Marcus Thompson and his brother, Tyson, currently serve alongside their father, Hiram, as the second and third generations of Thompsons running Thompson Building Wrecking Company, which was founded by Marcus’ grandfather, Edward Thompson, in 1961. “It’s interesting how it all started,” explains Marcus. “Although my grandfather worked at the Savannah River Site (SRS), he still farmed and always had tractors. One day somebody asked him to take down a whole building with a piece of his equipment. Then, someone else asked him to do the same thing and he did a good job at it. It got to the point where he started taking on more than he could do while still working at SRS, so he started doing this full time with my grandmother helping him run the office out of their house.”
As time passed and the business grew, so did the family working with the business, including Marcus’ dad and later, Marcus and Tyson. “As my brother and I grew up, we basically did the same thing after finishing school,” says Marcus. “My dad believed in not just giving us an office job; he wanted us to learn every aspect of the company. So, we both got our CDL licenses and drove trucks for a long time prior to us moving into the office and starting to bid projects.”
From the very beginning, the Thompson family excelled at bringing down old structures and preserving what can be salvaged and recycled at each site. “In the early days of this company, my grandfather didn't really get a fee for tearing things down; he just got the salvage portion of it,” says Marcus. “He was able to sell the salvage out of the old buildings and make money on the old antique lumber, antique brick, and things like that which people were, and still are, very interested in. Even now, when we go in to take down a building, whether it be a school or restaurant or shopping mall, the very first thing we do is look around and salvage as many things as possible to reduce the waste stream and to recycle the material, to reuse it, or just to recycle as a scrap material.” In addition to salvaging popular items like antique brick and heart pine lumber, crews salvage items such as large pieces of restaurant equipment. The company also operates two large portable concrete crushers, which allows for concrete to be crushed on-site and used for future projects.
Along with selling salvaged items, Thompson Building Wrecking Company also rents roll-off containers. “Back in the 90’s, we purchased our first roll-off container truck to use for our own demolition projects, but as other contractors saw the container sitting on our jobs, they started asking to rent a container from us. Today, we own about 400 roll-off containers and a fleet of roll-off container trucks that service the CSRA.”
Marcus shares that he’s thankful for so many things. “I love working with my dad and brother on a daily basis,” shares Marcus. “As a company, we are thankful for the many clients who call on us over and over, and we strive to do a great job every time. We're also very thankful for community support and that we’re able to give back to our community by helping local nonprofit organizations.”
Thompson Building Wrecking Company is located at 631 11th Street in Augusta. For more information on services and products offered, call (706) 722-1432, visit www.thompsonwrecking.com, or follow them on Facebook.