Bill Schaab and William Sundeen Jr., owners of American Demolition and Nuclear Decommissioning of Ellicotville, New York, have won Equipment World’s 2025 Contractor of the Year Award.
They were announced the winner March 21 during an awards ceremony at the Bobby Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee, as part of a two-day event that included roundtable discussions about the construction industry.
ADND also won the Safety Award, presented to the finalist that exemplifies outstanding safety practices and has created a company culture of prioritizing worker safety and health.
“I’m here today and our company is recognized because of our employees,” said Schaab in accepting the awards. “It's the hard work and the professionalism and dedication of our employees to safety every day. Safety is our core number one value. This award that we win tonight is for our employees, and I dedicate the honor of having and receiving these awards to our employees – past, present and future.”
For more of his comments and more about the Contractor of the Year Award, check out the video above.
Contractor of the Year
Bill Schaab started American Demolition & Nuclear Decommissioning in 2004. He has 40 years of experience in demolishing and decommissioning hazardous sites, first in asbestos and later in nuclear materials.
Soon after the company was formed, Schaab’s cousin William Sundeen Jr. retired from the Navy after a 20-year career. A disabled veteran, he specialized in nuclear weapons and materials while in the Navy. He bought a 51% ownership in the business in 2006 and is the company’s CEO and president. He was unable to attend the awards ceremony.
The big breakthrough for American Demolition and Nuclear Decommissioning came in 2010 with a $4 million job to decommission a cooling tower at the Savannah River Nuclear Site. It involved the largest implosion of such a structure at the time.
“That put us on the map,” Schaab says. “That made us who we are.”
Since then the company has traveled the country tearing down large, contaminated structures, some of which take years to finish.
Sundeen oversees the demolition of the West Valley Demonstration Project in Buffalo, New York, one of the most contaminated areas in the country. The company has won multi-million-dollar contracts there since 2011, tearing down reinforced concrete 6 to 8 feet thick and 4-foot-thick metal doors.
They use innovative ways to protect workers and nearby areas. They developed water sprayers attached to boom lifts to prevent airborne contaminants at demolition areas. They also use the OilQuick hydraulic-attachment system that enables operators to change attachments from the cab rather than having to send more workers into a contaminated area. The company’s equipment undergoes hundreds of thousands of dollars of additional modifications to ensure safety, including tougher undercarriages and in-cab air filtration systems. They also use remote-control equipment.
The company’s use of technology has won industrywide recognition. Earlier this month, it collaborated with Caterpillar and OilQuick to showcase technology it uses during the 2025 WM Symposia international radioactive waste management conference held in Phoenix.
“On a 1 to 10 scale, I'd give them an 11,” says Trenton Rodgers Norment, director of site operations at Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership LLC. “They were absolutely outstanding, the best subcontractor situation I've ever worked with.”
Bill’s son Blake Schaab joined ADND in 2021 after earning a degree in finance and an MBA. He has served as a project manager and is now vice president of finance and administration and is spearheading efforts to streamline the organization.
Safety Award
When it comes to safety, ADND has surpassed 750,000 work hours and 21 years with zero incidents, accidents, first-aid events or OSHA recordables.
For that and more, the company won Equipment World’s annual Safety Award.
ADND’s owners believe safety starts with company culture that all leadership follows, which translates to the field. They get feedback from all their employees on what is working and emphasize to every supervisor and worker on its projects that “safety is job #1.”
Each day begins and ends with safety talks. Weekly and monthly safety meetings are also held. They provide annual safety bonuses of up to $1,600 for employees.
The company performs in-house training and brings in third-party safety experts. They will shut down a job for a day to focus on safety. They also give “Lessons Learned” talks gleaned from traveling their jobsites to share throughout the company. Considering that their jobsites are some of the most contaminated in the country, their safety achievements are even more impressive.
“Safety is the cornerstone of our expectations for all tasks, and ADND makes safely performing work an absolute must,” says Kelly Wooley, deputy general manager for CHBWV. “The ADND leadership team provides technical guidance on how to safely execute our highly hazardous work. They also emphasize with their employees and our employees that safety is paramount to everything they and we do on site.”
About the Contractor of the Year Award
The Equipment World Contractor of the Year program has been sponsored by Caterpillar since its inception in 2000. It recognizes contractors who display the highest standards of business acumen, equipment management expertise, attention to safety and community involvement. Each year, 12 finalists receive an expense-paid trip – this year to Nashville – to participate in roundtable discussions and an awards ceremony.
Throughout the year, Equipment World will post profile stories and videos of each of the finalists on equipmentworld.com. To see who made the finals, click here.
The nomination period for the 2026 program will open this summer.
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