Another company seeing an increase in business is San Diego-based T.B. Penick & Sons.

“Amazingly enough, our revenue will be going up in this economy,” says Greg Lee, executive vice president of T.B. Penick. He says that for 2010 the company is projecting about a 15% to 20% increase in revenue over last year.

“We’ve been fortunate enough to take advantage of some markets that are going well right now, such as military build-up around San Diego,” Lee says. “We would be hurting like most firms right now if we didn’t have the military clients.”

He says military work currently makes up about 70% of the firm’s California business.

Current highlights of T.B. Penick’s military work include a $250-million joint venture with Turner Construction at Camp Pendleton in San Diego and a $10-million child care facility at Point Loma Naval base in San Diego, funded by American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The Camp Pendleton work includes the construction of more than 1,000 bachelor enlisted quarters in multistory buildings.

“BEQ’s are now more like hotels than they are barracks,” Lee says. “The military is trying to make the living quarters a lot more comfortable for their enlisted folks these days and they are doing a pretty good job of it.”

At Longmont, Colo.-based Flatiron Construction Corp., Curtis Weltz, president of the western region, says his company is pulling through the slow economy by separating itself from the field.

LEE

ROGERS

“The only way we can be competitive is by being different,” says Weltz, whose company was recently awarded more than $200 million in transportation projects throughout California. “If we are looking at a bid and can’t answer the question of what makes us different on this job then we really do question why we are bidding it, because the competition is so fierce.”

Flatiron’s biggest project to recently break ground is at the Los Angeles International Airport, where the company has begun a $95-million reconstruction and improvement of Taxi Lane S.

Awarded by the Los Angeles World Airports, the two-year project includes the demolition of several buildings, replacement of existing pavement section, and installation of new airport lighting, storm-drainage system and fueling system. The project broke ground in March.