Related Links: Berkshire Reveals CB&I Stake It has been a tough first quarter for some publicly owned construction firms as healthy competition and sluggish project momentum took a toll on early 2013 results, particularly earnings. While some companies had good news to report last month and others predicted a late-year upswing, many analysts were skeptical about the rest of 2013.Andrew Wittmann, E&C sector analyst for Robert W. Baird, found Q1 reports of 15 tracked public firms "uninspiring," with "little confidence in forward estimates." Even with some firms' backlogs up, "awards [are] falling light and larger prospects seemingly sliding to the
Related Links: SNC-Lavalin Hires First Chief Compliance Officer As Ethics Issues Unfold (ENR/subscription) Rebuilding trust: How Siemens atoned for its sins (The Guardian-U.K.) SNC-Lavalin Debarred from World Bank Work for a Decade (ENR/subscription) SNC-Lavalin Looking to Clean Up its Reputation/The Star-Toronto Seeking to root out the corruption of a previous regime that still affects its bottom line, and to boost its ethics stance, SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., Montreal, is offering all global employees "amnesty" to share details they may know of anti-competitive practices.The firm, which has thousands of employees in more than 40 countries, said May 27 that its amnesty program
Photo by Steve Hill for ENR Gilbane project executive Pamela Ward O'Malley, a 30-year industry veteran (left), shares tips with women attendees on career advancement. Photo by Steve Hill for ENR CEOs Peter Davoren of Turner Construction, Tony Mann of subcontractor E-J Electric and Bruce Fowle of architect FXFowle (from right) urged women to "stretch" into new company roles but acknowledged firm "blockers" who impede culture change. Women at all levels of construction who are looking to climb the corporate ladder shared strategies at an ENR conference on how to maximize opportunities and avoid familar obstacles.At the "Groundbreaking Women in
Related Links: Black & Veatch report: 2013 Strategic Directions in the U.S. Electric Industry Electric utilities fear they cannot recover needed capital-investment and operating costs through their rate bases, says a new survey of more than 600 U.S. utility-executive respondents. That concern rose to third from ninth place among the top-10 issues cited by executives in consultant Black & Veatch's 2012 industry report, issued on May 8.Investor-owned utilities "are under tremendous pressure" to complete capital-intensive programs to boost reliability and environmental compliance, says Dean Oskvig, CEO of B&V's energy unit. Regulated rates greatly influence their ability to reinvest in infrastructure,
Related Links: SMPS Ron Garikes Student Scholarship website Obituaries of other industry leaders and innovators GarikesRon W. Garikes, 54, former chief operating officer of the now-closed architecture firm Karlsberger Cos. and a longtime professional services marketing advocate, died on April 28 in Birmingham, Ala., of complications of ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease.Garikes, who was based in Birmingham, also led Karlsberger's national laboratory and technology group before the Columbus, Ohio, firm closed in 2011.He was a former national president and distinguished life member of the Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) as well as a founding member and past president of
Even while gaining book smarts—a civil engineering degree from MIT and an MBA from Stanford University—Thomas W. Traylor stayed close to the core of his family-owned contractor, Traylor Bros. Inc., working summers in its welding shop building tunnel shields and the firm’s first rotary tunnel excavator, says one biography.
Graph courtesy of FMI Trends and estimates of total construction put-in-place in the U.S. Related Links: ENR People on the Move Total Construction put-in-place for 2013 will rise 8% over last year to $918.9 billion, says industry management consultant FMI in its first-quarter outlook released last month. The firm says the estimate "is a solid improvement," but it doesn't expect the annual total to reach above the trillion-dollar mark until 2015. The residential sector appears to lead the charge, with single-family buildings set to rise 23% and multifamily construction up 31%, on top of last year's 47% increase. Lodging construction
Photo by Mick Hillier, Ironworkers' Local 25, for ENR Katrina Kudzia, a union ironworker on Detroit's $300-million Cobo Center renovation, focuses on a welding task 50 ft up in constructing the facility's signature atrium. Related Links: Main Feature: Industry Women Weigh In on the New Normal Tradeswomen Are Urged to 'Lean In' at Big California Gathering Cobo Center (Detroit) renovation project Ironworkers' Union website At 6:45 a.m. in a dingy worker break room in Detroit's massive Cobo Center, Katrina Kudzia starts her transformation into a "bad ass" union ironworker, grabbing her welder's helmet and tucking her scarf-wrapped long hair into
Related Links: New Bid Protests Halt Contract Execution on Corps Flood Job Two years after its first attempt to award what will be the last major contract in New Orleans for post-Katrina storm surge defenses, the Army Corps of Engineers again selected joint venture PCCP Constructors.Bid protests, related legal challenges and reprocurements—as well as changed contract prices, specifications and terms—have kept the project in limbo since April 2011.Losing bidders to the current contract are CBY Design-Builders, a CDM-led venture, and Bechtel Infrastructure Corp. Those teams and PCCP Constructors were also involved in previous contract bids and bid protests.Spokeswomen for the
Photo by Bob Vale Engineering student (left) and a contractor tour guide interact in East Side Access rail tunnel; more than 425 students toured the project on a Moles-sponsored tour on April 12. Related Links: Learn About Moles Education Programs at Redesigned Website! MTA Capital Programs-East Side Access ENR New York/MTA a Decade Late, $4.4B Over Budget on East Side Access Project Those who build civil works underground aren't seen much by the public or by the industry's next generation. But this was not the case on April 12, when hundreds of engineering and construction college juniors and their contractor
