She Brokks It!

A small demolition Contractor Uses A Brokk Machine To Grow Specialty Business

Gisselle Bader is no stranger to pushing new ideas. As a woman in the demolition industry it’s something she does every day and she’s proud of it.

“Some guys can’t wrap their head around having a lady on the jobsite,” laughed Bader.

That perception isn’t stopping her from success. Bader is project manager at Bader’s Group LLC. The family-owned demolition contractor serves central and south Florida, specializing in interior demolition and concrete cutting. Bader’s grandfather started the company in 1994, passed it to her father, and now Bader has found a passion for the industry, as well.

Bader’s Group is a small company with about 15 employees. Bader says they’re constantly looking for ways to maximize efficiency and productivity, often through innovative tools and technology. Last year she found a new idea to push the company forward: remote-controlled demolition machines.

“None of us had heard of robotic demolition until we took a safety course that mentioned it as one of the directions the industry was going,” Bader said. “We did some research on the different types of equipment and found Brokk.”

Bader’s Group contacted the manufacturer for a demo and was impressed with the safety and productivity benefits. They purchased a Brokk 110 not long after. The 2,183-pound machine’s compact size of only 31 inches wide and 45 inches tall gives it the ability to fit through most doorways, making it a good fit for the Group’s interior demolition work.

Bader was the first to learn how to operate the equipment and it wasn’t long before the machine started opening up doors — in some cases literally. Bader’s Group found a niche demolishing bank vaults with concrete walls as thick as 18 inches.

One recent project involved removing a mezzanine from an old nightclub. The general contractor gave Bader’s Group the contract because the electric-powered B110 could remove the 1,200 square feet of reinforced concrete in about half the time as hand tools would have and eliminated the need for expensive ventilation equipment.

“The contractor we were up against for that job proposed removing windows for ventilation,” Bader said. “Our method eliminated that hassle and finished the job faster and cheaper.”

Bader says general contractors have been impressed with how the new equipment allows the contractor to finish jobs in, on average, about a third of the time as other methods. She says they saved about 20 percent in labor costs during the first year of using the machine. The company also found a health insurance provider that charged less thanks to the Brokk machine’s safety benefits.

Bader says she’s excited to continue setting market trends as a woman in the construction industry and investing in new, high-tech equipment.