Sophisticated underground camera skills, waterjetting expertise and business savvy are helping the PKX Savannah branch grow its customer base exponentially. In only a little more than two years, the branch has increased its business from a handful of customers to more than 120, including the City of Savannah, its surrounding counties and a new Hyundai plant being constructed on 3,900 acres of Georgia property.

“It’s been a great success,” said Division Manager Keith Egloff. The Greater Savannah area is growing extremely quickly thanks, in part, to the Hyundai plant and expansion of the local seaports. This means that the area’s infrastructure, including storm sewers and underground pipes, are growing just as quickly. So quickly, in fact, that the City of Savannah cannot keep up with the EPA’s demand for storm sewer and pipe inspections.

Regional Manager Shane Lowery said it was obvious that the city needed help, so the PKX Savannah branch purchased a CCTV inspection camera and offered the city assistance with camera inspections and waterjetting cleanings. The City of Savannah accepted, and it wasn’t long before PKX took over most of Savannah’s third-party new install videoing and final inspections.

Inspections that were on Savannah’s waiting list for a year were now being completed in one or two weeks with PKX’s help. “The city really liked our work, so they started pushing all of the third-party stuff toward us,” Lowry said. “They even told everyone around them that if you want to get work done, call PKX, so they directed a lot of people directly to us.”

Lowry explained that PKX is assisting Savannah with inspection of all the city’s storm sewers and piping; the EPA requires an inspection report every five years. The project is so massive, that at the end of the five-year period, the process just starts all over again.

The City of Savannah was so impressed with PKX’s work that the city asked PKX to present a “Lunch & Learn,” and invite local municipal and county officials to discover PKX and its services. This led to the PKX Savannah branch picking up more camera and waterjetting work in the surrounding Georgia counties of Bryan and Chatham, as well as Beaufort County, South Carolina.

The City of Savannah hired PKX to train the city’s camera inspection employees for certification. “That’s very huge,” Egloff said.

While all this was happening, PKX also landed a contract with a local new Hyundai plant to inspect and clean 180,000 linear feet of pipe, which is presenting its own opportunities for PKX to cross-sell its services throughout Bryan County and the Greater Savannah area.

Part of what’s fueling PKX’s success is the technology the company brings to the region. “People really like it because most of our competitors are running outdated technology,” Egloff said. He explained that PKX is able to load—with the help of the MPW IT department—inspection camera video footage on the cloud, so neither CDs nor USBs are needed; video footage can be watched in real-time.

Egloff said Savannah will act as a “test market” for some of PKX’s advanced technology. “We have some big wins down there,” he said.

Lowry agreed. He said the Savannah branch is expecting a new camera in August, and he anticipates a camera that can affect repairs while inside the pipe with just a few attachments. “The growth of the Savannah area is crazy. With the ports expanding and the Hyundai plant, housing developments are going up everywhere,” Lowry said. “So, a lot of good things!”