In the early 1990s Barry Herbert, then president of Otsego, Mich.,-based concrete contractor Herbert Construction Co., learned an alternative method for forming footings. Barry spoke with Ron Colvin, a concrete contractor from Berrien Springs, Mich. about footing construction. The two had become friends through their membership with the Concrete Foundations Association of North America (CFA). Colvin had eliminated the typical two-by-four construction of footing forms.

My father Barry, my brother Mike, and I, visited Colvin. He showed us a couple of his job sites where we saw the forming system in action. The system used thin-gauge metal forms instead of wood. The forms were simple to set up and prepare for concrete placement. Once the concrete was placed, the forms were easily removed and ready to be used again.

We decided to implement the system in our own company. We hired a steel company to cut and bend the metal and set about teaching our field crews to use the system. It was easy to learn and simple to use, which shortened the learning curve.

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