Certified Coatings Company

Certified Coatings Company is an industrial coatings contractor based in Fairfield, California, specializing in surface preparation, abrasive blasting, lead abatement and protective coatings on steel structures. The firm works on bridges, water and oil storage tanks, refineries and marine structures, and has coated some of the most recognizable spans in the Bay Area, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the Benicia-Martinez Bridge and the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. It relocated from Concord to Fairfield in 2010 and operates as part of the Muehlhan Group, the Hamburg-based industrial services company. In July 2026 Caltrans awarded the firm a $107.5 million contract to blast and repaint the navigation spans and 29 towers of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, the largest award in company history and its third contract on that crossing.

Industrial coatings and surface preparation
The overview above covers Certified Coatings Company’s landmark bridge work, so this note focuses on the underlying services and reach. Based in Fairfield, California, the firm is an industrial and protective coatings contractor, and much of what determines whether a coating lasts happens before any paint goes on.
Steel surface preparation and abrasive blasting are the foundation of that work. Blasting strips old coatings, rust, and mill scale down to clean metal, and the quality of that preparation largely dictates how long the new protective system will hold on a bridge, tank, or structure exposed to weather and water. Containment is the companion service that makes it possible: on lead-coated steel especially, the blasting debris has to be captured rather than released, which is why lead paint abatement and containment sit alongside the coating work as a single, regulated process.
Bridge and tank painting are the firm’s signature applications, the large steel structures where protective coatings do real structural preservation rather than cosmetic work. With a workforce in the 51 to 200 range, the company has the crews to staff the scaffolding, containment, and blasting these projects demand. Coverage spans California and the wider Western United States, which suits the scale of the infrastructure work it takes on, where crews often mobilize across a region rather than working from a single town.
As an established industrial contractor with a workforce in the 51-to-200 range, Certified Coatings has the crews and equipment to mobilize the scaffolding, containment, and blasting that large steel structures demand across a wide territory. The regulated nature of the work, lead abatement and containment in particular, is exactly why the surface preparation and the coating are handled as one controlled process rather than split between trades. Covering California and the wider Western United States, the firm is set up for the kind of bridge, tank, and infrastructure projects where a crew mobilizes to a site for months rather than working locally.