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As a civil contractor, Richard Mancini found a niche in open-cut utility infrastructure construction, forming Ric-Man Construction Inc. in 1965. He grew his company from its headquarters in Sterling Heights, Mich., gaining a presence in the civil construction market. However, the next generation of Mancinis saw a chance to increase Ric-Man’s presence through heavy underground construction. 

“We went from utility into heavy civil, self-performing everything except mechanical, electrical and architectural work,” COO Duane Mullica explains.       

As the company expanded the services it offered, it also grew geographically with Ric-Man Construction Florida Inc., headquartered in Deerfield Beach, Fla., and an office in Miami. 

Along the way, the company kept the same spirit first brought to the job by Richard Mancini that focuses on detailed delivery and being sensitive to clients’ needs. “The management team and the crew in the field bring tremendous detail to ensure quality of work,” Project Manager Andrew Smith says. “That dedication has a timelessness.”

Mullica explains that the dedication Ric-Man offers clients starts from the top down with the company’s owner and president, Steve Mancini, Richard’s son. “We have a very passionate owner and very hands-on owner,” Mullica says. “He’s very sensitive to his personal exposure to the owner and engineer [of a project]. He goes out of his way to make sure the owner and engineer are satisfied with our scheduling, safety and quality of people involved on a daily basis at the project level.

“The owner [of a project] knows he can call the president of Ric-Man and talk about the issues or concerns of the job, and [the president is] hands-on on a daily basis, so he can engage the owner,” Mullica adds. “You don’t find in big companies that owners and presidents understand the nuts and bolts of an operation.”

Contract No. 8

Ric-Man is displaying its skill at heavy civil construction on a combination sewer overflow (CSO) project in Dearborn, Mich. The company is working on contract No. 8, having previously been the primary contractor on contract No. 4, which was a smaller, tunneling-based project.

On contract No. 8, Ric-Man is constructing a treatment shaft that is 104 feet in diameter, and is constructed as a sinking caisson with 7.5-foot-thick walls embedded 45 feet into the bedrock. Ric-Man is the lead contractor for the job, self-performing 50 percent of the work, including all major construction.

The project also includes a box sewer, junction structures, a soil and rock grouting program, and a control building to house chemical storage tanks and associated controls. It is situated adjacent to the Rouge River. 

“We are tying into the existing overflow system, intercepting two separate lines of combine flow systems and verging that flow into a capture shaft,” Smith explains. “Sort of a shock treatment.” 

There have been several phases to contract No. 8, with the first being soil and rock grouting. Second, Ric-Man performed the sinking of the shaft, which was followed by bedrock excavation. The fourth phase involves concrete placement, with the fifth and sixth phases including the wrapping up of the shaft with interior walls and tie-ins. 

Mullica estimates that Ric-Man is nearly finished with the project and says the company must install the processes involved with the CSO, such as water pretreatment, screening of solids as flows enter the shaft and the chemical storage tanks for the adjacent control building. 

“Overall, we’ve shown on this job that Ric-Man is fully committed on a daily basis,” Smith says. 

Total Commitment 

“I don’t know if we offer other things that others can’t, but I think we’re unique in one way,” Mullica explains, “that if we commit to undertake a project, we bring in expertise to support that project start to finish.”

It is this commitment that has brought Ric-Man from being a niche specialist to being a major civil contractor. As it has grown, the company has increased the services it provides. “The fact that we are the prime contractor on a project like contract No. 8, yet still perform so much of the work ourselves, kind of puts us in control of our own destiny,” Smith states. 

“We truly target and look for projects that support our expertise,” Mullica adds. “There is subcontractor support that we do need, but projects where we can self-perform the majority of the work is what we look for.”

Multitasking Firm

For tunneling, Ric-Man constructs caissons, drilled shafts, shafts and concrete structures, and has the ability to tunnel in both hard rock and soft ground. 

The company offers several types of open-cut pipe construction, including ductile iron pipe and fittings for pressure and non-pressure applications, corrugated metal pipe for road crossing of open water courses, pipelines for river crossings, and pre-stressed concrete cylinder piping. It also constructs cast-in-place chambers and pre-cast concrete conspans. 

Ric-Man is a part of the Mancini Cos., which has real estate operations along with its work in the construction field.

Mancini Enterprises LLC and Mancini Development LLC, specialize in industrial, commercial and residential development. 

Mancini Enterprises focuses on Michigan real estate, and the Mancini Development division focuses on Florida real estate from its offices in Deerfield Beach. 

After Hurricane Wilma hit Deerfield Beach in 2005, Ric-Man acted as an emergency hurricane cleanup crew for its Florida home. It also has performed improvements to the Deerfield Beach boardwalk.