Baker Concrete

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Baker Concrete Construction, Inc. :

Premier Concrete Solutions Specialist Baker Concrete’s South Florida location in Fort Lauderdale has been building relationships and delivering high-end projects for 15 years.

Written by Kevin Doyle Produced by Stephen Marino

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rom humble beginnings in 1968, Baker Concrete Construction, Inc. has evolved into one of the nation’s largest specialty contractors with thousands of co-workers at 14 offices across the United States.

Yet the company established by Dan Baker and his brothers has never lost that down-to-earth family feel. It is a trait that has served the company well through its first 50 years, a time during which it has completed nearly 11,000 projects. With exception of highly specialized trades, the company selfperforms all work.

“Dan has built the company with strong core values. We continue to work with those values of People, Honor and Grit. We are a people business that just happens to build some amazing structures. Dan has built the company on the belief that ‘Our word is our word.’ We are fairly large in our realm of construction and we still maintain a gritty, humble culture that makes us different,” says Kerri Smith, Vice President and General Manager of the South Florida office based in Fort Lauderdale.

The South Florida location serves the area from West Palm Beach to Key West, including Miami and Fort Lauderdale.

“We have hard-working people giving it their all 12 hours a day. It is a humble group, but we do enjoy driving by

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structures and saying to our families ‘We built that’,” adds Smith, who has been with the company for 14 years.

Baker Concrete provides a range of construction and management services to the Civil, Commercial, Heavy Industrial, Institutional, Energy and Power, and Multi-Family sectors.

Core competencies include structural excavation, concrete formwork design and installation, concrete reinforcement

Baker Concrete Construction, Inc. | 5 There will be 121 units, ranging in size from 1501 to 2964 square feet and in price from $845,000 to $2.04 million.

Condominiums begin on the 16th floor with the lower levels occupied by a Hyatt Centric hotel.

Gables Station: Gables Station is a proposed high-density, mixed use TOD project located directly adjacent to the Miami Metrorail line. The project contains a diversity of uses including 450-500 residential units, an extended stay hotel, and approximately 80,000 square feet of retail distributed throughout, including a full service grocery store. The project design creates extensive high quality public space throughout the project for the enjoyment of the residents, visitors, and locals.

installation, and concrete placement and finishing; and preconstruction services that comprise conceptual estimating, project scheduling, design assist and value engineering, and technical and constructability reviews.

Key Florida Projects 100 Las Olas: Upon completion in 2020, this will be the tallest residential tower in Fort Lauderdale with 46 levels.

Panorama Tower: Baker Concrete earned Eagle Award recognition from the ABC East Coast for its work on this 83-story mixed-use development in the Brickell financial district in Miami.

The tallest building in Florida – and tallest residential building south of New York City – has a gross square footage of 2.6 million SF. Baker concrete’s scope of work included 155,000 cubic yards of concrete, 22,000 tons of reinforcing steel and two million pounds of post tensioning cables. The company set a record for pouring 11,677 cubic yards of concrete for the foundation in 23 hours.

Marlins Park: The home to Major

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“

Our growth, and our entire

keeping them engaged and by having

League Baseball’s Miami Marlins opened in 2012 on the site of the former Orange Bowl. The stadium’s retractable roof moves on massive site-cast track beams. The concrete shell consists of approximately 750,000sf of cast-in-place elevated decks and rakers that support the precast stadium. Baker and Form Works were joint venture contractors on the project.

a strategy. Everything else takes care

Safety Measures

business, is about relationships. We are a people business and we build relationships with our customers by

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of itself.

- Kerri Smith, VP and General Manager www.bakerconcrete.com

Baker Concrete has embraced an Incident and Injury Free Safety (IIF) culture that centers around caring about the individual and sending everyone home safely. The company has instituted a national training program that includes targeted

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Baker Concrete Construction, Inc. | 8 new-hire orientation programs, scheduled safety trainings, weekly “tool box” talks on job sites, observation programs and period reviews.

“Safety isn’t a department, it is a culture, a way of doing business and about caring about your family. We are not super tough just because we are in construction. Regardless of your industry, if you get hurt your family suffers. We want our coworkers to be safe for themselves and for their family. It’s a ‘You are your brother’s keeper’ mentality,” stresses Smith. “Safety starts at the top. You have to walk the talk, set the tone and truly care.”

The company is one of 30 original

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sponsors of National Construction Safety Week. The theme for the 2018 event from May 7-11 was The Power of Safe Choices with national and global firms joining forces to raise awareness of the industry’s commitment to eliminating injuries.

Operations Customer engagement and relationship building goes hand in hand with success.

“We have been in South Florida now for 15 years. Our growth, and our entire business, is about relationships. We are a people business and we build relationships with our customers by keeping them engaged, having a plan and delivering. Everything else takes

Baker Concrete Construction, Inc. | 9 care of itself,” Smith states.

“When a customer calls and they say ‘We want you there – this is a Baker job’ and it comes from not just the highest level but the project team as well, that’s a strong relationship,” Smith notes.

The company belongs to multiple associations and Smith was a member of the Board of Directors for the ABC Florida East Coast chapter.

She considers the networking opportunities and the ability to foster relationships, coupled with ABC’s legislative clout, to be invaluable.

Baker uses the latest iterations of technology such as Building Information Modeling (BIM) and

Virtual Design & Construction (VDC) for applying BIM to real-world processes. Both are supported by cutting edge software and utilized throughout out the project life cycle.

The company carries Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certifications in water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, materials and certified wood, indoor environmental quality, innovation in design, and regional priority.

Meeting Challenges The issue of experienced workers aging out across the construction industry and attracting qualified replacements is a reality for companies

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“

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If the culture fits the person

and they fit the culture, we can teach anybody anything. People can make their own way here and we want them to move up with fire in their

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belly.

- Kerri Smith, VP and General Manager

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Baker Concrete Construction, Inc. | 13 across the country. It is magnified, Smith says, because “a lot of the good construction people that are two generations in are pushing their third generation into other industries.

We are experiencing a lot of growth and this is a dynamic time for the construction industry. We have to tell that story along with the plethora of opportunities available to co-workers who fit our culture. ” Delivering a positive message about the industry is a key component in the effort to combat the talent drain and replenish the workforce.

“We’re continuing to be diligent about getting the right talent. The industry is full of opportunities and the work is

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fulfilling. We’re building structures but, in doing so, we are building lives. We’re pretty prideful about that,” Smith says.

The company has a long history of providing students the opportunity to gain skills and hands-on experience in areas such as trades, field supervision, project management, estimating, marketing, finance, talent management and pre-construction. Programs are updated to mirror industry trends and changes.

“For us it’s about finding a strong culture fit. If Baker’s culture fits the person and they fit our culture, we can teach anybody anything. People can make their own way here and we want them to move up with fire in their belly,” Smith says.

believe it won’t build on the solid foundation already in place and continue to enhance its position as a market influencer.

“I believe we can change the way the industry does business and make it a profession people are drawn to. In fact, I believe it is our responsibility.”

Smith concludes.

COMPANY INFORMATION

Company Name: Baker Concrete Country: U.S. Industry: Construction

Additional challenges include managing the escalating cost of rebar materials and managing manpower when project start dates shift. “We need to keep our guys working and start dates can fluctuate,” Smith says.

Est: 1968

As the company embarks on its next 50 years, there is no reason to

Website: www.bakerconcrete.com

Premier Service: Specialty concrete construction contractor President: Brad Wucherpfennig

www.bakerconcrete.com

Corporate 900 North Garver Road Monroe, OH 45050 P: 800.539.2224 South Florida 5555 Anglers Avenue, Suite 1A Fort Lauderdale, FL 33312 P: 954-964-6027