southeast. In addition, we added a telecom services group that worked on the renovation of Phillips Arena that is now the State Farm arena. In late 2018, we began a state-wide small cell network deployment for the largest power utility company in Georgia, and this project will have tremendous growth in 2019.
The Erosion Control Business Unit has added several top tier residential customers in the Jacksonville, Florida area. We continue to be the market leader for erosion control installation and maintenance in Northeast Florida.
The EMC Green www.emcgreen.com was launched in 2018 to offer our EMC and Power Utility partners a company that they can trust to perform an in-home Energy Analysis to their residential customers to help them lower their power bill. The company quickly evolved into an energy efficiency focused renovation company, offering window replacement, insulation, automated thermostats, roofing, gutters, siding and solar solutions to clients all across Georgia. In its first year EMC Green helped over 250 customers reduce their energy usage, lower their energy bills and increase the comfort of their homes.
In August we held our annual company dinner at the Gwinnett Stripers ballpark and want to give a special thanks to our corporate sponsors (Ginn Chevrolet that provides our fleet of over 50 vehicles, HR Strategies that provides and handles our payroll and 401K, and Sterling Seacrest that provides our corporate insurance) that helped us make this possible.
In summary, it has been an exciting 2018. We look forward with great anticipation and excitement for 2019. The future looks bright and we have been truly blessed. We value all our client and vendor relationships. Please contact us if we can help you solve your latest construction challenge.