Kyle Duke, Lee Raney, Derrick Dean

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What’s behind his confidence?

In his Dallas office, Raney has added a team with 27 years of combined experience.

Kyle Duke and Derrick Dean are trained to the industry’s highest trench safety standards and have been a team since the late 1990s – helping excavators troubleshoot issues safely with low-cost solutions.

Both men came up through Speed Shore and The Plank Company (companies that pioneered vertical shoring through the leadership of David Plank and his son, Mike).

Duke loves the “spur of the moment, high-pressure scenario” when a contractor faces a dilemma that could increase costs or delay work when   excavation reveals the unexpected.

“Their downtime means they are losing money. I go out there and figure it out. It’s kind of like three balls and two strikes in the bottom of the ninth and you get the guy out,” says Duke.

The analogy is a fitting one. From 1989 to 1996, Duke was a pitcher in Major League baseball.

Dean is experienced in thinking strategically and getting the spur of the moment job done fast and right, too. He competed in quarter horse cutting events for many years, has trained and shown horses, and now raises horses on the family’s 1,500-acre ranch “30 miles east of town” with wife, Michelle, and son Ethan (“a big time baseball player”).

Duke and Dean thrive on being “a layman’s engineer.” Aztec provides free   safety classes for designated “competent persons” at the construction site.

“Safety is safety and we shouldn’t charge for it,” says Raney.       -mh

©2010 Construction News, Ltd.