By Kate Bartlett
This week the Ellicottville Chamber of Commerce takes a look at a unique business. American Demolition and Nuclear Decommissioning (AKA: American DND) is not your usual ‘retail’ or other ‘walk-up’ type business in our town. This national corporation is proud to be headquartered in Ellicottville since 2004. Typically, low key and performing work behind the scenes, you might not hear much about them. But they are certainly a company to recognize.
Safety, strong ethical values, and performance are the company’s driving forces. Employees perform some of the most dangerous and difficult work while cleaning up and demolishing nuclear power plants, fossil power plants and radiological contaminated sites for the US government. They care greatly about giving back and regularly support the local community through a multitude of donations over the years to the likes of the Cattaraugus County United Way, food pantries, fire departments, Ellicottville Library, Cattaraugus County Sherriff’s Department, Ellicottville Christmas Light Fund, ski teams, the EVGV Trail and SK8EVL just to name a few.
The Villager spoke with Bill Sundeen, who is the President and CEO of American DND. Sundeen is a 22-year Navy Veteran who lives in West Valley and owns American DND with his cousin, Bill Schaab. Schaab and his family have been members of the Ellicottville community since 1998.
Sundeen describes the American team of professionals as “a group of people with a ‘can do’ attitude and whose mission is to get the job done in a safe, regulatory compliant, and environmentally friendly, professional manner. The culture of safety is job #1 and commitment to the client’s goals and sensitivities are all attributes that contribute to the success of a client’s decommissioning project.”
Since their inception in 2004, American DND has achieved their safety performance goals by performing over 500,000-man hours of work and dozens of projects with a “Zero” safety rating across the board. 2021 marks American DND’s 17-year anniversary of achieving a “Target Zero” safety rating. This is a remarkable achievement while performing some of the most dangerous, contaminated, and complex projects in the country.
Some of the more notable projects involve the implosion of a 450’ tall by 330’ diameter cooling tower, a 700’ tall stack implosion project alongside the Mississippi River, involvement in three nuclear power plant decommissioning, and the complete restoration and rebuilding of the BJ’s store in Hamburg after the 2014 November snowstorm that dumped over 6’ of snow and nearly collapsed the entire building. Many of these jobs are highlighted in videos on their website at www.americandnd.com.
One of their current projects is located not too far from the Ellicottville borders – the West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP) which started in 2011. The WDVP Project is continuing the full-scale environmental cleanup of a former US Department of Energy (DOE) facility. American DND is an integral part of the team helping demolish the plant safely, compliantly and to reduce the overall environmental impact of the site on the community. Many more details regarding the project can be found by visiting the U.S. DOE’s website at www.wv.doe.gov. American DND is a local contractor performing one of its largest jobs ever right in our own backyard, utilizing our community members, and ensuring the work is performed correctly and safely for the benefit of our municipality.
One of the company’s mantras that has stuck with me is “Prior Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance”. Sundeen says this contributes to their longstanding success, attention to detail and helps ensure the highest level of quality work on every job.