Fralinger Engineering in Bridgeton

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Meg McCormick Hoerner (00:08.238)
Okay, welcome back to the Bridgeton Beacon. I am here with Chuck Fralinger of Fralinger Engineering and I would like to congratulate you and Fralinger Engineering on receiving the Business Hero Award this year, 2024 from the Bridgeton Area Chamber of Commerce. And I'll just note this is the second time Fralinger Engineering has received this award. So congratulations. Thank you.

Thank you.

and thanks so much for letting me come in. Your facility is beautiful. I mentioned to you that back in 1988, that summer, worked for Fralinger Engineering out doing PERC tests and a lot has certainly changed since then. But I wanted to just take a couple minutes to speak with you about Fralinger Engineering, how it got started and how it has grown over the years.

Okay. started, Fralinger Engineering started in my dad's basement probably in 1960. He was working for the NJDOT at the time. He graduated college with a degree of civil engineering in 1954. I met my mother then. They married, went into the army and again started the DOT about 1960. At that time, one of his coworkers was selling some survey equipment. So my dad decided to buy a transit, a level and some measuring tapes.

So my dad started surveying after his job with the DOT. He would come home, go out surveying with his father, and at night draw the maps and just hard work and dedication. He was living, he lived in Glen Park.

Meg McCormick Hoerner (01:46.958)
Where was he living then?

Chuck Fralinger (01:53.39)
for a year two. In Bridgeton? In Bridgeton. He lived his whole life in Bridgeton. grew up, he was born in Atlantic Street, 353 Atlantic Street to be exact, and then Len Park for a little bit, and then he went to Institute Place on Woodland Drive. He lived there. And then we lived on West Avenue. And so his whole life has been in Bridgeton.

But anyway, so he started surveying nights. My mom would help. His father would help. And when the kids were old enough, he had six children. When they were old enough, they would pitch in and help. his next office was across from the Covenant County Courthouse, one small room above Old Balburnies on the corner, right above there. He was there for a few years. Right on the corner? Right on the corner upstairs.

See you on Broadway.

Chuck Fralinger (02:51.53)
And then he moved to another half a double home somewhere in Bridgeton. And then in the 70s, it was an old car dealership, which is now the Hopeville Township Municipal Building. He bought that and refurbished it. we were there for 20-some years. And then we outgrew that. in the late 80s, early 90s, we are where we are now. And we expand here once already,

Now, I would imagine that the world of civil engineering has changed quite a bit since back in the day when he started. And you actually showed me when we walked in some of the old instruments that were used that you have in a case out front. I'm going to try to get some video of that before I leave.

Well, the equipment still works. When I went to college, that's the same equipment. I graduated in 1988. That's the same equipment I used. So if you can learn all that, because today you have a lot of technology, and I like to call it a lot button pushers. But you have to understand what you're doing. So when you use the old-time survey equipment, you understand angles and bearings and...

things like that, but nowadays they use a lot of satellites, but if you don't know what you're, you can give you all the answers, but if you don't understand what you're looking at, that's why you have to have the basic knowledge. He did, he did. And how he got there, I remember him telling me he went to his guidance counselor at Bridgeton High School and he showed him the Citadel and he went down with his mother and father on a train.

Did you tell me your dad went to the Citadel?

Chuck Fralinger (04:31.522)
looked at it and decided to go there and then the day he left they gave him a box. His parents gave him a suitcase and on train and off he went.

It took a lot of courage to do that.

It did. The Citadel, it's back in the 50s. As my dad would jokingly say, he takes the country club because how it was back in the 50s. But I even looked at it going there in 1983. I stayed overnight there once and it takes a lot of dedication. It wasn't for me, but what you learned there, it prepared him for life.

You said no thanks.

Meg McCormick Hoerner (05:16.184)
That's interesting. That's a good observation for sure. Fralinger Engineering does quite a bit of municipal work currently. that always the case?

My first town, the first township my dad ever was appointed was Fairfield Township. That was in the early 70s. And then he acquired one township and then other townships saw what he was doing. And then another township hired him, another township hired him. So right now we represent probably 19 municipalities in Cumberland, Salem, Atlantic, Gloucester and Cape May counties.

I'm an attorney by trade, but I've never done any kind of like land use work. I know enough probably to be dangerous, but I know that there is quite a bit of planning board approval, state different authorities approval, DEP, pine lands, et cetera. Over time,

I would imagine that Fralinger Engineering through just time, experience, respect, has been able to obtain clients, the municipalities, because of that. Is that a fair assessment?

That's true, it's your reputation. all it is. The only thing you have live on is your reputation.

Meg McCormick Hoerner (06:47.65)
Yeah. Tell me a little bit about just kind of the day-to-day work that you guys do now.

We do, I would say, half our work is civil engineering and half is land surveying. We'll do land surveying in the entire state New Jersey, from Cape May to Newark. we probably have a crew there today up in Newark with the stringing power lines, and we check the SAG. But again, we survey the entire state in land surveying, in engineering. We're mainly from

Gloucester County South. We will do occasional job outside of that, but mainly Gloucester County South. So I do joke anything above Poltavar is considered North Jersey. So that's actually done.

That's right. That's right. Well, it seems like you've got enough to keep busy. How many employees do you have right now?

We do, yeah, we do.

Chuck Fralinger (07:40.031)
It changes for summertime because we have, of course we have an intern right now from Drexel. We have one from Widener. But during the summer months, 35 to 38.

Okay, that's a good amount, and that's grown.

It has. It's a lot to manage. It's a nice size to have because I like to say we're small enough to... We do any one from a small 50 foot by 50 foot property survey. can survey 3,000 acres. We've done that many times. So we're small enough to do the small projects, but we're certainly big enough to do the larger projects too.

It's a great problem to have, to have a lot of...

Sometimes when you get too big, we're at a nice size where we get to know all of our clients. see mayors, committeemen, clerks in the grocery store. a shop right. It's just nice to know locally everyone you say.

Meg McCormick Hoerner (08:39.192)
Well, it seems to me that the local municipalities have come to rely on Fralinger Engineering to do the things that they need to do to keep the towns running.

We do it a lot. We keep all our records. After we're done, I can show you our basement. have records back to the 1700s, especially survey records. Really? The original, because having old information is an advantage because with surveying, you follow the footsteps of the surveyor. So if you know a property was surveyed in the past and you have that information, it helps you do the survey. Right. And there's many, many times...

different townships will call us, hey, do you have this information? Because we've been their engineer for 30, 40, 50 years. turns over, and in engineering too, staff turns over, you know, and hey, do you have this information? I'll go down to our basement, yeah, I have it, and a lot of times we can save the town's quite a bit of resources because we the information already. It's happened many times.

Wow. So how long have you been an engineer?

I started surveying in 1980, my eighth grade summer. I started working, doing survey work. And then I worked all summers through high school, all summers through college. I graduated from Clemson in 1988. I came back home, started working. Then I went back to school and got another degree in land surveying from Spring Garden College in Philadelphia. then I'm a licensed land surveyor.

Chuck Fralinger (10:19.252)
And I've been, well really since 1980. Even before that too, my daddy comes home, you're always in the business.

And that's been the case, right? So you're the president right now. I read where Michael Fralinger Jr. is now with the...

Yes.

Chuck Fralinger (10:38.634)
He is. In fact, Michael Fralinger Sr., my brother, who passed in 2009, you know, I say my dad started the business, my brother Mike really helped it grow. Without my brother Mike, we wouldn't be where we are today. And then Sr., his three sons are with the firm. So there's Michael Fralinger Jr., there's Matthew Fralinger and Robert Fralinger. It is. have three generations.

So it really truly is.

Chuck Fralinger (11:08.468)
And hopefully that's my future so I can retire someday and continue on from there.

Yeah, that's great. We were speaking a couple minutes ago about the motivation and what has led Fralinger Engineering to become such

a well-known, well-respected business. And I'm really interested in this idea of what makes a small family-owned business really an industry in an area like Bridgeton. So what do you attribute that to?

Well, it's an easy question. My father started everything. Without his hard work and dedication, he's self-made. Nothing was given to him. He earned everything. Like I said, in 1960-ish is when he bought survey equipment. If he didn't buy the equipment, we wouldn't be here today. If he didn't take that chance, and if he didn't put the hard work in, he would come home from his day job and then go back at night and do surveying work.

Kind of on the side, you mean?

Chuck Fralinger (12:18.367)
Yeah, at night he would after his DOT work he would come home go out surveying with his father Collect all the information come back that night and draw the maps up

And so hard work, dedication, but also being able to take a chance.

Yeah, if he didn't buy that, if he didn't take that chance of buying the survey equipment, if he, was just, he bought it and then he started using it and then putting the hard work in. And I guess he would always tell us, you know, for his kids, he, you know, he wanted to put ice cream on the table, meaning something a little extra, you know, so he he worked so hard to give the kids ice cream is how he says it.

So basically his motivation was providing for his And the tradition has continued now on through three generations. That's amazing. That's fantastic. You don't see, I mean you see it a little bit, but you don't see these multi-generational family-run businesses as much anymore.

A for the family, exactly.

Chuck Fralinger (13:08.074)
That's correct, yeah.

Chuck Fralinger (13:19.528)
It has its challenges, but we've been at work.

Over many decades of varying degrees of economic ups and downs.

That's right. I survived in the 70s, the hard times, the early 2006 and 2007. And I also say in 2009 was a bad economic time. That's my brother's past too. And I always say we can survive through that and the economic times. There's nothing we can't do. it's, they were tough times. But we made it through and came out stronger.

and Michael's kids, he would be very proud of them today. For sure.

sure. What's the future hold for Fralinger Engineering?

Chuck Fralinger (14:12.014)
The future, it's an old cliche. You take it a day at a time. You're always concerned, but you continue to provide for your clients, for the townships, and just continue to grow. We try to stay on the cutting edge of technology with surveying. We have all the GPS equipment. We have 3D laser scanners. So we try to...

continue to improve, offer our clients different services. But when it comes down to engineering, water still runs downhill. You can have all this fancy equipment, but it's just having the local knowledge. We live in a community, so we have a vested interest in the county. Most of our staff lives in Cumberland County. So we want to see this area thrive.

what little part we can do engineering wise, that's what we do.

Well, thank you so much for telling me a little bit about the history and about Fralinger engineering and and really about your dad because he started Like I said gave me one of my very first jobs

He started it all. started it all. Me too.

Meg McCormick Hoerner (15:26.798)
Why don't we take a walk outside? you mind just giving me a little tour of the case out front?

Absolutely. Yes. Alright, let's do it. Okay.

Tell me what we're looking at here.

Yeah, this is just some placards on my dad's wall. This is where he received his original commission from the Citadel from General Mark Clark.

Chuck Fralinger (15:48.558)
It's amazing. Maybe want to look him up. He's a lot of history with the general. So, wow. Okay. But he was actually, when he retired from the military service, he was the head of the Citadel at the time.

Wow, that's great.

So.

Show me that kiss up front, I'll follow.

Yes, okay.

Chuck Fralinger (16:14.042)
All right. think it's the equipment we have will make a museum jealous. I'll be honest with you. But these are all all transits and survey equipments. Again, they all they still work today. And this particular one, this is the one my dad bought back in 1960 ish. Now it wasn't fancy brass. This is what's underneath. The one above it is what it would look like. But when you strip it down, that's that's what a transit would look like. It's a transit transit.

What do you do with them?

This is where you turn angles and you look through the scope and it puts you right on line and you turn angles from that.

You can see why my job was just a summer job.

And on there, it's called a vernier and you would actually, you would turn angles for your property corners.

Meg McCormick Hoerner (17:05.23)
Is this one a

This is just all different transits that we've acquired over the years. Again, they were all used at one time. This is a level down here. When you want to transfer elevations, you would use that piece of equipment and everything else are just like, for example, that's a plumb bob right there. That's another piece of survey equipment. But everything you see here is what you would use to do everyday surveying. And I could pull this out today and use it.

And that's where I come back. you could do surveying using this equipment, the modern day equipment, you understand what you're doing.

Meg McCormick Hoerner (17:53.324)
No business is going to be successful unless you've got the knowledge and skill in your field.

Correct, yeah.

Great. Thank you so much for giving me the tour. again, let me congratulate you and Fralinger Engineering on the award from the 2024 Brixneria Chamber of Commerce. Very well deserved.

Thank you.

Chuck Fralinger (18:21.62)
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