Despite forecasts for modest gains in construction activity and employment in Utah and Colorado next year, the region's top specialty contractors remain only "cautiously optimistic." They are hoping for the best and doing what they can to prepare for whatever lies ahead while they deal with lower margins and less work.
The year "2011 was profitable but with significantly less revenue than our past 20-year average," says Kevin Larington, president at Denver mechancial contractor Trautman & Shreve, an EMCOR company. And "2012 looks to be about the same, with some greater opportunity breaking possibly in early 2013."