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The Signal | Fall 2014
Another upcoming event, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon Series in Virginia Beach, is on the
schedule. Spivey employees will be busy transporting portable toilets to the grounds the
Tuesday before the event. At Old Dominion University, Spivey is responsible for supplying
trash cans and portable toilets inside and outside the stadium and setting up traffic control
for all the home games. Since students attend classes and can’t be disrupted, Spivey delivers
the trash cans and portable toilets before most of them are awake at 5 a.m. The City of
Virginia Beach, which is a tourist haven in the summer and host of many events year-round,
depends on Spivey for its portable toilets, signs and cones.
As far as the eye can see, the Chesapeake facility is filled with traffic control signs and devices,
portable toilets, comfort stations, 20- to 40-yard roll-off containers, personnel barricades,
pavement markings and safety equipment. Workers use golf carts to navigate their way
around the property, a form of transportation that’s most efficient when weaving in and out
of the acres of trucks, attenuators, restroom and shower trailers and portable toilets.
The newest additions to Spivey’s inventory are Smart Cushion
®
crash attenuators by Work
Area Protection Corp. The Smart Cushion
®
is the world’s only speed-dependent crash
attenuator that varies stopping resistance during an impact.
“It was because of ATSSA’s Traffic Expo that we now rent attenuators,” said Council.
“We stumbled upon the attenuators during the Traffic Expo four years ago, and now we’re a
distributor. We love attending the Traffic Expo, because that’s where all our vendors and
departments of transportation are. The whole industry is small, and it makes us one big family.”
Spivey’s sign shop is manned by James Crute, who makes the neon, orange-and-white
messages to keep pedestrians and motorists safe. Stocked to the ceiling, they range from
construction and street to regulatory and warning signs. Many of the warning and traffic
signs seen on highways and other roads are created at the sign shop, where they are neatly
categorized. Spivey makes, rents, installs and maintains signs.
Before any signs or traffic control equipment are placed on the roads, Spivey’s traffic
control division, which is headed by Larry Wilford and Skip Johns, are consulted. Johns
provides traffic control solutions and applications beginning with traffic control plans
created from GPS technology-based software that enables the traffic control division
to provide an easy-to-understand, authority-approved plan. As Johns likes to say,
“Everything is calculated down to a gnat’s eyelash.”
Barry Butler, corporate safety director, said the Truck-Mounted Attenuator (TMA) Driver
Training certification was the result of discussions with ATSSA officials and the first of its
kind of course for the association.
“About 10 years ago, we started seeing a problem with traffic growing by leaps and bounds,”
Butler said. “There used to be two people working on lane closures, and now there are
about 40 people.”
When representatives from Spivey and other companies met with ATSSA officials, they
discussed the fact that workers were on the roads and weren’t trained in the area of driving
truck-mounted attenuator vehicles. This led to the development of the course, which joins a
long list of high-quality education, training and professional certifications through ATSSA.
“The initiative of truck-mounted attenuator (TMA) driver training classes is perfectly in line
with ATSSA’s goal of ‘Toward Zero Deaths,’” said Butler.
With a full line of traffic safety equipment, an in-house sign manufacturing shop and
24-hour traffic control services, Spivey is a “one-stop-shop” for working in the cone zone
and beyond. Working with Spivey promotes confidence in knowing that the expert staff
includes traffic control design specialists, supervisors and technicians who earn
certifications from ATSSA and VDOT.
> > >
For more information about Spivey, call (757) 485-8888 or (757) 722-2533,
or visit their web site at
.
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Traffic Control Technician
Traffic Control Supervisor
Flagger Instructor Training
State-Specific Courses Available
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Certification Training Course
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BETTER
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