Ack Marine & General Contracting, Llc

Ack Marine & General Contracting works the waterfront, not the neighborhood — the Quincy, MA outfit builds and repairs piers, bulkheads, and seawalls, and does the pile driving, dredging, and commercial diving work that goes into marine infrastructure rather than typical home remodeling. The company says it was founded in 2016 by Kim Shaughnessy, who has worked in marine construction since her twenties; it's still family-run, with her son Michael Boucher as Vice President of Operations. Public feedback on the actual work is thin. Google shows just three reviews and a 3-star average from four ratings, and the one that falls within the last six months isn't about a marine construction job at all — a reviewer flagged a company box van weaving across highway lanes at speeds near 100 mph on a Friday afternoon in May. That's a serious, specific complaint, but it's about a vehicle on the road, not the quality of a pier or bulkhead. A few other things are worth checking before signing a contract. Federal filings turned up a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise decertification decision, though the reason isn't stated anywhere public. The company isn't BBB-accredited, even though the bureau lists it with an A+ grade and no complaints on file — those two facts sit oddly together, since accreditation and grade usually track together. On the compliance side, its USDOT carrier registration is active with no out-of-service history, and it holds SBA small-business and Woman-Owned Business Enterprise certifications in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. This is a credentialed, decade-old marine contractor with the certifications and safety registrations you'd want to see on a coastal or waterfront project, but it doesn't yet have a real public trail of customers vouching for finished work — the only recent public comment is about a delivery van, not a dock or seawall. Worth asking directly for references and recent project photos before booking, and asking what led to the DBE decertification.