Like many construction companies, Earth Retention Systems (ERS Walls) started with an idea, a pickup truck, and a small but determined crew. That idea began with Terry Chapell, owner of ERS Walls, who set out to become a leader in the retaining wall industry and has been installing retaining walls since the late 90’s. “The company started in 2009 with Terry, a five man crew, a pickup truck and an excavator,” says Brendan Turner, Estimator at ERS Walls. The company in its original form was mostly a retaining wall installer, and through Terry’s industry insight and unique ability to network, it grew year on year to where it is today. Now offering a turnkey approach to the construction of retaining walls and an integrated design-build approach to job specific applications, ERS Walls gets involved in a project from conceptual design to supplier selection and construction completion. Through Value Engineering, it ensures the most innovative and cost effective site solutions for its clients without ever compromising on quality or performance. With over 100 years of combined experience in Earth Retention Systems, the experienced crew at ERS Walls knows how to run a project on time, within budget, and to the highest quality standards. “We have close to 100 employees, seven to eight crews, and we’re doing a lot of work,” Brendan says. “We’ve grown tremendously through a good team and a lot of loyal guys, really young and hungry individuals. It’s a great environment.”
From the early days, ERS Walls was propelled forward by Terry’s ability to identify and move in the direction of new market trends. “We started out with only installing retaining wall block. We are now doing the final design for the walls placed in the backfill and providing a turnkey installation process which separated us from the competition,” Brendan says. “Now we are we doing that for large projects – I’m talking 1 million square foot warehouse projects along with heavy highway jobs mainly bridge abutments. We’re working with a lot of the Big Rhode Island contractors and the Department of Transportation. It’s been remarkable to see where we’ve come and how much we’ve grown. We’ve probably averaged 50 to 60% growth each year since I first started, and from that our scope has increased as well. We take on more responsibility, we take on more work.” As such, when it comes to more complicated projects, ERS Walls has become a go-to partner for many clients who trust them to find solutions where others find only problems.
“We started out with only installing retaining wall block. We are now doing the final design for the walls placed in the backfill and providing a turnkey installation process which separated us from the competition.”
Reflecting on company milestones, Brendan looks forward to where ERS Walls is headed. This is reflective of the company’s collective forward-thinking mindset and a commitment to progress that is evident throughout our conversation. “Some milestones that we’re looking to hit is expanding to the Department of Transport and doing more heavy highway work,” he says. “We’ve got the commercial work pretty much handled, and now we’re trying to take our design build to the heavy highway side.” But Brendan’s forward-thinking mindset is certainly not for a lack of past achievements. Along with consistent growth and continued longevity despite socioeconomic challenges, many of the company’s milestones can be found in its impressive project portfolio. “There’s just so many, and every single one is unique in its own way,” says Brendan, “but the one I’d like to touch on the most is Blackstone Logistics. That one had 30,000 square feet of retaining wall and about the same in sound wall. The challenge we had to overcome was working with two systems that were basically right on top of each other. The way it was designed, it was going to be one system and a ridiculous amount of money. We came in and we said hey, let’s do some value engineering with the site. Let’s separate these systems, design them separately, but where they still work together. We saved the developer quite a bit of money, and with that we also got the project done well before schedule. The project shows the variety of what we can do, from value engineering to working with two completely different systems, building them both simultaneously. That was pretty unique.”
For Brendan it is these kinds of jobs – the ones that present unique challenges and demand innovative solutions – that bring the most satisfaction. “It’s a feel-good moment, first when you get the job and then when you can save your customers some money. It’s like a different puzzle every time we look at these projects. I enjoy it because I’m trying to solve a puzzle and do it the correct way, but also the cheapest way. That’s a big part of what we offer.” Also on the ERS portfolio is projects for large clients like Medline, for which they did some anchoring with soldier pile and lagging walls, and Fedex, a 400,000 square foot project and one of the largest segmental block retaining wall projects in the country. “We were installing close to 3,000 sf a day on Fedex project in Middletown Connecticut. It was great to be a part of, and everyday was a challenge working with the amount of material that was part of this unique design” says Troy Chappell, Vice President of ERS. “Amazon Uxbridge was another very unique project,” Brendan says. “It was well over 70 feet tall, a massive segmental block retaining wall with geogrid reinforcement. With that height, it’s very hard to perform a retaining wall within schedule and within budget, but with our Value Engineering, determined on-site crew and retaining wall design, we were able to make it work.” Similar to the scope of Blackstone Logistics and Amazon Uxbridge is a 1.3 million sf UPS facility located in Grafton which ERS is currently working on. “Not only are we constructing a near 70ft tall retaining wall but also performing a noise wall directly behind the retaining wall. We have 100 days to construct a 130 thousand SF retaining wall and are ahead of schedule to complete.”
The company’s forward-thinking and growth mindset, as reflected by Brendan and owner Terry Chapell, is not all about numbers, scale and profit. “What we’re looking for as a company in the next few years is – and I know this is what Terry would say too – is something that will not only support him, but his family and everybody that has helped this company grow. His son Troy now has two little boys and the long-term goal is for them to come into this family company and eventually take it over, along with myself and my family. Austin Caffrey, our lead foreman and a huge part of our company, has started a family as well. So when it comes to the business, our growth is for our families.”
It’s clear that Terry, Brendan, and the experienced team at ERS Walls are united in a shared vision – to build something much bigger than retaining walls. As they move through the years and take on new challenges, they are building family, longevity, relationships, and a trusted reputation. The reputation ERS Walls has built is backed by one of the best warranties in the market – a ten-year guarantee against defects in retaining wall construction, further supported by suppliers who also back their products for ten years or more. This commitment to quality and accountability not only ensures lasting results but also builds lasting trust with clients. “How we keep our clientele is through the relationships that Terry and myself have developed,” says Brendan. “Keeping those relationships as we continue to gain new ones shows who we are.” The company continues to be led by Terry’s ability to predict market shifts ahead of time and adapt to the newest trends. “I don’t know what we’re going to move on to next,” Brendan says, “but Terry saw the infrastructure and the heavy highway work coming three years ago and said we need we need to make a switch now. It happened, it’s happening, and it’s booming. He really has a good feel for that, so with that we kind of just say, Terry, whatever you want to do, let’s do it.”
A leader who has won the trust of his employees, as Terry Chapell has evidently done, fosters an environment of confidence, transparency, collaboration, and innovation, with a cohesive team working together towards shared organisational goals. “Whether we pursue more warehouse work or focus more on just selling designs and materials – there’s a million different directions we can go. I think through the next few years we’re going to get some feelers out, see what bites, and hit it hard.”
