How Superior Construction Is Building a Legacy of Safety on Civil Projects

For over a century, heavy civil contractor Superior Construction has been building the infrastructure people and industries depend on. The fourth-generation, family-owned company prides itself on traditions rooted in safety, integrity, innovation, and long-term commitment.

“What makes the work we do so rewarding is seeing the lasting difference it creates,” says Bryan Stone, Southeast Regional HSE Manager for Superior Construction. “These projects do more than connect infrastructure, they help connect communities and improve lives."

Superior specializes in road, rail, industrial, aviation, and marine infrastructure projects, as well as emergency response, like the restoration of the Sanibel Causeway in 2022. Working on these structures is Superior’s 1,200-strong workforce, and the HSE teams at Superior are responsible for ensuring their safety.

But on distributed projects with miles of roadway or coastline, that’s easier said than done.

“With commercial construction, you’re working with a box, and everything goes up,” says Travis Browning, Superior’s Division HSE Manager for Northeast Florida. “With heavy civil, we’re going out. This means oversight, crews, and resources spread across limited access DOT right of way, often for miles.”

For Superior, the safety stakes are personal. The company self-performs almost 80% of its work, meaning people exposed to these forever changing conditions are overwhelmingly its own.

“Our greatest responsibility is making sure every employee goes home safe at the end of the day,” shares Bryan. “When it comes to safety, putting our people first is not just a priority, it’s the foundation of everything we do.”

THE CHALLENGES

Paper doesn't travel well

Before HammerTech, the safety professionals at Superior clocked more miles on their odometers than the cars on the roadways they were building.

Their inspection process was pretty traditional: safety professionals captured field observations, traveled back to the office, transferred their notes into Word, added photographs, converted the document into a PDF, and finally shared it with the team.

“It was a very cumbersome process,” shares Travis. “And if you lost track of that piece of paper, Lord only knows where it wound up.”

Even if the form made it back to the office, it could be two hours after the initial observation. Often the safety professional will write down notes in the moment while being distracted or side-tracked. The challenge then becomes when they return to the office; they have to remember and decipher what these vague notes mean without context and without being there, which dilutes the effectiveness of the observation.

On a jobsite already spread across miles, information doesn’t need another journey before it becomes useful.

More projects, more blind spots

The HSE team at Superior Construction oversee several projects at a time. Even when they’re conducting inspections every day, a smaller site can unintentionally receive less attention.

HSE professionals also must keep track of the constantly changing conditions on site, whether it’s trucks driving in or materials being delivered. And because Superior works around highways and with the state’s Department of Transportation, it must also document third-party incidents within its work zones.

Those records support claims, protect the company, and reveal patterns, but only if the teams can find and use them.

THE SOLUTION

Capture the information when and where it happens

With HammerTech, Superior’s HSE team can speak detailed observations into their phones and add or markup photographs immediately.

Travis explains, “With HammerTech dashboards and incident reporting features, our HSE team has a clear view of what’s happening across every project. The ability to track trends, monitor activity in real time, and quickly identify areas of concern lets us better support our teams and focus our efforts where they are needed most. Ultimately, allowing us to make informed decisions that help protect our people and drive continuous improvement across the organization.”

“One of my favorite pieces of HammerTech…I can go out to a project and see something that I need to address, and document it right then and there,” says Travis. “I can create a one-off observation and document exactly what happened, why, and whether it’s good, bad or critical.”

The real-time capture matters when conditions change. For atmospheric testing, excavation, and ground disturbance work, Superior crews can keep an inspection open and add new observations as conditions change throughout the day. That way safety moves with the work, not two hours behind it.

Give every project one place to look

Each Superior project now has its own HammerTech environment that brings inspections, observations, incidents, and training records together. Active inspections make follow-up easier, while past inspections give context so you can decide what to focus on next.

Detailed project-level information also gives Bryan visibility across the wider business:

For our HSE team working across multiple regions, “one connected safety platform” stops being marketing buzz. Instead, it becomes a practical and real way to know what is happening without having to be everywhere at once.

From safety activity to actionable insight

Through Power BI, Superior can combine HammerTech data with other business information to identify incident trends and training needs. Superior can look beyond how much safety activity is happening to assess the quality of information being captured.

“On the surface, it looks great if somebody did 212 inspections in the last 214 days,” says Travis. “But using Power BI, I can see that each inspection had ten questions and all of the answers were ‘yes.’ You’re collecting all this information, but is it good information?”

The deeper view helps Superior distinguish between activity completed and insight gained. Travis explains uncovering that distinction would have been “absolutely impossible to do with a paper system.” On top of that, simply digitizing the paper after the fact wouldn’t solve the underlying problem. Even if he scanned all the completed inspection forms into a PDF for ChatGPT to analyze, he notes that the output from AI would only be as good as the input.

The goal is not merely collecting safety data. It’s to capture better information that Superior can trust, learn form, and act on.

WHY HAMMERTECH

Enough technology to help without getting in the way

Superior tried other construction safety platforms, but more functionality did not always mean a better field experience.

Even when service drops, Travis says the information is saved until the device reconnects to Wi-Fi or a cellular signal.

“HammerTech is very user-friendly,” says Bryan. “The layout is clean and easy to interpret.”

To support Superior’s commitment to safety excellence, HammerTech helped configure a tailored inspection program that aligned with the company’s established processes. Within approximately three months, HSE professionals were actively conducting inspections and recording observations through the platform, improving efficiency and access to actionable data.

But perhaps the clearest proof came when Superior needed its documentation to stand up to under scrutiny.

“Earlier this year, during an OSHA inspection, we were able to quickly access and present the documentation we needed directly from HammerTech,” Bryan tells us. “The compliance officer was impressed by how organized, accessible, and professional the records were, which reinforced the value the platform brings to our operations.”

At a Glance

How HammerTech Helps Superior