SOLUT IONS ABOVE & BELOW THE WATERL INE , S INCE 1949 .

COMMERCIAL DIVING | MARINE CONSTRUCTION | CRANE RENTAL & RIGGING

• VOLUME 2 | ISSUE 1 | WINTER 2019

Thank you for joining us as we kick off 2019. We hope your year is off to a great start. This is a very special year for us, as we are celebrating our 70th anniversary! In the upcoming issues, we will of course cover exciting projects and announcements; but this year we will take a little extra time to share our story with you. We are proud of our history and it influences us every day—from the way we answer the phone and respond to emergencies to how we problem solve and the way we treat each other. We say it every issue and we’ll keep saying it, we value history at Crofton; because where we’ve been is part of where we’re going. And if you’re reading this, you are a part of our history. Thank you for joining us!

WELCOME TO THIS ISSUE OF CROFTON NEWS: ABOVE & BELOW

• Maritime• Utility• Ship Repair• Municipalities

• Energy• Construction• Engineering• Military

Above & BelowC R O F T O N N E W S

SOLUT IONS ABOVE & BELOW THE WATERL INE , S INCE 1949 .

COMMERCIAL DIVING | MARINE CONSTRUCTION | CRANE RENTAL & RIGGING

At Crofton, we know we must be diligent about keeping safety at the forefront of creative problem solving. The most important thing is that everyone goes home to their families safely at the end of the work day! On November 13th, Crofton held a workshop for managers and superintendents where team members reviewed case studies of safety hazards, discussed the potential ramifications of each, and ways to resolve them or prevent them from happening in the first place! Thanks to everyone who participated and engaged in the conversation. Check out the highlights!

2

SAFETY FIRST:

ANNOUNCEMENTS

SOLUTIONS ABOVE & BELOW THE WATERLINE, SINCE 1949.

2018 IN REVIEW Thanks to our clients, vendors, and team members—2018 was a great year. Here are some highlights of what we accomplished together!

Check out the highlights!

Hampton’s new Mill Creek pier at Fort Monroe, built by Crofton Construction Services, celebrated it’s grand re-opening on Saturday, November 17th!

The Portsmouth Seawall’s finishing touches are nearly complete. The City of Portsmouth will host a grand reopening ceremony very soon and we look forward to celebrating!

▲

▲

▲

3

S O L U T I O N S A B O V E & B E L O W T H E W AT E R L I N E , S I N C E 1 9 4 9 .

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Salvaging a sunken gravel barge for Southern Material Company, upper James River, 1949.

Journal entries from Juan Crofton on the early days of Crofton & Morris Divers.

Juan Crofton’s diver tag from

employment at Newport News Shipyard & Dry

Dock Co.

As we approach our 70th anniversary, we would like to share our story with you. For this first issue of 2019, we’ll start at the very beginning. In 1937, Juan Crofton left Washington DC and moved to Williamston, NC to live with his grandparents. He graduated high school in 1940 and with the help of his football coach, obtained a partial scholarship to play for Duke University. In his second year, on December 8th, 1941, the United States declared war. In order to remain on the football team, the players needed to enroll in the National Reserves Officers Training Corps (NROTC). Juan didn’t pass the medical exam due to poor eyesight, so he wasn’t able to remain on the football team and thus, his scholarship was withdrawn. His coach gave him an application for employment to Newport News Shipyard & Dry Dock Company (NNS&DDCo) in Newport News, VA. Shortly after, Juan left Durham, NC on a Greyhound bus to Newport News, He later noted in a journal entry, “I forget my financial situation at this time, but it wasn’t too good. In fact, I think it consisted of pocket change after the bus fare.” By February 1942, Juan was working in the Rigging Department of NNS&DDCo and that June, he made his first dive on the No. 6 shipway. Juan eventually served in the Navy and spent time in Williamsburg, VA, Gulfport, Mississippi, and Seattle, Washington. After discharging, he returned to Norfolk, and worked for NNS&DDCo. again, before applying for a small diving company called Submarine Engineering Co. It was during his employment with SECo. that he would meet his friend and future business partner, Ernest “Duke” Morris. After working together on a few projects, the two friends decided to venture out on their own. Between the two of them, they took out a loan for $800 and acquired a boat by donation from their former colleague, Captain Till Conklin. Captain Conklin wanted to help but couldn’t provide financing, so a boat was the next best thing. Juan and Duke would eventually pay Captain Conklin for the boat after about 5 years in business.

> continued page 4

▲

▲

▲

To remember where you come from is part of where you’re going. ~Anthony Burgess. ””

4 FROM THE ARCHIVES

Juan Crofton and partner, Duke Morris at shipyard in Norfolk, VA.

The Cromo, at the time of purchase in 1951.

Letter from Juan Crofton to Merritt-Chapman & Scott Corporation in New York regarding the tunnel project between Berkley and Portsmouth, VA.

Crofton & Morris Divers continued to service the Hampton Roads harbor, experienced in “marine construction and repairs, sub-aqueous pipe lines, submarine cables, underwater burning (both electric and gas), underwater welding, salvage, inspec-tions, and general underwater operations.” In 1968, Duke decided to leave the diving business and Crofton Diving Corporation was born. Juan Crofton later noted, “During those early years, the help we got from different companies on the waterfront was a God send. Without the assistance of the many businesses and individuals that helped us a long the way, I doubt that Crofton Diving would be as far as it is today.”

> continued from page 4

At the time, Juan had gone back to work for NNS&DDCo and Duke was working as a Night Engineer on ships that were in the harbor. Due to the wars end, there was a surplus of machinery and equipment including diving gear. During the day, Duke would visit the surplus yards to see what equipment was available and at night, Juan would work on the boat. On Friday, June 24th, 1949, Juan and Duke received a call from Captain Conklin that Virginia Electric had lost one of their 33,000-volt submarine cables going across the channel at the Campostella Bridge. The job was of an urgent nature because the Ford Plant lost service and the cable was at fault. Of course, Juan and Duke responded eagerly, and this was the first job for Crofton & Morris Divers. In 1951, they purchased the Cromo, so named because Juan won the coin toss. It had previously served as a training vessel for midshipmen at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. Juan designed its conversion to a commercial diving vessel, taking inspiration from Norshipco Tug for the Cromo’s wheelhouse construction.

▲

▲

▲

5

VIRGINIA MARITIME ASSOCIATION The Virginia Maritime Association recently announced the launch of its Maritime Lead-ership Certificate Program. Camille Crofton Cherry serves as chair of the VMA Future Leaders and its steering committee, which led the efforts to launch the program. The goal of the MLCP is to provide participants with a comprehensive understanding of the maritime industry, expand their professional networks, and develop critical leader-ship skills. Camille will participate in the inaugural class of MLCP which is scheduled to graduate in May of 2020, in conjunction with the VMA’s 100th anniversary celebration. For more information on VMA’s Maritime Leadership Certificate Program, click here.

PROPELLER CLUB, PORT OF NORFOLK: Crofton team members enjoyed celebrating the 92nd Annual Propeller Club Convention and theAnnual Membership & Holiday Party.

PROCORE GROUNDBREAK: This past November, Jeanette MacDonald (PMA), Erica Crofton (PMA), Clay Backus (Project Manager), and Shawn Albin (Chief Estimator & Project Manager) attended Groundbreak 2018 in Austin, Texas. Groundbreak is hosted by Procore, the project management software used by Crofton’s project management team members since 2016. Procore provides Crofton team members with a central location for project documents, document management, workflows, and productivity tracking. Since adding Procore to Crofton’s portfolio of technology systems, we’ve received nothing but positive feedback from clients who take advantage of features like real time productivity reporting. While attending Groundbreak, Shawn, Clay, Erica, and Jeanette attended sessions on project budgeting, leadership, Field Productivity, and collaborated with Procore’s representatives in the Innovation Lab, where they could provide feedback to Procore on what’s working well, what can be improved, and suggest new features!

Camille Crofton Cherry attends convention receptionwith Russell Young (Virginia Port Authority), Jordan Watkins (VEDP), and Jason Strickland (World Distribution Services).

Jackie Burns, Bob Murphy, and Sheryl Correia represent Crofton Crane Rental & Rigging at the Propeller Club’s

Annual Membership & Holiday Party.

Erica Crofton (left) attends networking reception at Procore Groundbreak.

INDUSTRY ENGAGEMENT

6

NEW YEAR’S EVE LIFTOn New Year’s Eve, the Samson moved two 150-ton RTGs from Virginia International Gateway (VIG) to Norfolk International Terminals (NIT) with specialized engineered lift rigging. Shortly after the new year, the Samson was scheduled to go to dry dock, but on short notice two more RTGs needed to be moved. The Crofton Crane team decided to shift the Samson’s specialized rigging to the 600-ton Manitowoc 4600 Ringer and on January 11th, made the two additional RTG transports!

INDUSTRIAL BULKHEAD REPAIR

Crofton Diving recently served as a subcontractor repairing a steel sheet pile bulkhead at an industrial plant located on a commercial waterway. The total length of the bulkhead was 926 feet and the waterline levels ranged from 4 to 14 feet.

The original bulkhead construction consisted of PZ-35 or Frodingham 4N steel sheet piles. Lewis Myers (Superintendent) and crew began their efforts with an underwater investigation to identify any obstructions that would prevent the new sheet pile repair system from being installed. The existing sheet pile bulkhead would be repaired using the SPiRe® system, which consists of engineered panels made with fiber reinforced products (FRP). This stay-in-place chemical resistant system will protect the commercial waterway from chemical leaks from the industrial plant’s containment area or retention pond. A sample system was constructed and tested at the QuakeWrap Inc. headquarters first, and again at Crofton’s facility in Portsmouth to calculate productivity rates and to be sure that it met specifications. David Mrowiec, P.E., principal engineer shared that “as a result of the field mock ups, we were able to collaborate with our client to develop an innovative custom diver tooling which increased production by about 150 feet while maintaining a high level of safety.” >Read More...

PROJECTS

Crofton’s divers work with installers from FRP Construction to ensure each SPiRe®

FRP panel is installed to engineered specs. Photo courtesy of FRP Construction

and QuakeWrap.

Watch this video to learn more about the SPiRe® system.

A beautiful backdrop for the last lift of 2018!

7

HARRIS CREEK CABLE INSTALLATIONIn December, Crofton installed 6250 linear feet of 25kV submarine power cable; crossing Harris Creek in Talbot County, MD. In the spring of 2016, Crofton began serving as an agent in the permitting process through Army Corps and Maryland Board of Public Works attending agency meetings and conducting site investigations, which continued to the fall of 2017. During this process, additional steps were introduced to protect a sensitive oyster sanctuary at the installation site. To ensure the preservation of the oyster sanctuary the installation site would require zero turbidity, limiting plowing times to periods of slack water and a major alteration in the installation route that would add nearly 1500 feet of plowing. This ultimately led Crofton to design an innovative method of plow embedment that did not utilize water jets. This new plow dug a narrow 4’ deep trench and deposited the conductors directly into the trench without stirring up the bottom sediment. The installation process required precise navigation and electronic plotting controls to ensure that the trenching was conducted outside of the oyster grounds and the pulling anchor wasn’t placed along these same ecologically sensitive areas. Congratulations to the Crofton team for finding a creative solution to preserve the oyster sanctuaries during installation.

PROJECTS

S O L U T I O N S A B O V E & B E L O W T H E W AT E R L I N E , S I N C E 1 9 4 9 .

SEAFOOD INDUSTRIAL PARK IMPROVEMENTSCrofton is currently executing repairs and improvements to the City of Newport News’ Seafood Industrial Park. The industrial facility brings in about half of the seafood that lands in the Port of Hampton Roads and these improvements are part of an effort to return the park to 100% capacity. Improvements include increasing the capacity of the travel slip, which will support Fairlead’s new travel lift, and adding 4 new 100-ton mooring bollards. Additionally, Crofton will make miscellaneous repairs to the existing concrete bulkhead. For the travel slip, 20 new HP piles were driven, and a new cast-in-place concrete cap was

poured. The new mooring bollards are 19’ tall x 4’ thick x 9’ wide and are supported by 8 14x89 H piles. “We always enjoy an opportunity to work with the City of Newport News. They’ve got a great team of professionals.”, shared Shawn Albin, Chief Estimator & Project Manager. This phase of improvements is scheduled to be completed by the end of April. Thanks to Trenier King (Foreman), Isaac Hernandez (Carpenter), and crew for their efforts on this project!

Watch this video to see how they did it!▲

8

NOTHING OUT OF REACH!

75-ton Link-Belt making lifts for Surry Ferry in Norfolk, VA.

40-ton Manitex removing a tree at a residence.

90-ton Link-Belt setting roof top equipment in Norfolk, VA.

110-ton Grove lifts cable reel with 215 feet of boom at Norfolk terminal.

90-ton Link-Belt placing a crane boom back on the ship.

165-ton Grove setting a light tower.

S O L U T I O N S A B O V E & B E L O W T H E W AT E R L I N E , S I N C E 1 9 4 9 .

9PEOPLE BEHIND THE PROJECTS

Sam Smith, Eric Mullen,

Matthew Trahan,Michael Lanthorn,

Lindsay Brown Jr., Joshua Will,Chad Hayes,

Rogers Frickey Jr.,Kelly Flanagan,

Diving Supt., Diving Estimator,

Diving Supt. ,Foreman,

Laborer,Asst. Project Manager

Carpenter,Rigger,Rigger,

30 YEARS25 YEARS20 YEARS5 YEARS

1 YEAR1 YEAR1 YEAR1 YEAR1 YEAR

Congratulations and thank you for being a valuable member of our team!

HAPPYAnniversary

Lawrence Hill, Stephen Brickhouse,

Joee Duffy, Karon Gatling,

John Alcini, Christopher Boyce,

CarpenterCrane Operator

Project Manager AssistantPile Driver

Human Resources DirectorQuality Control Manager

NEW EMPLOYEES!

CROFTON TEAM MEMBERS HAD FUN CELEBRATING THE HOLIDAYS!

Welcome, and thank youfor joining our team!

WELCOME TO THE WORLD

Congratulations to Mike Lawler, Tool Manager, and wife Erica on the birth of their son, Vincent Eugene Lawler, born January 7, 2019. Vincent is also welcomed by big sister Natalie!

Jacob Stadsvold (Diver) was very committed to spreading holiday cheer!

Beth was really getting into the spirit in the front office!

Sheryl Correia, Chris Boyce, and Karon Gatling at the holiday party on the Spirit of Norfolk!

S O L U T I O N S A B O V E & B E L O W T H E W AT E R L I N E , S I N C E 1 9 4 9 .

10

CONNECT WITH US!

24 HOUR RESPONSE CALL: 757.397.1131 16 Harper Avenue • P.O. Box 7756, Portsmouth, VA 23707 • crofton.com

7

I wanted to make you aware of the great job that your team of riggers led by Mr. Hindle did in helping BAE Systems with not (1) but (2) wire rope change outs on (2) of our

Portal cranes. The team that you supplied to perform those repairs performed at a top level and demonstrated a good safe work plan working at a height of over 150’ above the

ground. BAE Systems and I thank you and your team for all you do to help us

~Stan Blankenship, BAE Systems

You guys are first class all the way. That crane is the best. Operator was a complete professional. I want him and that crane every time. Again, thank you for your help ~ Marty, Omega Concrete & Construct ion

WHAT OUR CUSTOMERS ARE SAYING

COMMERCIAL DIVING • MARINE CONSTRUCTION • CRANE RENTAL & RIGGING

Crofton Industries employs a team of individuals who have years of experience and training in highly specialized fields. Together, the Crofton team ensures the safety of travellers, maintains major power generation facilities, preserves our region’s shoreline, supports our nation’s military, and serves the many industries that support the port of Hampton Roads. Our people are our biggest asset at every level.

At Crofton, a wide range of career opportunities are available, from entry level to the experienced professional. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis. Visit our website to view all available positions and start your career with Crofton!

WORK WITH CROFTON

FOR MORE INFORMATION,VISIT:crofton.com/company/careers

• Estimator, Project Manager, Superintendent, and Foreman: Heavy Marine Construction experience preferred.

• Commercial Diver: Must have graduated from fully accredited ADCI dive school.

• Crane Operator: NCCCO certified preferred.

• Engineer: Civil background preferred.

C U R R E N T O P E N I N G S :