Austin Construction News January 2019

Covering the Industry’s News

Texas Style

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The Industry’s Newspaper www.constructionnews.net H (210) 308-5800 H Volume 19 H Number 1 H JANUARY 2019

Arctic blast

Walker, Texas Welder

Mimi and Keith Ingalls

Jerry Walker, owner of Walker Welding, with one of his cool cookers.

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eith and Mimi Ingalls were desperate to escape New England’s arctic weather. So when Keith’s dad retired and sold the fencing company that employed the couple, they chose to start a similar business in a sunnier climate.

“We were just looking for a warmer place that we wouldn’t only experience on vacation; we wanted to live somewhere in the south,” Keith explains.

“We went across the whole southern part of the country – from Florida to California – and Texas was the nicest spot. We arrived in Texas 12 years ago and started Arctic Fence Inc. in 2007.”

With a recession on the horizon, Keith immediately identified municipal work that would prove recession-proof, and it turned out to be crucial to the

company’s success.

“That took me all over Texas, especially to small towns in the middle of nowhere that a lot of companies wouldn’t go to,” he says. “Many companies in San Antonio are not going to drive three hours west to a small town and do a little $4,000 to $5,000 job, but we did and we set ourselves up to do that. We still do that, and we take a camper instead of staying in hotels. We do a lot more than municipal work now, but it helped recession-proof us during that time.”

Since then, business has been hot.

Arctic Fence Inc. installs private, chain link, vinyl picket and ornamental fencing for commercial and residential projects in the greater central Texas region. continued on Page 16

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f there’s one thing to say about Jerry Walker, it is being a welder isn’t boring.

And, his love for his craft is readily evident.

Walker is the owner of Walker Welding. Even though this is a new business – just two years old – Walker has been welding since 1988. His former brotherin-law had a paper mill back in Georgia.

Walker worked for him, which started him welding. They used to shut down the mill periodically so Walker could repair broken equipment.

Then, Walker got into pipe welding 20 years’ worth of it.

Finally, he opened his own shop in 2016, in Dripping Springs. Walker tries to keep his base of operations at around a 50-mile radius, but can and has gone fur-

ther if his services are requested.

“It’s a great compliment, knowing you did a job for somebody and they want you back,” he said. “That means a lot to you.” And if a customer likes his work because Walker has done work for him in the past, Walker will go to where he’s being requested.

Good customer reviews are one source for Walker to get called, although sometimes those reviews don’t go as planned. One elderly gentleman gave Walker a great write-up, but when it came to give the 5 stars, his hand slipped and he ended giving Walker a 2-star graphic review. The man felt bad about that and apologized to Walker.

Walker does a lot of barbecue pits, continued on Page 16

Reviving a downtown structure

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n 1999, a group of entrepreneurs with a commitment to excellence in construction got together to form Blue & Associates Inc. CEO Tom Jay, COO Don Jay and Senior Vice President Gib Jones were among the leaders who developed a vision for a superior organization. Together, they skillfully took advantage of improved efficiencies in the areas of commercial design/build and construction services.

Tackling the remodel of an existing two-story, 10,000sf steel and brick structure was a perfect fit for the Blue & Associates team. The remodel of the 612 Brazos shell building also included the excavation and construction of a 1,500sf basement space addition for a total cost just under $2.5 million, which was completed in 12 short months. For Owner Manish Patel with P&W Ventures LLC, this reconfirmed that his general contractor choice

for the project was the right choice.

Primary exterior construction materials used for the remodel of 612 Brazos, home to The Refinery co-working space and the Squeezery juice bar, included glazed brick tiles with brass trim, prefinished aluminum panels and a stucco backdrop for a custom, commissioned art mural. Interior finishes were kept simple in order to provide a clean and soothing atmosphere. Whitewashed exposed ceilings, painted gypsum board walls with polished concrete floors illuminated the interior. Blue & Associates also constructed each tenant finish, although these were under separate contracts.

A big challenge was the excavation of the basement, simply because of the logistics involved in excavating and exporting very dense bedrock out from below the building. Construction in downtown Austin, a highly congested and 612 Brazos, The Refinery, downtown Austin. Photos courtesy of Chase Daniel.

continued on Page 16

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Austin Construction News • JAN 2019

A new owner, a new name

Trench warfare

Steven Morris, operations manager of Custom Trench The new Weifield team in Texas.

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hen Nate Anderson of Weifield Group Contracting moved to Georgetown in July 2018, he met with local general contractors and vendors and inquired about electrical contractors with a good reputation in the industry and the community. The Denver-based company’s strategic planning committee, which meets twice a year, had been looking at expanding the services into new markets.

“Austin has been a front runner in those meetings for us to expand,” says Anderson. “It would be the first city not in close proximity to Denver.”

During Anderson’s inquiry, one local contractor stood out. Four months after moving to Georgetown, Weifield Group Contracting acquired Austin-based IDI Electric LLC. With the acquisition, IDI Electric will grow as well as Weifield Group Contracting Texas. IDI Electric co-owner Richard White will stay involved and become Weifield Group Contracting Texas’ chief operating officer. He will maintain the

relationships he made over the years and extend those relationships into new clients as the company grows in the community. White’s son, Garrett, will remain involved with the newly acquired company as a project manager.

Anderson will filter in as the company’s Texas division president.

Weifield Group Contracting was established in 2002. The business was initially run out of a garage, and today is the third largest electrical contractor in Colorado, according to Anderson.

As the two companies come together, they will continue to office out of the IDI Electric offices before transitioning into a larger facility.

“We are excited to be in the Austin market,” Anderson says. “We had been tracking Austin for three years before coming down here. I made the decision to come to Austin. It is an exciting city. We love the city and we’re just excited to grow and establish new relationships.”

Weifield Group Contracting Texas is a fullservice electrical contractor in Austin. –cmw

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his war isn’t between armies, but between man and the ground. In days of old, the ground often won the battle. Fortunately, we now have Steven Morris, operations manager of Custom Trench, leading the charge.

Custom Trench uses its specialized rock trenchers to plow through the worst that Texas - and other states like New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas and Arizona puts in its path.

“We outperform excavators,” Morris said. “It takes four to five excavators to do the same amount of work” as one of his trenchers.

Morris’ father, Danny, is general manager of Custom Trench. He used to have his own rental company, and the younger Morris started working there when he was a lad in school. After high school, Morris started “doing something different for a while,” including automotive repair, but came to work in the trenching industry full time around 2004.

When he started trenching in the days of yore, Morris said the cabs weren’t air conditioned. The machines were heavier and had less horsepower also.

Now, his best machine can do a 30-ft. trench on one pass, about 100 ft. in a single day.

There are always two men for a single machine - one used as a spotter to monitor the outside of the trencher, while the operator does his thing.

Morris has done trenching, but spends his time now doing bidding and interfacing with customers. “We have a real loyal customer base,” he said. “A lot of customers like [using us] because it trenches nice and uniform and piles it to the side of the ditch.”

The longest trench Custom Trench has done was 154 miles, which took about two and a half months total time to trench. The two biggest reasons they are called into a job are the rock is too hard and/or the schedule is too tight and they need the trench done as quick as possible.

With his handy rock trenchers, Morris can lead the frontal assault against the most stubborn enemy Texas soil can throw at it.

Custom Trench’s HQ is in Georgetown.

-dsz

Austin Construction News • JAN 2019

Page 3

Who are you calling old?

A United Christmas

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nited Rentals shared these photos from their Christmas dinner on Dec. 7. By the looks of things, everyone had a joyous time. -cmw

L-R: Willow (dog), Mike Draper, Leonard Perez, Justin Vaught, Jeff Spector and Laramie Wilkins

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f you own a visible old wooden barn, you might just get a knock on your door from Jeffrey Spector, owner/ president of This Old Wood. The company sells wood from old structures, which may come from the late 1800s or early 1900s, which they strip from old buildings in the greater Texas area. They also work with partners from other parts of the country to receive different types of wood. “It’s great to get out there with nature and have that as my work site,” said Spector.

While repurposing old wood beams and floors for the people in Austin and Central Texas is what they do, it wasn’t always part of their market. “A bigger part of our market back then was longleaf pine floors, which is still very popular,” said Spector. But when Mike Draper established the company in 2006, he had to piece it together.

“It was through word of mouth that somebody in Columbus, TX wanted a 1930s dancehall moved. Michael was looking for something to keep him occupied, so it took about a year all together to take it apart. He was driving to Columbus with a trailer every day and came back here to put it back together,” explained Spector.

This Old Wood caters to both commercial and residential clients, but they do not install. Instead, they work with other contractors to do the installations.

“There is a lot of known Austin bars and restaurants that have our wood all over it,” said Spector.

One that Spector is proud of is the Banger’s Sausage House & Beer Garden on Rainey Street. As for the residential side of things, Spector says they will prep the wood for homeowners.

“We’ll do as much work as we can before you actually put it up on the wall.

Even for somebody that wants to make a table, we will get all the pieces gathered into kind of a kit, where all the pieces fit perfectly together. They make the table, but we helped,” explained Spector.

This Old Wood carries woods from North Carolina, Indiana and California.

Products that they sell now, such as the beams, accent walls and pinewood have become more popular.

The company has five employees and one marketing intern, who attends the University of Texas. This Old Wood sits on three acres with a 2000sft indoor workshop/showroom. They have a casual work environment and everyone working there enjoys the outdoors.

Sometimes the outdoors is where Spector can be found as he seeks possible wood candidates. Even though, people reach out to them about their old wood, Spector finds them too, saying, “I’ll drive around in the country looking for barns that I think look right.” This is when Spector may be the one knocking on your door.

“A lot of folks are just sitting on it and are not going to do anything with it, so they are more than happy for somebody to knock on their door and say, ‘I’ll give you a little money and I’ll get rid of this old barn.’ And they’re like, yeah, that sounds great,” said Spector.

As 2019 kicks into gear, the old woods are waiting for their new home. As for This Old Wood, Spector says they always want to grow and would like to carry international products. “There is a lot of really cool stuff in India and South America,” said Spector.

Spector says the company almost had a brush with fame, explaining, “We almost got on an episode of Fear The Walking Dead, when they were shooting in town, but they changed the script to a boat yard from a lumber yard.”

And for someone who works with wood, Spector had never been hunting before. So for the first time last month, he went hunting for hogs, but unfortunately, he didn’t get anything. Maybe next time!

This Old Wood is literally one man’s wood and another man’s table, or accent wall, or tree house, or floor. You get the point.

This Old Wood is a reclaimed wood contractor in Austin, TX. –lv

Construction News ON LOCATION

Construction News ON LOCATION

Tooling visit

Visiting with CN

The friendly folks at Austin Tool visit with Construction News.

L-R: Chris Dierschke, Peter Alvarez, Terry Bell and Eric Roberts. -cmw

Joe Casey and Sunbelt Rentals Branch Manager Jesse Dominguez visit with Construction News. -cwm

Page 4

Austin Construction News • JAN 2019

Ray Gurley Jr. Owner/Partner 3G Drywall LLC Liberty, TX

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hey had long dreamed about it, but it wasn’t until they had worked for years in the drywall industry before Ray Gurley Jr., his dad Ray Gurley Sr. and his brother Mathew Gurley decided to go for it and start their own business, 3G Drywall. Their company took off, and Ray Jr. is grateful to go on this ride with two of the men he respects most.

How did your dad, you and your brother get into the industry?

My dad, Ray Gurley Sr., got into the drywall industry during the 1970s. He’s been doing drywall forever; he came up through the field with a blue-collar mentality and worked for the company who would become our previous employer for 35 years.

My brother Mathew Gurley and I were around the drywall industry growing up; my dad would have us working summers at the company to keep us out of trouble and help us make a little money.

Before I fully joined the company my dad worked for, I attended college. I earned my Associate degree in General Studies at Independence Community College in 2002; I played college football, basketball and track there.

Then I earned my bachelor’s in general studies at Northeastern State in Oklahoma in 2005. I had a lot of college credits, so I earned my Master’s degree in Business Administration in 2015. I was pursuing that when I was working at the company my dad worked for, trying to make sure I was giving myself as much value as I could to move up the ladder.

Before Mathew joined that company full-time, he worked in a bank’s loan department for five years, and received really good training there. Mathew came into the company my dad worked for six or seven years ago as the safety director in the Fort Worth office, and I came in to the company’s Austin office as an estimator/project manager.

How did the three of you decide to form your own drywall business?

We had talked about it as early as when I was in college, kicking it around and discussing how it would be cool to do that. It never seemed like a reality, though.

Through circumstances, we kind of got pushed into creating our own business, and we figured, why not? We threw all of our money in and had some backing as well from a family member.

We thought that if it didn’t work out, we could always do what we were doing for another company. We went all in and established 3G Drywall in 2016.

What have these first years been like?

It has been such a difference. We started in June in 2016, which was midyear, and we were doing it ourselves. I turned my garage into an office and we worked out of that. We had a couple of good clients that connected us in the right way. When we finished the year, we had 15 employees and probably did $1 million in total volume. The next year was even bigger; we had $6.5 million in total volume and finished the year with 44 employees.

But there were some challenging times. My dad, Mathew and I did not get paid for the first 10 months as we ran the company, tried to finance it all and keep it going.

Family photo of Ray Gurley Jr., Gabriel (son), Faith (daughter) and Jennifer (wife)

What role do you, your dad and Mathew play in the company?

My dad oversees all of the field operations. He hires the field employees and the manpower and is on the job sites with our foreman and the general contractors. Mathew is the money guy and wears a couple of different hats; besides handling the finances, he also does estimating and oversees safety. I handle business development, clients, estimating, sales and I oversee the entire company from a business standpoint.

That’s part of why it works. It’s like having three different mindsets and you just have to figure out how to work it together. What happens to those three pieces is what makes us who we are. If we were missing one of us, we wouldn’t be as strong as we are.

side; they love them and wear them. We have custom 3G letter jackets coming in January for our office personnel. This is a sports thing also. The jackets will have patches that have “Est. 2016.” Then the employee will get to add a 5-year patch, 10-year patch, etc.

We took a foremen’s trip to the Picosa Ranch in San Antonio for the weekend, where we got to go hunting and fishing and do some training, and it was unbelievable.

We also just had our Christmas party at Austin’s Park n’ Pizza and we invited employees and their families to get together. We got in the meeting room for an hour and talked about the good things and the upcoming work, raffled off tools and gift cards, and then everyone had a ton of fun all day.

What was it like for you to transition from being an employee to employer?

It was interesting. Being on the other side of it, we can understand where the employees are coming from.

We try to be fair, understanding and put ourselves in the other person’s shoes because we’ve been there. We try to always listen and do everything we can to put them in the best position to succeed.

What is the company’s current scope of work and what do the three of you plan for the company’s future?

At the moment, our scope includes interior and exterior framing, drywall and sheathing, trim, corner beads, doors, hardware, acoustical ceilings, drywall ceilings. We’re getting into fabric ceilings and fabric wall panels.

As for the future, that’s where the three-headed monster comes in, and we have to agree to disagree. My dad is in what I call his “twilight years.” He’s toward the end of the road in this business, and he thinks we have plenty of work and wants to keep everything as is. My brother, the money guy, is cautious, but if there is money to be made, he’s willing to look at it. I can see five to ten years down the road; a lot of employees we have are appreciative of the opportunity we have given them. If we have employees that are ambitious and want to do more, we’re going to provide for that and continue to grow, although it will level off a little bit.

We are interested in different areas, such as College Station and the DFW area, and that’s probably in the five- to ten-year range. That’s what I see happening, possibly branching out into two different areas and seeing what happens.

How do you, your dad and Mathew connect with your employees?

Taking care of our employees is something we really pride ourselves on.

I have a sports background, so we get our employees fitted sports ball caps, custom hoodies that I designed, and neon shirts with metal studs down the

What do you perceive as your future in the company?

Right now, I do a lot of estimating, project management and business development. In 10 to 15 years, my involvement in the company is to go to meetings, consulting and keeping the company running, and putting the right people in positions to succeed. I won’t be involved as much in the day-to-day operations but will take on more of a broad management-type role.

My dad, Mathew, and I want to position our employees to succeed. We have foremen that are good at pushing jobs and being productive, so we put them on productive jobs. We also have foremen that are detailed and skilled with high-end things, so we put them on those. We look for game-changing employees that have the intangibles that we are looking for. As an example, we just hired Daniel Arterberry, and he really fits all the categories that we are looking for in long-term, gamechanging employees.

Share about your family and what you enjoy doing in your free time.

My wife Jennifer and I have an 8-year-old son, Gabriel, and a 5-year-old daughter, Faith. They’re my life; I do everything for them. I’m really big on health, family, business and the balance – you’ve got to have all it or it doesn’t work right.

We do a lot of things as a family. My kids play Little League sports and my wife and I coach our son’s basketball team. We like to travel; we took the kids to Disney World and it was awesome.

We went to Port Aransas right before school started. We like to go and see the world and do different things. I want to live life to the fullest.

I follow sports; I grew up in Little Elm and live in the DFW area, so I am a big Dallas Cowboys, Texas Longhorns, and Dallas Mavericks fan. I play Fantasy Football like any other mid-‘30s sports guy.

I’m really big into classic cars and trucks and my personal hobby is my 1972 black Chevy truck. It’s something I always wanted as a kid and I’ve had never been able to get one until this year. It’s awesome. It’s got a 450 Ford motor, it’s big, it’s bad and it runs! I drive it once a week to work and everybody can hear me coming in. It’s got the cool factor for sure.

What do you enjoy most about what you do?

I like it, just in general. Construction has so many different aspects to it.

There is such a satisfaction to it and such an adventure to it. You build so many cool things – medical facilities for people to get well in, schools for people to be educated in, a theatre for people to be entertained in, a stadium for people to sit in­ , and it helps the community, the state, everybody. I can say I helped build that and was a part of that.

Subcontractor 3G Drywall LLC is in Liberty Hill. –mjm

Austin Construction News • JAN 2019

Page 5

Sealing her fate

Old school quality

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Robert Schier and Terrisia Schier

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hen Terrisia Schier met Robert Schier, he was ready to retire; he had had a successful 20-year run after establishing Longhorn Sealants in 1979. Terrisia, however, had no intentions of retiring just yet. That’s when Terrisia re-established Robert’s Longhorn Sealants as woman-owned enterprise A-Plus Sealants Inc. in 1999.

It has been another 20 years since Terrisia took the business in new directions. The HUB-certified company, which also encompasses Longhorn Sealant Services Inc. and All-American Firestopping Services, offers Division 7 waterproofing, damp proofing, sealants and firestopping solutions to the central Texas region.

Terrisia and her team of 15 to 20 employees have proven their expertise in notable area projects, most recently Austin’s J.J. Pickle Federal Building, AMLI at Mueller, AMLI on Aldrich and San Angelo’s Goodfellow Air Force Base. “[I’m] proud when driving past a project that our company helped construct, and to observe the [process] from beginning to end,” Terrisia says.

Running a successful business for two decades has had its challenges, but Terrisia has handled any speed bumps with aplomb.

“I was told once, ‘Be the one wearing the white hat.’ In other words, be the one that always tries to do the right thing,” she says. “It’s all about the approach!

Approaching challenges with a positive attitude and positive outlook usually turns into positive results. Communication is key.”

Giving back to the community has also played an important part in the company’s success. For the past five years, A-Plus has partnered up weekly with A Flower Junction to provide dining room flowers for Ronald McDonald House.

As for the future, Terrisia plans to help the company grow with Austin.

“With the knowledge and experience A-Plus Sealants Inc. has behind it, I feel we can overcome any challenge,” she says.

A-Plus Sealants is located in Austin. – mjm

Construction News ON LOCATION

Sunstate welcomes CN Give it up for the guys at Sunstate Equipment who eagerly took time to pose for a photo.

Front Row L-R: Mark Perez, Gus Moreno and Brian Melancon.

Mid Row L-R: Ridge Finn, Luis Porales, Wilson Bryant, Matthew Stephen, Dennis Spiller, Jim King and Joey Ruiz.

Back Row L-R: AJ Bernal and Joe Ruiz. -cmw

Shawn Herring

hawn Herring admits he was more than nervous when his father Bill Herring handed him the family business and retired.

“Absolutely terrified,” to be exact.

Bill started Herring Construction in Austin in 1976 and they moved to Bastrop in the late ‘80s. Shawn grew up in his dad’s business, on the job and at home when he was building things.

“I grew up on the job sites starting probably when I was eight years old,” Shawn said.

This continued with Shawn working summers and odd jobs, helping throughout his life. After school, he did work at a few “regular” jobs for a spell, but returned to the family construction business around seven years ago.

Bill was intentionally slowing down, such as telling his son that he wouldn’t be in at certain times, and grooming Shawn to take over the business. Bill officially handed off the company in 2014 by simply saying, “You got this.”

Shawn had big shoes to fill. The telling quality of how well Bill ran the business was the fact that there never were calls to the house from angry customers, because there weren’t any.

“He always seemed to know what to do,” Shawn said.

Watching his dad deal so well with people left a powerful impression on Shawn, who thinks he, in turn, has mastered the skill “pretty well.” Shawn considers the people skills perhaps more important than the construction skills.

“It’s about spending time with the customer,” he said.

Herring Construction is a two-man operation, consisting of Shawn and “an employee that worked for my dad for 15 years and stuck around.”

Sometimes the two can do the job by themselves. Sometimes Shawn might act as a GC and subcontract out the entire work, or at least parts of it, like foundation, electrical, and plumbing.

Shawn likes to stay in a 25- to 30-mile radius around Bastrop, but will, for those faithful and dedicated customers, go wherever they are at to work for them, like Rockport on the coast.

Shawn works hard to find that delicate balance being both labor and management. He spends the time needed to answer phone calls, reply to emails, and take care of the company from the business side.

“It comes down to multi-tasking,” Shawn said.

Like his old-school father, Shawn also claims to be old school when it comes to dealing with customers and what they want.

“It’s all about finding a way to communicate with the customer individually because nobody communicates the same,” he said.

Instead of using fancy CAD programs, Shawn says he is kind of a “pen and paper guy” when it comes to drawing up designs for customers. He also learned this oldschool style from watching his dad. What he likes most is what he calls “the fun stuff people enjoy,” like decks and patios.

For now, Shawn prefers to work sequentially, giving his full attention to one customer at a time. In the future, Shawn wouldn’t mind having two or three trustworthy crews that simultaneously work on jobs. He doesn’t have to be hands-on for 100 percent of the jobs, but he does want to stay 100 percent there for the customer.

Shawn has seen contractors get spread too thin, thus losing the handle on everything. One thing Shawn learned from his dad was to not lose the personal touch or the quality thereof.

When Shawn took the helm, he didn’t inherit his father’s jobs, but his father’s customers. The last advertising Bill did was 25 years ago in Austin, in the Yellow Pages. He ran Herring Construction strictly by word of mouth, with no unsatisfied customer ever calling the house to complain.

Ain’t nothing wrong with old school, y’all. –dsz

Page 6

Austin Construction News • JAN 2019

Terror on Black Oak Ridge

Newly acquired firm keeps local name

Dale Hargrowe was not pleased. At all. Everything had been going so well. He had just graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with his Ph.D in the new field of nuclear physics this past June of 1944.

In August, he had been asked to stay on with MIT in charming Cambridge to teach first-year students as well as to continue assisting Dr. Ronald Tupper, the department chair, in research. Dr. Hargrowe had a bright future. It was going even better than had he planned it. Most importantly, he was in perfect control of his life. Despite America being involved in a world war on two fronts, Dale was doing well. Life was going well. Until now.

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Gary Raba will continue to run the RK operations.

ounded in 1968 and having just celebrated 50 years in business, Raba Kistner Inc. (RK) has been acquired by an Australian engineering firm, Construction Sciences.

Raba Kistner has been operating in 10 markets in Texas, Utah, Nebraska, Arizona, New York, California and Mexico with a firm size of nearly 500 employees.

Through this acquisition, RK will be able to expand their services, which has been a goal for the company. “We are operating more and more on a national level with some of our services all over the country. This gives us some more muscle to do that and to compete with national and international firms on that front,” says Joe Irizarry, senior vice president and chief marketing officer.

RK’s services, which include project management and oversight services, forensic engineering, construction material engineering, testing and observation, geotechnical engineering, testing and pavement consulting, environmental consulting, infrastructure oversight and

quality management will mesh perfectly with Construction Science’s services. Construction Sciences services also include construction material testing, geotechnical and environment consulting as well as subsurface utility engineering. Together, they will be providing the full package.

The much larger Australian firm approached Raba Kistner as a means to take flight in the United States. “They were attracted to Raba Kistner because of our team, the way we do business and our success,” says Raba Kistner Inc. Chairman and CEO Gary Raba.

Having served as one of RK’s executive leaders since 1999, Raba will continue to run the RK operation. And the San Antonio based RK will keep the Raba Kistner Inc. name.

“Our company has a clear purpose to build a better world for our employees, their families, our clients and the communities we serve. This aligns perfectly with Construction Sciences’ purpose,” adds Irizarry.

Raba Kistner Inc. is headquartered in San Antonio. -cmw

ur very own Construction News’ editor, Dan Zulli, has just published his book, “Terror on Black Oak Ridge,” a novel from the top-secret days of the Manhattan Project.

When asked how he chose this subject and why is it set in Oak Ridge, TN, Zulli said, “I had the basic idea in my head for years, but didn’t begin until March 2015.

“I was born in Oak Ridge, TN and lived there during the height of the Cold War. My father and step-grandfather worked for the Atomic Energy Commission. All my schoolmates’ dads worked in one of those three main plants. Oak Ridge was one of the three sites chosen for the Manhattan Project, which began in Sept. 1942. By the war’s end, it was a full-blown town of 75,000 people. Sadly, not many know of Oak Ridge or the role it played in the war. I thought it was an ideal setting for a suspense thriller, and I wanted to give it a good shout out.

Zulli said he hired two professional editors and a professional book designer who took his idea for the cover and made it look great. Aside from the professional editors, he had lots of people proof read it and give him suggestions along the way.

He’s hoping to get good reviews and be the next “great American novelist.”

When asked if there will be a sequel,

Author Dan Zulli Construction News Editor

Zullie says, “You bet. It’s called “Terror on Proctor’s Ledge. It’s set in Salem, MA where my two protagonists, Dale and Brenda, can’t seem to stay out of trouble!

I hope to have it out by this time next year.

The book is available at Amazon in Kindle and paperback.

Austin Construction News • JAN 2019

Page 7

Don’t lose half the business when you retire Steven Bankler, Owner Steven Bankler, CPA, Ltd. San Antonio TX

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t’s a shocking but common statistic for business owners who retire: More than half the sale price of your business could be lost to the IRS when you sell it or pass it down. The scenario can play out in various ways depending on how your business is structured. A retiring C Corp owner, for example, might sell his $1 million of stock in his business and realize too late that his long-term capital gains tax is a staggering $240,000. And then there’s the buyer’s tax bill. Depending on the buyer’s income tax bracket, an added $690,600 might be needed to walk away with that same $1 million in stock. Consider now that this is a family business. All combined, the sale of that $1 million in stock — just to pass it from one generation to the next — costs the business owner and his heir $895,600 in taxes (a “tax rate” of 55 percent).

Whether your end-goal is family succession, selling the business, or dissolving it when you retire, start strategizing now and be prepared to change course when needed. The process is called exit planning or succession planning, and it can help you and those who inherit your business after you, avoid an unnecessarily huge tax bill.

One of the biggest traps owners fall into when selling their business is with balancing capital gains versus ordinary income. Ordinary income is taxed at a higher rate than capital gains but sometimes paying more in ordinary income taxes produces better results.

With careful coordination, taking a bigger tax hit can often be reimbursed by the buyer, for a lower overall cost.

Three in five small businesses do not have an exit plan in place. In nearly half of those businesses, the business owners simply believe it’s not necessary. The truth is, with 100% certainty, you WILL leave your business. You may retire, quit, close the company, sell the business, or work until they carry you out. No one is an exception to the rule. So if you want to leave a strong legacy behind, it’s time to start planning ahead. We often recommend starting 10 years in advance because it takes that much time to alter your course from “build mode” to “exit mode.”

An exit plan can help you gain tax advantages in these areas by helping you rethink and recharacterize certain assets in your company. Even a self-created asset like personal goodwill (which includes your reputation, expertise, skill, knowledge and the relationships you’ve built) can now be sold, along with or separate from the business, but this is also taxed. Add these factors to dozens of other considerations when it comes to tax-proofing the legacy of your business, and you can see how critical exit planning can be. Even your Social Security and retirement benefits can be affected.

You’ll leave your business at some point, and the IRS is betting on it being on their terms, not yours. Give yourself some time to prove Uncle Sam wrong.

Often when business owners put together an exit plan, they realize their business structure should change. That’s because a corporate entity like a C Corp is financially much different from a passthrough entity like an LLC, S Corp or partnership. The business structure that’s been right for you for years may not be right for a transition because it can affect your business operations (liability, credit, tax treatment, etc.) Changing tax laws like those concerning bonus depreciation and estate taxes can affect business structure for exiting owners, too.

Steven Bankler has more than 40 years of experience in the accounting industry.

Steven’s expertise lies in consulting, planning, tax, and asset protection as well as exit strategy services for closely held businesses. He also provides litigation support (both as a testifying expert witness and a consulting expert), business negotiations and estate planning.

Learn more about Steven Bankler, CPA, Ltd. at www.bankler.com 210-691-3133

Construction News ON LOCATION

Precision timing

Ewan McCauley with Precision Demolition had precision timing when he showed up to pick up scaffolding material at Sunbelt Rentals. -cmw

Required by written contract Charles E. Comiskey Sr. Vice President Brady Chapman Holland & Associates, Inc. Houston, TX

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hat do you suppose is the primary triggering mechanism for the provision of coverage? A well written policy? Indemnification? Additional insured status? Many of the insurance coverages ostensibly provided to upstream parties (i.e., Owners, GCs) are provided only where required by written contract. When a loss occurs, one of the first documents that any insurance company adjuster will demand is the signed contract as that document stipulates the agreement of the parties. The contract is therefore the primary triggering mechanism. If the contract fails to state a necessary requirement, then the insurance may not be triggered. Simply requiring a coverage without specificity is insufficient and ineffective.

For instance, additional insured endorsements can be provided on a specific basis (i.e., naming the parties to be added as additional insureds) or a “blanket” basis (i.e., stating that additional insured status is extended to all parties required to be named as additional insured in a written contract). Neither basis informs about the kind of operations or the scope of negligence to which the additional insured status applies.

The ISO CG 20 10 is the constructionrelated endorsement most commonly used to provide additional insured status for ongoing operations. There have been six different editions of this endorsement, each progressively more restrictive.

The last four numbers of an ISO endorsement indicate the edition date. The CG 20 10 10 01 was promulgated in October, 2001. This endorsement is applicable to liabilities arising out of the insured’s on-going operations. “Arising out of” is commonly held to include protection for the additional insured’s sole negligence related to those operations.

The ISO CG 20 10 07 04 drops the “arising out of” wording and instead states that additional insured status is provided only for liabilities caused, in whole or in part, by the acts or omission of the Named Insured or of those acting on the Named Insured’s part, again in performance of ongoing operations.

ISO CG 20 10 04 13 is the latest ongoing operations additional insured endorsement. Like its immediate predecessor, it excludes coverage for the additional insured’s sole negligence but goes on to state that it: (1) Applies only to the extent permitted by law; (2) Will not be broader than that which [the Named Insured is] required by contract to provide; and (3) Will not pay more than the amount required by contract.

ISO CG 20 37 provides additional insured status with regard to completed operations. This endorsement is subject to the same editions and issues pertinent to those editions.

That said, there are hundreds of manuscript additional insured endorsements currently in use. These may (1) limited the parties covered, (2) limit the scope of coverage, (3) limit the operations coverage, and/or (4) add new exclusions.

Additional insured coverage should be primary and noncontributory to that carried by the additional insured. However, all general liability policies state that they are primary, unless any other insurance covering the same loss is also primary, in which case they share in payment of that loss. That is contrary to the desires of upstream parties, who want the downstream contractor’s insurance to pay fully until it is exhausted without contribution from the upstream party.

To achieve this ISO has issued a General Liability Primary & Noncontributory endorsement CG 20 01 04 13. This states that the Named Insured’s coverage “is primary and will not seek contribution from any other insurance available to an additional insured under [the Named Insured’s] policy provided that: • the additional insured is a Named Insured under such other insurance; and • [the Named Insured has] agreed in writing in a contract or agreement that this insurance would be primary and would not seek contribution from any other insurance available to the additional insured.”

Warning: Note that requiring that the downstream party’s insurance be primary is not sufficient. The endorsement requires “primary and would not seek contribution.”

Charles E. Comiskey Brady Chapman Holland & Associates Inc. 10055 West Gulf Bank • Houston, Tx 77040 713-688-1500 Charles.Comiskey@bch-insurance.com

Page 8

Austin Construction News • JAN 2019

Beware factors and assignment of pay application proceeds

OSHA’s best kept secret Joann Natarajan Compliance Assistance Specialist OSHA Austin, TX

Ben Wheatley, Shareholder Munsch Hardt Kopf & Harr, P.C. Austin, TX

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s the construction market in Texas continues its explosive activity, more and more new contractors or subcontractors are entering the arena. Many of these new businesses are inadequately capitalized and may need to resort to assignment of receivables in order to cover their cash flow needs, month to month. An example is as follows: A contractor enters into a prime agreement with an owner that requires the contractor to make all proper payments to its subcontractor via a third party system like Textura. That contractor has included a provision in its subcontracts that specifically prohibits the assignment of subcontract proceeds to a third party. Despite this restriction, one day a contractor receives written notice from a Factor notifying it that subcontract proceeds have been assigned, and that rather than pay the subcontractor via the third party system, all future subcontract proceed payments need to be made directly to the Factor. The notice asks the contractor to sign an acknowledgment that it will pay the Factor going forward, and may well ask the contractor to sign something warranting that there are no contract claims or defenses that will prevent full payment.

My first and most important advice to a contractor in this situation is to not sign anything or pay anything until you have discussed the issue with your lawyer, or you may well be at risk for paying the same subcontractor pay application twice. This is because the law that governs these transactions in Texas, Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code (“UCC”), is strongly tilted in favor of the Factor, and may well result in restrictive subcontract clauses like an anti-assignment provision being rendered null and void. At the same time, the UCC may protect a contractor from being in breach of its agreement with an owner, if after a careful analysis a contractor pays the Factor directly, thereby circumventing that contractor’s contractual obligation to make payments directly to the subcontractor via the Textura or other third party payment tools.

The second piece of advice is for the contractor to contact the Factor and request, pursuant to the UCC, all relevant

documents regarding the assignment of proceeds, including all documents relating to the agreement between the Factor and the subcontractor, and a copy of any UCC filing that the Factor has made with the county clerk where the project is located in relation to the assignment of the receivables. The Factor is obligated by the statute to provide you with these documents and they should be carefully reviewed before any document is signed or payments made.

There are numerous reasons for such a review including verifying what assignments were actually in place as of the date of the notice sent by the Factor to a contractor, to allow a contractor to safely determine what proceeds, if any, should go to the Factor, and what proceeds, if any, should be paid to a subcontractor. In addition, lien rights are possibly implicated, and therefore it is important to understand what lien rights a subcontractor might retain, if any, and what lien rights if any belong to the Factor.

All of the analysis referenced above is necessary in order for a contractor to fully understand its rights, obligations and defenses in the event a subcontractor assigns proceeds to a Factor. The third piece of advice for the contractor is to immediately notify the Owner of these issues to set the stage for a collaborative and deliberate process that a contractor can successfully navigate.

In summary, through education and training, a contractor should be able to put in procedural office safeguards that mitigate the risk of a contractor being legally liable to make double payments.

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SHA’s best kept secret is the OSHA Consultation Program provided by the Texas Department of Insurance. This no-cost safety and health consultation program is completely separate from the OSHA inspection effort. Primarily targeted for smaller businesses, employers can find out about potential hazards at their workplace, improve programs that are already in place, and even qualify for a one-year exemption from routine OSHA inspections. Employers with less than 500 workers are the focus of the program’s services.

The consultation is confidential and ing out safety or health risks (some which will not be reported routinely to the may not have an applicable OSHA stanOSHA inspection staff. No citations or dard). The consultant will study your enpenalties will be issued and your only ob- tire workplace or the specific operations ligation is to correct serious job safety you designate and discuss the applicable and health hazards--a commitment OSHA standards. You can request help which you are expected to make prior to with a specific area in your facility, a rethe actual visit and carry out in a timely view of written programs, up to a commanner. prehensive review of your facility. Em Using OSHA’s no-cost consultation ployers that have implemented a comservice lowers injury and illness rates, ul- prehensive safety and health managetimately saving both employers and em- ment system can apply for the Safety & ployees from the cost of accidents while Health Achievement Recognition Proraising morale and increasing productiv- gram (SHARP) and be recognized for ity rates. their safety efforts.

Because consultation is a voluntary After the walk-through, the consulactivity, you must request it. The consul- tant will review the findings with you betant will discuss your specific needs with fore leaving. Finally, the consultant will you and set up a visit date based on the send you a detailed written report expriority assigned to your request, your plaining the findings and confirming any work schedule, and the time needed for abatement periods agreed upon. The the consultant to adequately prepare to written report does not involve assessing serve you. OSHCON consultants attend penalties, as are OSHA citations. They the receive the same training classes at may also contact you from time to time OSHA’s Training Institute to ensure they to check your progress. are able to evaluate hazards in the same To contact the OSHA Consultation proway that OSHA compliance officers do in gram in Texas and request a free consultathe field. tion, employers can call 1-800-252-7031 op The consultant will start with an tion 2, or visit http://www.txcoshcon.com opening conference with you before be- to locate the closest consultant. ginning the walk through. The consultant natarajan.joann@dol.gov will study your entire workplace, point512-374-0271 x232

Construction News ON LOCATION

Greetings

Ben Wheatley is a Shareholder in the Austin office of Munsch Hardt. He has more than 25 years of experience litigating complex construction matters, negotiating and drafting construction and design contracts and master service agreements, serving as in-house counsel for an international design firm, and working on issues concerning the practice of architecture, engineering, and project construction.

L-R: Robert Luna and Edwin Cruz with Ferguson HVAC say hello. -cmw

Rodeo-ing safety

CONSTRUCTION NEWS

Austin

Publisher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Buddy Doebbler Editorial/Production . . . . . . Reesa Doebbler Managing Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . Carol Wiatrek Production Manager . . . . Helen Greenwood Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Terri Adams Account Manager . . . . . . . . . . . Dana Calonge Editors

Carol Wiatrek Lexie Velasquez

Daniel Zulli Reesa Doebbler

Contributing Editors

Melissa Jones-Meyer Ann Keil Jesse Abercrombie Austin Area Counties Travis, Hays, Bastrop, Burnet, Blanco, Caldwell and Williamson counties On Nov. 1, the Associated Builders & Contractors (ABC) Central Texas OSHA Partnership held its 5th Annual ABC OSHA Partnership Safety Rodeo at the VFW 8787 in north Austin.

Almost 200 construction workers, Crockett High School Construction Tech students, and students from American Youthworks were trained by volunteer OSHA Outreach trainers, in both English and Spanish, in the areas of Fall Protection, Electrical Safety, PPE/Silica, First Aid/CPR and HAZCOM Reporting. -cmw

Construction News Ltd. Home Office P.O. Box 791290 • San Antonio, Tx 78279 210-308-5800 Fax 210-308-5960 www.ConstructionNews.net

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Visit our Website to sign up for a free monthly Digital Subscription www.ConstructionNews.net The Austin Construction News (ISSN 15477630) is published monthly by Construction News LTD., dba Austin Construction News, and distributed by mail to constructionrelated companies of record in Austin and surrounding counties.

All submissions should be emailed to our editorial offices. We reserve the right to edit any materials submitted. No fees for materials, copy or photographs submitted will be due unless agreed upon in advance in writing. Submissions will be published at our discretion on a space available basis.

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Publisher reserves the right to reject any advertisement at any time. ©2019 Construction News, Ltd.

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Austin Construction News • JAN 2019

Page 9

Corky - One bite at a time!

by Capt. Steve Schultz Sponsored by: Waypoint Marine, Shoalwater Boats, Evinrude Outboards, Fishing Tackle Unlimited, E-Z Bel Construction, Costa Sunglasses, Simms Fishing, ForEverlast Fishing Products, Interstate Batteries, MirrOlure, JL Marines PowerPole, AFW and AFTCO Clothing.

H

appy New Year everyone! Hopefully everyone had a safe and happy holiday. I am really excited about the new year and expecting the 2019 fishing season to be better than average.

I’ve already had several fishing outings with clients and friends wading for big sow specks - although we didn’t land any trophies, we had several good ones that pushed the 7-lb mark. Barring any hard freezes or untimely rainfall, I predict this is the year we will be seeing lots of big fish showing up from the Laguna Madre/ Baffin Bay complex.

Seasoned anglers know big speckled trout eat big baitfish, and there’s no better way to catch them than to throw big mullet-looking baits during the winter. It is no secret that larger trout prefer baitfish. This is because a mullet or croaker represents a more efficient source of forage than a small shellfish. In fact, as water temperatures drop, those big girls will only eat once or twice every few days.

Typically, they will shift from eating 10 to 15 smaller baits a day, such as shrimp, to

Angler Jim Crosby of San Antonio landed this 5-lb speck recently while fishing the Upper Laguna Madre. Jim was slow reeling a Corky Fat Boy over shallow grass while fishing with Steve Schultz Outdoors.

Here is a sample of just a few of the custom Corky’s and Soft Dine lures you can find at some retailer’s along the coast. You can contact Steve Schultz Outdoors for specific locations near you.

Never again

Shot at Indian Cave Ranch in Doss, TX Rothman with this nice 19-1/2 in. wide eight-pointer.

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he conditions were perfect. The weather had been rainy and cold during the two days prior. There was no moon the night before. All indica-

tions meant that the deer would be moving.

Stan Rothman with United Rentals had just climbed into his blind at half past

three o’clock in the afternoon, Dec. 8. Before he could even get settled in, he looked up to see a young buck coming in from the north. Grabbing his binoculars, he stopped to check out the future stud more closely. Just a six-pointer, he was a beauty.

A few minutes later another deer entered the scene, this one just a young spike. Watching the two deer feasting on corn and acorns, a young doe made an appearance. Meanwhile, off in the distance, something caught the attention of the six-pointer. Obviously intimidated, he trotted off into the brush.

Seconds later, a nice 10-pointer made his presence known. He would be a shooter next year, Rothman thought watching the deer. Then came another buck and another. “What is going on?” thought Rothman. He could not believe his eyes.

Before four o’clock, Rothman had seen at least nine bucks all varying in size and age. He watched the deer come and go. “I’ll probably never experience that again. The conditions were perfect. There would be two to three bucks hanging around at a time, all shooters.” –cmw

trying to eat a mullet over 8 inches. to 10 inches. During these winter months, anglers can score on big trout by fishing slow-sinking mullet imitations around mud flats adjacent to deep guts and drop offs.

There is a wide variety of mullet imitation baits on the market today and most all of them are effective for catching fish. As a young boy fishing in the early ‘80s, one of my favorite lures was a 51MR and the TT lure made by MirrOlure. These hard plastic baits mimicked wounded mullet and would hold up to countless fishing trips that we made on the Lower Laguna Madre. Those baits are still available and very effective. However, there are some new baits that have gained popularity and seem to have taken over the market. In the early ‘90s, Paul Brown, a Houston tackle manufacturer, introduced the Corky. The Corky is a soft plastic bait that has an elongated body which suspends in buoyant salty water and can be twitched and coaxed with almost magical trout-catching appeal. In 2010, L&S Bait Company, the makers of MirrOlure, bought the designs from Mr. Brown and now produce a wide variety of the baits in several different styles and colors. There are also some custom painted designs that have gained popularity that are available in local tackle shops. This has become a favorite lure of mine and there are not many trophy trout aficionados that will not wade without several in their box.

For the next few months my goal will be to put my clients in the best possible situation where they have a shot at catching a speckled trout they can call their personal best and perhaps be a trophy they can mount on the wall and enjoy for the rest of their life.

I still have a few spots available for both management and trophy whitetail hunting in January. My 2019 fishing calendar is now open. Don’t hesitate in booking your fishing trips because my dates usually go pretty quick, especially during the more popular months. To schedule your next bay fishing trip or hunting trip give Capt. Steve Schultz a call at 361-813-3716 or e-mail him at: SteveSchultzOutdoors@gmail.com.

Good Luck and Good Fishing.

Page 10

Austin Construction News • JAN 2019

Ken Milam’s Fishing Line Since 1981, Ken Milam has been guiding fishing trips for striped bass on Lake Buchanan in the Texas Hill Country, You can hear Ken on the radio as follows: The Great Outdoors: 5-8 am Saturday on 1300, The Zone, Austin and The Great Outdoors: 5-7 am Saturday on 1200 WOAI San Antonio The Sunday Sportsman: 6-8 am Sunday on 1300, The Zone, Austin All on iHeart Radio see wall to wall pickups and boat trailers that will mean the word is out. The annual white bass run has begun! This seems to happen usually a couple of weeks either side of Valentine’s Day depending on the severity of winter. On Lake Buchanan, the upper end of the lake is the place to be. Many fishermen grew up fishing the white bass run up at Lemon’s Camp near Bend, Texas. Lemon’s Camp has become Colorado Bend State Park, but the spring fishing up there is still legendary.

Stripers are picking up too, now that the water temperature has fallen into their optimum range. The shad population of the lake is good and the stripers are taking full advantage of it, feeding hard and getting strength built up toward their own spawning spree in the mid to late spring. We have good fishing now and even better fishing on the way!

Largemouth bass are still on the slow side which is just as it should be. They won’t be getting into a good pre-spawn pattern until a little later on in the spring.

You might find some success with them by fishing windy points on the main part of the lake. Try slow rolling spinner baits in shad colors across these points and you might hook one up. The key word is SLOW; they are too cold to move quickly!

Even though my report is from Lake Buchanan, the basic information will translate pretty well to most lakes in our region. It always amazes me how fish behave so similarly from lake to lake.

Looks like we have a good year to look forward to!

Back to normal

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guess it is time for things to get back to normal. With the close of deer season and the aftermath of the holidays, somehow the old humdrum routine we were so ready to escape a few weeks ago is sort of nice to slip back in to, like a favorite old coat.

The pastures will quiet down with all the hunters having left, and the deer can go on about the business of raising their little ones and growing even nicer racks of horns for us to lust after next year.

Until then, we just have to keep ourselves busy as best we can. Clean and oil and put your rifles to bed now. While you were slipping around the pasture, the fish were still here doing their thing. Just where did you leave your fishing stuff?

On Lake Buchanan, we are beginning to see people bring in nice stringers of catfish from up the lake. Local fishermen are doing equally well on trotlines and jug lines with live bait or on rod and reel with stink bait, cheese bait being a favorite.

Crappie are showing signs of making a strong showing this year. On the warmer sunny afternoons, we are seeing them sneaking into brush piles and stacks of submerged driftwood along the shorelines. Some anglers prefer the old standby live minnows for bait, others prefer artificial baits. Everyone agrees on one thing about crappie though…they are the best freshwater fish to eat!

We are seeing good sized schools of white bass forming and beginning to work their way up the lake. One morning very soon I will look out my window and

Half or Full Day Fishing Trips All Bait, Tackle & Equipment Furnished Your catch Filleted and Bagged for You

Ken Milam Guide Service (325) 379-2051 www.striperfever.com

Furnish your TPWD Fishing License & Refreshments, and WE DO THE REST!

Austin Construction News • JAN 2019

Page 11

What’s your hunting story? Send us your photos.

Noteworthy holiday season

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Elk luck

t’s been a noteworthy holiday season so far for the folks at A-1 Fire & Safety.

A-1 Fire & Safety was awarded two spots in a pheasant hunt in South Dakota.

The trip was sponsored by a major manufacturer for A-1’s success this year with their products. It was a first of a kind for both. Trophy birds, although not pictured, are at the taxidermist. -cmw

L-R: Clint Williams and Don Cadena, decided dove hunting weather is more pleasant than the temperatures in the teens they experienced during their recent pheasant hunt. The Saturday hunt started with a wind chill of 0 degrees. They just now thawed out enough to send Construction News some photos.

Klaire Williams, daughter of Don Williams and granddaughter of A-1Fire & Safety owner Jerry Williams, shot her first deer at the family ranch new Uvalde, TX.

Paul Daniec, owner of Benchmark Utility Contractors, poses with son Jan Daniec with this massive elk the youngster shot during an October elk hunting trip in Utah.

The younger Daniec also had the good fortune to shoot a nice cull elk during the hunt (photo unavailable). -cmw

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Austin Construction News • JAN 2019

Christmas at Dale’s Essenhaus

From eBay to her way

K

oetter Fire Protection of Austin LLC held their annual Christmas party at Dale’s Essenhaus in Walburg. The annual event was held on Dec. 15 where Koetter employees and their families came together to share some holiday cheer. The Koetter family chose to support the Texas Baptist Children’s home during this holiday season in hopes to make the 144 children and their mothers living there a little brighter. –cmw

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L-R: Jason Ferguson, Jena Coulson, Thom Lish, Ben Rollins and Dylan Glatt pose with toys collected at the Koetter Fire Protection office in Austin.

Koetter Fire Protection Christmas party at Dale’s Essenhaus in Walburg

Change of scene

Hale Contractors owner Jake Hale

L-R: Ray Ocana, Melanie Ocana, Martha Childers and Shelley Harper

elanie Ocana didn’t get paid once. So in 2004, she started Rustico Tile & Stone, and it unwittingly became a form of payback.

“I previously owned an eBay franchise store 14 years ago,” Melanie explains. “I approached a gentleman in south Texas who sold tile and thought I could probably sell Saltillo tile on eBay. That gentleman basically never paid me for the work I did for him. In the interim Ray, who is now my husband, owned a motorcycle and boat shop, and I also sold automotive parts for his business on eBay. In the process of not being paid for work I had done in selling all of this tile and talking to my husband, I knew I could sell this tile.”

Ray, who is originally from Mexico and described by Melanie as “a real gogetter,” told her that if she had a contact in Mexico, they should drive down to Saltillo to explore their options.

“Long story short, we started selling tile on eBay and that has evolved into us being the largest manufacturer for handmade Saltillo tile in Mexico,” she says. “We wholesale distribute that as well as other specialty Mexican tile and stone. Then, as an extension of our local business here, we install tile as well.”

From figuring out how to create a website to learning how to globally distribute the fragile tile, Melanie says the learning curve has been steep but rewarding. Nearly four years into the business, the couple moved from south Texas to Leander, where they built a warehouse and expanded into tile and Cantera stone installations from Austin to west Texas. Uncle Julio’s in downtown Austin is one notable project, along with a range of hotels and other restaurants that are usually niche in Rustico’s product offerings.

To meet project demand, the couple has seven employees responsible for product distribution and 22 employees who focus on installation. The team doesn’t just work together, they also give back to their community together.

“We offer all of our full-time staff paid time off each quarter to volunteer in whatever nonprofit or charity type thing they want to do,” Melanie says.

“Everybody is involved in something.

Most notable, we have our office dog, Max, who is a therapy dog. He and I serve in the community, reading with specific kids at school who need some extra help as well as serving in an assisted living center, in which I take my kids with me to do. It’s a lot of fun.

“My husband and I are Christian; it’s very important to us and it’s the backbone of the approach to our business,” she continues. “We’re not perfect, but we try to serve our community and staff and through the therapy dog initiative, being able to be the hands and feet of Jesus. That’s what it comes down to for us: sharing it with our children and also having our staff see us walk the steps instead of just telling them to go out and volunteer. They see us doing those things too. It’s a more human element of what we do.”

This past summer, the couple moved their business to a pretty ranch-style home that has been converted to an office. It is the perfect place to work on current projects and plan the company’s future.

“We have grown to be the largest manufacturer for Saltillo tile in Mexico and we import a few other artisan products. We would like to maintain that, but we would also like to see some growth in our stone products,” she says.

“We’re building our blog presence to be more notable in the niche of interior design. I would like to see that aspect of our business grow as far as being an industry influencer, being able to put out good content to people who are installing our types of products. I want our blog to be a good source of information, obviously with the hope that it would help our business and reinforce our leadership in our industry.”

Rustico Tile & Stone in Leander manufactures and installs tile and stone. –mjm

H

can’t hire people and not have any work for them.” Instead, he wanted to broaden the scope.

Today, Hale Contractors is a landscape development and renovation company, specializing in retaining wall construction. They also offer excavation, demolition and anything to do with landscape development. Back in October when Hale launched the business. he remembers thinking, “We were fortunate to hit the ground and start running on jobs.”

Hale has two employees with him and they service from a 45- to 50-mile area from the center of Austin. “If someone needed something out in San Marcos we could be there, likewise, for Leander, Dripping Springs and Bastrop,” added Hale. The company targets the commercial and residential markets.

Hale shared two projects they are working on, one being a residential volleyball court and the other a big landscape project in Bee Cave.

Hale Contractors is a landscape development contractor in Austin, TX. –lv

is company may be new, but he’s no stranger to the construction industry. Jake Hale, owner of Hale Contractors, established his company in Oct. 2018. However, he established a relationship with landscape development way before then. Hale’s uncle was a contractor for government buildings and that provided Hale the opportunity to learn a lot from him. Eventually, Hale had worked in landscape for about four years. Then he and a couple of friends wanted a change of scenery from their Midland, TX flat land to the Austin, TX hills. “When I moved down here I started managing a pool repair and maintenance company. I was doing all the repairs and we would contract the electricians to do different things. I realized I could contract myself to work for different people, offering different trades they needed,” said Hale.

So, Hale pursued his realization and started a residential pressure washing company, but when the Austin rain showers come through (which they do quite often), Hale didn’t see this working out. “I

Austin Construction News • JAN 2019

Page 13

THIS TH MON Jan: Construction Forecast Mar: Construction Education May: Concrete Industry July: Electrical Industry Feb: Construction Safety Apr: Women in Construction Jun: HVAC & Plumbing Aug: Service Providers

2019 Texas contractors be wary Ken Simonson, Chief Economist Associated General Contractors of America Arlington, VA

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exas contractors had a generally strong year in 2018 and can expect a repeat in 2019. However, there are three reasons for caution: rising materials costs, an evertightening labor market, and increasing interest rates.

Nationally, construction employment increased 4.6 percent from October 2017 to October 2018, nearly triple the growth rate for total nonfarm employment, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). In Texas, construction employment in October reached a record high of almost 770,000, an increase of 60,000 or 8.5 percent from a year earlier.

Unemployment increased in all of the state’s major metro areas over that span. The Austin-Round Rock metro area had a 10 percent increase in construction, mining and logging employment from October 2017 to October 2018, with the addition of 6,200 employees. (The BLS data for D/FW include mining and log-

ging with construction to avoid disclosing information about industries with few employers).

Despite these hefty employment increases, contractors overwhelmingly report difficulty in filling positions. Construction industry job openings at the end of September were the highest for any September in the 18-year history of BLS’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, while the number of unemployed workers with construction experience was the lowest since BLS began presenting that data in 2000. Thus, it is no wonder that 78 percent of Texas contractors that participated in AGC of America’s 2018 workforce survey reported difficulty

publishing the industry’s news

Anirban Basu, Chairman & CEO Sage Policy Group Inc. & Chief Economist, Associated Builders & Contractors Inc. Baltimore, MD

I

t would be easy to argue that U.S. economic performance in 2018 was better than it has been in 13 years.

While there has been abundant negativity this past year regarding the propriety of tariffs, trade skirmishes, abandonment of various treaties, shifting immigration policy, recently announced layoffs at GM, and rapidly expanding national debt, there can be little debate regarding whether near-term economic performance has been solid. It has been.

During 2018’s third quarter, the U.S. economy expanded 3.5 percent on an annualized basis. Growth this year has been broad-based, encompassing a combination of consumer spending, business investment, and government outlays, including on water systems, transportation, and other forms of infrastructure.

In November 2018, the nation added another 155,000 net new jobs, while the official rate of unemployment remained at 3.7 percent for the month. This is effectively the lowest rate of unemployment since December 1969 when the U.S. was just entering a recession that would last for 11 months.

Data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated that the U.S. construction industry added 5,000 net new jobs in October. This was a bit soft, but could be due to a range of non-economic factors ranging from weather to wildfires. The industry has added 282,000 net new construction jobs over the past 12 months, representing a robust 4.0 percent increase. Nonresidential construction added more than 150,000 net new jobs during this period, of which nonresidential specialty trade contractors added 93,000 and heavy/civil engineering

chipped in another 44,500.

This year may very well be remembered as the year that infrastructure investment roared back in America. The most recent nonresidential construction spending numbers released by the U.S. Census Bureau confirm sizeable increases in spending related to water supply, flood control, and transit options over the past year.

The fact that employment in the heavy and civil engineering segment continues to expand is consistent with ongoing growth in spending on public works. The surge in public investment is attributable to a number of factors, including rebuilding from certain catastrophes that have occurred over the past two years and significantly improved state and local government finances as the recovery works through its 10th year.

Given the elevated backlog that currently characterizes the nonresidential construction industry, the expectation is that demand for construction workers will remain elevated in 2019. Accordingly, per worker compensation is expected to expand further next year. These pressures working in conjunction with more expensive materials, rising tuitions, healthcare costs, and potentially expanded tariffs on

Sept: Green Building Nov: Architecture & Engineering Oct: Specialty Contractors Dec: Construction Equipment

filling hourly craft positions.

Tight labor availability seems sure to continue, if not intensify, in 2019. The number of individuals reaching retirement age keeps growing, while the number of people entering the labor force has stagnated. Meanwhile, restrictive immigration policies are reducing the availability of foreign-born workers, a group that has historically been a major source of employees for the Texas construction sector. The stiff competition for qualified workers amid flat or falling supply is likely to drive labor costs higher in 2019, either directly through higher pay or indirectly through higher expenditures on recruitment, training and overtime.

Materials costs also appear headed higher. From October 2017 to October 2018, BLS’ producer price index (PPI) for materials and services used in all types of construction jumped 6.6 percent. That was before the full effect of tariffs on steel, aluminum and thousands of Chinese products had been felt. Costs may rise even more in 2019 once items that were in inventory or ordered before the tariffs were imposed are used up. The tariffs and countermeasures that U.S. trading partners have imposed may also reduce demand from manufacturers, logis-

www.constructionnews.net What’s in Store for Construction in 2019

CONSTRUCTION FORECAST tics firms and ports for facilities they would otherwise have built.

Although interest rates have fluctuated in late 2018, the Federal Reserve’s determination to keep inflation in check, along with the federal government’s need to finance much larger deficits in 2019 and beyond, suggest that interest rates will increase. That may keep some home buyers from qualifying from mortgages, cause developers to decide some income-producing buildings will not “pencil out,” and reduce the number of projects that school districts and other municipal bond issuers can finance.

Despite these challenges, U.S. contractors appear to have enough backlog and prospects for new orders that 2019 will be another positive year. Thanks to high population growth, a strong energy sector, and ongoing recovery from the 2016 hurricane and flood, Texas contractors will be even busier than most.

Ken Simonson is the chief economist for Associated General Contractors of America since 2001. He is a fellow and past president of the National Association for Business Economics and holds a B.A. in economics from the University of Chicago. He also holds as M.A. in economics from Northwestern University. -cmw

Texas Style

Chinese goods suggest that economywide inflationary pressures will continue to mount going forward, which would tend to drive borrowing costs upwards.

Higher costs of capital would ultimately translate into more expensive financing for construction projects and potentially fewer construction starts.

These dynamics could also further suppress industry profit margins. But for now, it is all systems go for the U.S. nonresidential construction industry from the perspective of demand for construction services.

Recent volatility in equity prices may represent a foreshadowing of the types of asset price dynamics that could characterize much of 2019 and eventually produce a broader economic downturn.

This is of course highly speculative, but recent earnings warnings by large corpo-

    

San Antonio Austin South Texas Houston South Texas

rations such as Fluor and PPG indicate that some of the shine is coming off corporate performance and the broader economy. Layoff activity appears to be drifting higher, with a recent announcement by General Motors garnering much of the attention.

One of the economy’s major vulnerabilities takes the form of significant U.S. corporate debt, which has mounted over recent years due in part to an abundance of stock buybacks as well as merger/acquisition activity. These elevated debt levels could cause many firms to rapidly reduce expenditures when signs of the next downturn become apparent in earnest. This dynamic would be consistent with rapid deceleration in business investment and economic activity by the latter stages of 2019 or perhaps in 2020/2021.

GC gets help at groundbreaking

Future T.A. Brown Elementary School students attended the groundbreaking ceremony of the new T.A. Brown Elementary School on Nov. 30. The general contractor, Rogers-O’Brien Construction, provided small shovels and hard hats to assist in the groundbreaking. The new school will accommodate 522 students in a state-of-the-art learning facility scheduled to open in Jan. 2020. -cmw

Page 14

Austin Construction News • JAN 2019

THIS TH MON

CONSTRUCTION FORECAST

To represent your company in an upcoming FOCUS, contact AustinEditor@ConstructionNews.net (210) 308-5800

NEXT MONTH (FEBRUARY 2019) CONSTRUCTION SAFETY

Continued healthy growth Jane Feigenbaum, Chief Executive Officer Metropolitan Contracting Company San Antonio, TX

A

s Chief Executive Officer of Metropolitan Contracting Company, Feigenbaum brings over 25 years of construction experience. She is responsible for strategic planning, employee and leadership development, operations, and profitability. She oversees all hiring/recruitment decisions, project selection and ensures that client expectations are being satisfied and all projects are completed safely and in a timely manner.

Feigenbaum leads her team of project managers and strives to help clients understand each phase of the development and construction process. In this role, she serves as a communicator and educator whose honesty and integrity frequently result in long-term relationships with repeat clients.

How would you describe the state of the construction industry in general terms?

The construction industry is continu-

ing to see healthy growth through 2019.

We are seeing new projects in every market type and they are located throughout the San Antonio region.

In your perspective, what is your projection for 2019?

It appears that the market will maintain a steady growth throughout 2019.

The specific construction types we expect to see more significant growth within are industrial, medical and office.

Industry FOLKS Brad Hartman Asst. General Manager/Safety Coordinator Current Electric San Marcos, TX

B

rad Hartman’s parents moved around quite a bit because his father was in the oil field. Brad was actually born in San Marcos, but raised in west Texas. He had a good childhood growing up In Colorado City, TX. Then he and his family stepped out of Texas to New Mexico. Brad graduated high school in Hobbs, NM. With plans to go to college, Brad attended Texas Tech University in Lubbock, ultimately; he also graduated from the Independent Electrical Contractors in Lubbock in 2003. It’s safe to say that Brad is an avid college football fan; he loves college

football and baseball. His team is the Texas Tech Red Raiders.

It’s also safe to say that Brad has been in involved in the electrical trade since the year 2000. It truly all started in Lubbock. As a matter of fact, Brad says April

What will be some significant challenges for the construction industry in 2019?

The labor market continues to tighten and will only be more challenging with continued growth in the construction industry. We do not see any relief to the labor shortage in the near future.

What is your projection concerning the cost and/or supply of materials?

We are not aware of any sharp increases in material prices, and if that’s the case, it shouldn’t affect construction cost significantly.

market, and the construction industry is no exception to this. As the current generation is entering the labor force, fewer than ever are choosing the skilled tradesperson route. As long as the overall unemployment rate remains low and fewer new workers enter into the construction market, we will continue to see difficulty in employment.

What is your projection for construction industry employment?

The U.S. as a whole has a low unemployment rate causing a tighter labor

Will we see a change in the number of available workers and/or available jobs?

There is a growing recognition for the need for new skilled workers. There are an increasing number of training programs for various skilled trades, some even in-house at companies. There has also been a rise in the number of scholarships associated with skilled trades. There are lots of smart kids who don’t choose to go to college and the construction industry needs them. There are great opportunities in the construction industry for smart hard workers and it’s important that the industry gets that message out to high school kids.

Metropolitan Contracting Company is a full-service general contractor with over 30 years experience in San Antonio, TX. -cmw

will be 19 years of working in the trade.

Today, Brad and his family reside in San Marcos and he works with Current Electric as the assistant general manager and safety coordinator. He started with the company in May 2018 and has exceeded his own expectations. “As of right now under contract with just my portion of what I’ve estimated, I have $1.6 million under contract,” he shared.

Brad appreciates the leadership through the various roles he plays at work and enjoys his team at Current Electric. Brad also thanks more than one mentor throughout his learning experiences in the industry, before he reached where he is today. “From 2012 to 2016 we lived in Midland, TX and I worked for a company that did electrical maintenance construction. Simon Barr was my general manager, he wasn’t an electrician, but he was a manager. I learned more from him just on running a company and running a division.”

When Brad is off the clock he goes home to his lovely wife Terri, who is a kin-

dergarten teacher in New Braunfels and their two young boys. Brad and Terri’s sweet love story unfolded in 2005 in Sweetwater, TX and none other than at a barbeque cook off. Now that’s Texas style because, in fact, Terri also graduated from Texas Tech. In July 2007, the two Red Raider alumni tied the knot. Today, they stay busy with their two boys, Braden, 10 and Aaron, 6. The Hartman household also has two family pet dogs, the eldest being their 13-year-old Chihuahua and then their 2-year-old Neapolitan Mastiff.

Right now Brad and his wife support their boys’ involvement with sports, such as baseball, football and basketball. But no matter how booked their schedules are, Brad makes time for the grill because he loves to barbeque.

They try to do five or six barbeque cook-offs a year. “That’s my side deal that we like to do. We have a camper and like to go park by the river for a couple days to relax and get away,” shared Brad. –lv

How will recent steel tariffs affect the construction industry in 2019?

The recent tariffs placed on steel initially had a large impact on the cost of steel but, since they were first announced, we’ve seen the prices level out. We expect prices to remain fairly level with normal price increases in 2019.

GOOD NEWS!

You always look good in Construction News, Guaranteed!

Call us for a Company Profile (210) 308-5800

Austin Construction News • JAN 2019

H

Prepared to repair

e has a good understanding of the construction industry, but he also has a good sense of humor because that’s just his personality. Those are two traits that have Will Peterson in a good place with his business.

About eight or nine years ago, Peterson established Armstrong Garage Doors and remains the proud owner in Austin. The reason for becoming a business owner in the construction industry in Texas was simple, “because of the recession,” said Peterson, who at the time was living in Boise, ID. He and his family wanted change. Peterson’s wife’s parents lived in Austin at the time, so Texas it was.

“I came down [to Armstrong Garage Doors owner Will Peterson likes to surf Austin] from Boise withat least three times a month. out a job and had been in construction for 15 years prior. I had a fact offer a lot of products that can be done family and I had to find a job. I cultivated that same day. “If somebody calls us we get the industry and did a couple of service people out there that same day,” said Peterson. “We also deal with a number of buildjobs,” explained Peterson.

After floating around as a service rep, ers because in our pricing structure, it’s like Peterson decided to open up his own ga- a baseball analogy. We go after bunts; we rage door company. Nine years later, the bunt the guy to get on first, second then company is still growing strong offering all third base. We keep on bunting and we get brands and has developed a decent clien- these RBI’s, we don’t go after grand slams. tele in the Austin area. Peterson says their We don’t go after the biggest number in a services are for residential and a little bit of sale, we want that price to be affordable commercial clients, who are mostly in the and acceptable to the customer.” PeterAustin area. However, they do make their son’s good sense of the industry and good sense of humor are reasons why he is in a way around in San Antonio too.

Peterson emphasizes that he and his good place with Armstrong Garage Doors.

Armstrong Garage Doors is a garage company are not in the “liar category” pertaining to his guarantees. They do in door contractor in Austin, TX. –lv

Page 15

F

Well adjusted

or Jim Sunvison it was an easy decision to become an electrician upon graduating high school. While attending high school, he was offered trade tech training and learned a lot. After graduation, Sunvison made a bold move.

“I entered the apprenticeship the next morning after my high school graduation. I had already secured a spot with a company and got an apprenticeship.

That was 34 years ago and I never missed a beat from that day on. I never knew I would have my own business I just thought I would be an electrician,” said Sunvison. Before he knew it, Sunvison had arrived on an opportunity to start his own business and he did. But, before that he had to work his way up through other companies to get a better business perspective. “I had the technical background, but I got the business knowledge through who I had worked for.”

In 2003, Sunvison became president of Sunvison Electric located in Austin, where he has lived his whole life. The company is mainly a commercial contrac-

tor for commercial ground-up and service work, but just a few years ago, Sunvison Electric launched a residential division and the success in that grew pretty fast. “We are excited about that and all the new technologies that are being put into the houses [today],” said Sunvison.

He has six full time employees in the residential division and 24 in the commercial division. Technology and running a business may have been tough for Suvison in his early days of work, but the journey has been pretty neat for him.

“What I enjoy is the change with what the construction industry does now because I think in the ‘50s and ‘60s it was pretty much the same old ways all the time. Now we have the technology and the craziest tools for ways of doing things,” explained Sunvison. One thing that hasn’t changed is he and his entire team values the relationships with their clients.

Sunvison Electric is an electrical contractor in Austin, TX. –lv

Page 16

Austin Construction News • JAN 2019

JOB SIGHTS

Ashlynn Steczfowski with Biggs Plumbing cuts pipe at the South By Southwest project. -cmw

continued from Page 1 — Arctic Fence Inc.

“We are the largest fence contractor in Hays County, and it also extends to Caldwell County,” Keith says. “From backyards to prisons, we do it all.”

To do it all, the couple depends on their staff of up to 15 installers, which they hope to add to soon. The need is urgent, as the Ingalls act as the company’s sole managers, estimators, salespeople, and order takers.

“My wife and I work a lot; we own the company and run it,” Keith says. “I’m the vice president and I travel all over the state doing most of the commercial work.

Mimi is the company’s president and is the master of all trades! She handles all of the residential business, orders the materials and runs the residential crews.

She does commercial estimating as well and has everything prepared for when we put the numbers together. She does all of the bids and payroll and is the master bookkeeper.”

“We’d like to grow, but we’re having a hard time because the economy is so strong that we can’t find enough help,” he continues. “Growth has been tremendous; we’ve had growth every year, but the last four or five years have been really rapid. This last year has been our biggest

year. Since it’s just the two of us here, I sometimes shake my head when we look at the volume at the end of the year and ask, ‘How did we do that?’ Then we just go out and do it again.”

Work continues to heat up for Arctic Fence Inc. The company is close to completing one of its largest projects to date: Springs at Sunfield, a new apartment complex in Buda. The Ingalls hope to do another project soon with the same developer.

The couple does stay busy, and prefers to stay warm at the same time. In addition to working in the Texas heat, Keith and Mimi spend their limited free time enjoying outdoor activities.

“Mimi and I like to go to rodeos and ride Harley Davidsons,” Keith says. “We bought a large camper to pull our Harley Davidsons, but we don’t do it much as we don’t have a lot of free time. We do like the Caribbean and we get down there whenever we can.”

Life continues to be a blast for the Ingalls, who enjoy the work, hobbies and weather they craved since their days snugly wrapped up against the New England chill.

“We have loved the freedom of being able to be self-employed and do what we love to do,” Keith says. –mjm

continued from Page 1 — Walker Welding

Construction News snaps a photo, Pavecon’s Ignacio Espinoza, while overseeing parking lot repairs at the corner of Hwy 290 & SH 71. -cmw

grills and smokers. He’s even invented his own style of hibachi grill that he wants to get trademarked and sold as an item separate from his welding business. He calls it “Wild West Pits,” and he’s had very favorable response from folks who have bought it for themselves and for gifts for others.

Two of the most-requested things for Walker to make are gates and railings.

Cable railings for banks and businesses are trending right now. Also popular, oddly enough, is having the metal look rusted, old or with a patina/weathered finish.

Walker gets his materials from Westbrook Metals. Normally, unfinished metal has a grayish or blackish color to it, but Walker can paint it to have any look the customer wants, like matte, semi-gloss, gloss, or flat.

Like most good welders, Walker brings an artistic eye to his work. There was a time he didn’t, or didn’t realize he did.

“I used to not look at it like it was an art or design,” he said. One former customer encouraged Walker to do so, to realize that good welding is a true art form.

Walker said it dawned on him that great craftsmanship really is art when he once looked at an old Texas building and saw the exquisite trim and woodwork completed with tools not nearly as robust as

new ones are today.

Walker says he’s not a good artist, but can visualize the finished product, and can sketch well enough to be able to communicate the idea with the client.

When it comes to the back-and-forth exchange with a client, Walker said, “You have to have some leniency in working with the public.” In other words, even after putting in hours on a project, the customer might say, “That’s not really what I had in mind.” Therefore, Walker has to rely upon his knowledge that the nonwelding client may not have articulated his vision well enough.

“I don’t want to put a product out there that’s going to fail,” Walker said. This drives him to deal patiently with even the most trying of customers. “I don’t want anything the customer is unsatisfied with.”

Walker strives “to go above and beyond” when it comes to turning a vision or dream into a concrete reality.

Once, a customer asked Walker to teach him how to weld while Walker was in the middle of doing a job for him.

Walker said the guy was really good, too.

Walker, Texas Welder wants to leave behind satisfied customers. Just remember to give him the 5-star rating. -dsz

continued from Page 1 — Blue & Associates Inc.

Graham Ellason with Northstar Fire Protection is taping and doping sprinkler heads for the South By Southwest project. -cmw

2nd floor conference room and lounge (The Refinery)

Adolfo Alvila with GSB Plumbing takes a short break at the Columbia Coffee project. -cmw

busy area, proved to be an additional challenge. There were also structural challenges involved with remodeling a structure more than a century old.

The east façade art mural, which wraps around the building, is unique in its own right. Still, the corner location with the massive glazing wall on the north elevation makes for a very impressive stage, which is home to a highly successful coworking space, juice bar and an exclusive gathering space for cocktails.

The construction team consisted of Donald Jay, Gib Jones, and Micah Land with Michael Hsu Office of Architecture.

“Reflecting on the many logistical challenges and in-process restructuring, we could not have worked with a better design and ownership team. As we peeled back the many layers of the building, we had to be very proactive in understanding how to address and resolve the challenges as a team, keeping the design intent at the forefront while maintaining an appropriate budget. It proved to be a very strong relationship that has continued beyond completion of the project,” says Jones. –cmw Photos courtesy of Daniel Chase

Austin Construction News • JAN 2019

Page 17

Association Calendar

Who has influenced your life the most?

Content submitted by Associations to Construction News ABC Associated Builders & Contractors

Jan. 10: Membership Mingle, Brewtorium, 4:30-6:30pm. For more info, call Jodi Bunyard at 512-719-5263 or email jbunyard@abccentraltexas.org ACEA

Greater Austin Contractors & Engineers Assn.

Jan. 10: January Membership Meeting, Norris Conference Center (NEW LOCATION), 2525 W. Anderson Ln. #365.

11:30am. Register online at https://aceatx/ events/events-calendar. For more info, call Avery Ambrose at 512+893-7067.

CTSA

Central Texas Subcontractors Assn.

Jan. 8: Lunch & Learn, Maggiano’s in the Domain, 10910 Domain Dr. #100, 11:30am1pm. For more info, contact Wendy Lambert at 512-255-6373 IEC

Independent Electrical Contractors

Jan. 28-30: IEC National Business Summit 2019, Riverside Hotel, Ft. Lauderdale, FL. NARI

National Assn. of the Remodeling Industry

Jan. 9: General Membership Meeting, Sunshine Camp Zilker Lodge, 2225 Andrew Zilker Rd., 11am-1pm. For more info, Kayvon Leath at 512-997-6274 or email kayvon@austinnari.org NAWIC

National Assn. of Women in Construction

Jan. 9: Chapter Dinner Meeting, Pappasito’s Cantina, 6513 N. IH-35, 5:30-8:30pm.

For more info, contact Taryn Ritchie at 512-658-6573 or email taryn.ritchie@ryancompanies.com

SEAot Structural Engineers Assn. of Texas Dec. 6: Chapter Meeting, Maggiano’s Little Italy, 10910 Domain Dr., #100. For more info, call 512-301-2744 TCOA

Texas Crane Owners Assn.

Jan. 31: Winter General Membership Meeting, Hilton Palacio Del Rio, 200 S. Alamo, 9am. For more info, call 281-4404380 or email officemanager@rexassociationmanagement.com TSPE

Texas Society of Professional Engineers

Jan. 30: PE Day at the Capitol, Texas State Capitol, 1100 Congress Ave., 9am. For more info, call Claire Black at 512-4729286 or email Claire@tspe.org TSPS

Texas Society of Professional Surveyors

Jan. 21: Joint Chapters 1, 10 & 18 Meeting, Butcher’s Block Restaurant, 1600 25th St., Snyder, TX., 7pm. For more info, email Robby Christopher at txlsls@gmail. com TXAPA

Texas Asphalt Pavement Assn.

Jan. 17-18: 2019 Membership Meeting, San Antonio Marriott Rivercenter, 101 Bowie St. For more info, contact Kelli Mofie or email kmofie@texasasphalt.org

This isn’t the easiest question to answer! I would say there is no one person who has influenced my life the most but rather a combination of three. That would be my father and both of my grandfathers. I grew up in a small farming and ranching town. The work ethic those men showed me was phenomenal. There were no shortcuts to take, just hard work and the approach to always do the right thing and do it the right way. They instilled the importance of integrity into my life and when to relax and have fun. Those men are some of the best storytellers I know, and their laughs are infectious. I feel extremely blessed to have had the opportunity to work alongside those men and learn from them.

I could probably write a small book about me working with my grandfathers, but I doubt you have the space for that!

Danny Rothe, Bartlett Cocke General Contractors My father. Around the dinner table, growing up, that was him. Work, work, work, from sunup to sundown. That was his life.

That’s where I get my work ethic and my knowledge. In talking with some of the customers we’ve dealt with, they’ve always had high praise for him. And I feel like I still have shoes to fill.

Steven Morris, Custom Trench My influence comes from my dad. He instilled our work ethic to my brother and me. He instilled that into us to know that we just can’t rely on mom and dad to take care of us our whole life. I am very appreciative of that and, like I said, we still work in the same industry that he got us in. He has been my biggest influence.

Steve Clay Triangle Fire & Security LLC

My dad or uncle, because they are both business owners, so I’ve been able to look at them even when you’re younger and you don’t really want to. I think the older that I get the more I notice if I would’ve paid more attention to them, so now I really am paying attention. I think they would be a pretty heavy influence, as far as moves that I am making now.

Jake Hale Hale Contractors My wife Yolanda. She has a strong drive.

She has a business degree. She will push a product and is very good about speaking up about the work that I do. She is very attentive to detail. I always ask for her opinion, what she thinks about it. I treasure her thoughts. Not a lot of people can say they can work with their wife on the job. I appreciate her input on everything that I do.

Jerry Walker Walker Welding Definitely, it would be my dad who has influenced me the most. The value of history is important because it will repeat itself. We shouldn’t repeat the mistakes of our ancestors. I’ve seen the stories that he’s told me repeat themselves in my career. It adds more authenticity to what he said and it makes him more of an influence.

Shawn Herring Herring Construction My dad, he is an entrepreneur as well. He has always been there for me providing me guidance.

Jeffrey Spector This Old Wood

Page 18

Austin Construction News • JAN 2019

Construction News ON LOCATION

Anything for a photo

Construction News spotted Steve Lamb’s Air Comfort Systems van and followed him until he reached his destination to take his picture. -cmw

R

Choosing door No. 1

ichard L. Cordes was 18 when he started his career in the garage door industry, and he chose the field for purely practical reasons.

“It’s something I discovered while trying to find work in La Grange,” Cordes remembers. “I could either work on the power plant being built or do garage doors because that was one of the few things available then. I figured it was best to not to work on the power plant because once it was built, I wouldn’t have a job.”

He began installing garage doors in Bryan/College Station, and was told after his first month that he had a knack for it. He then took on his own garage door jobs as he worked for other companies and eventually established Fast and Fair Doors LLC in 1994.

“I could see what [projects] were available to be done,” he says. “Plus, I push myself really hard, and I have a good work ethic; I had gotten a good reputation to where I could go out on my own. I’m always trying to do the best I can to make it better or correct. I’m really particular with the work I do.”

Cordes has grown the company to serve commercial, industrial and residential clients. One notable project was Hobby Lobby dock assembly in Bastrop, a 10-day project he did on his own. He enlists help with the work when he needs it, but hasn’t convinced his family to assist on his jobs.

“They don’t want to do this work; they say it’s too hard for them!” he jokes.

“But I take vitamins, which I feel are a good thing. If I didn’t have that extra

Richard L. Cordes

boost, I probably wouldn’t hold up!”

Now 53, Cordes says the garage door services industry is his work for life.

“There’s not much retirement in this unless I build it up,” he says. “I would like to see the company grow a little bit, but that takes money, time and the right employees. I’ve done work on all types of overhead doors that have ever been built, and I’ll probably do this until the day I die.”

Fast and Fair Doors in Cedar Park offers garage door services. –mjm

Triangle of a story

Triangle Fire & Security truck ready to go do an inspection

D

id you know there is only one local fire protection and security company servicing the San Marcos area? It’s called Triangle Fire & Security LLC, established in 2013, by the owner Steve Clay. Triangle Fire & Security is a service and maintenance company that provides service, maintenance and inspections in-house. They do not do any new construction or installation, however, but do offer commercial-based fire alarm systems, fire sprinkler, fire hydrant testing, and fire extinguisher inspections.

They also do restaurant kitchen hood inspections and security and fire alarm monitoring.

Clay says all this came about in 2013 because he actually started as a young helper for his dad’s home security business in Houston. Clay was born and raised in Houston and ventured to San Marcos for school. He fell in love with the town and after going to school, he started with part-time work in the area. He even worked in Austin at one point. “I did work for a big company in Austin for about 17 years, which was great because it helped

me get into the sales aspect of it and the management side of the business,” shared Clay.

Then Clay decided to go back to his original roots with fire and security and realized San Marcos didn’t have a local fire protection company. So like any new business owner Clay went knocking door to door. “By the first six months, I was knocking on doors and passing out cards to get the word out. After about a year, we were able to get set up on Google.

That helped a lot. If you Google fire extinguisher company in San Macros, we pop up.”

Clay’s customers like that they are a small company. In fact, he only contracts help if needed. Clay’s wife Monica is part of the team though; she does the bookkeeping and she’ll go and help her husband with an inspection from time to time. Those jobs include the several hotels in San Marcos and apartment complexes that the company services.

Triangle Fire & Security LLC is a service, maintenance and inspection contractor in San Marcos, TX. –lv

Austin Construction News • JAN 2019

Page 19

Christmas on the lake

O

n Dec. 5, over 150 Associated Builders & Contractors (ABC) Central Texas members attended the chapter’s annual Holiday Party at Abel’s on the Lake.

Each year, the chapter asks attendees to bring gifts that will be donated to a local charity. This year, members and staff of ABC donated wish list items for the Ronald McDonald House of Austin. Items included toys, toiletries, gift cards and essential daily necessities. -cmw

January 2018 past Construction News ON LOCATION

A mechanical Christmas

C2 Mechanical shared this photo of their team at their company Christmas party held at the Bass Pro Shops Uncle Buck’s Fish Bowl in Round Rock. -cmw

L-R: David Matula, 360 Electrical Contractors; Robin Wurzel, Wurzel Builders; Rita Conner, 360 Electrical Contractors; Trish & Barry Broz, Wurzel Builders and Steve Dobson, Time Insurance.

L-R: Tristan Landers, Flintco and Tracey Littlefield, ABC Central Texas

L-R: Laura Hernandez and Teresa Ramirez, Southeast Contracting Services

Construction News ON LOCATION

Aces in supply

L-R: Ace Contractors Supply Jesse Ortiz, Ralph Patlan, Julie Holmstrom, Jason Thigpen, and Maegan Flannigan visit with Construction News. -cmw

Construction News ON LOCATION

Chilly workday

ABC collected hundreds of items to be donated to the Ronald McDonald House of Austin

L-R: At Myers Concrete Construction human resources Becky Beaty, office manager Nicole Parker, and purchasing manager Julie Reinecke say hello from Wimberley. -lv

Construction News ON LOCATION

What’s on your mailbox?

L-R: Trevor Spring & Dalton Wallace, Ryan Companies; Cortnie Perkins, Trade Management; Ryan Ritchie, Ryan Companies; Chase Koory, JE Dunn; Mark Mann, Davey Tree Experts and John Kooistra, Ryan Companies.

Check out the boot and horseshoe on their mailbox. The Lowden Excavating, Inc. staff step outside and give Construction News a friendly Wimberley greeting.

L-R: Human resources Dorie Bradford, chief estimator Coy Lowden, owner Lanette Lowden, and office operations manager Susan Schnabel. –lv

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Austin Construction News • JAN 2019