ENR California’s Top Specialty Contractors annual rankings will appear in the Oct. 10 issue, but here’s a quick peek:

Though the top 10 firms in 2011 did not top last year’s revenue totals (they decreased nearly 7%), there were a couple of bright spots. Performing better this year were No. 3 Rosendin Electric (a nearly 26% increase in revenue over last year), No. 7 Redwood City Electric (3% increase) and No. 9 KHS&S (a very impressive 35.6% increase).


We’ll have more details about the state of the specialty contractor segment in California in the issue, but what’s surprising is the strength of the electric companies in this year’s list and a lot of their success is due to solar and wind (stimulus or not).

Here’s the top 25:
  1. EMCOR Group
  2. ACCO Engineered systems
  3. Rosendin Electric
  4. Cupertino Electric
  5. Bergelectric Corp.
  6. Helix Electric
  7. Redwood City Electric
  8. Southland Industries
  9. KHS&S Contractors
  10. ISEC
  11. Murray Co.
  12. Walters & Wolf
  13. Pacific Coast Steel
  14. Webcor Concrete
  15. J.R. Filanc Construction
  16. Critchfield Mechanical
  17. Bomel Construction Co.
  18. BEST Contracting Services
  19. Schuff International
  20. American Technologies
  21. Collins Electrical Co.
  22. CSI Electrical Contractors
  23. Steiny and Co.
  24. Foundation Constructors
  25. Rex Moore Electrical Contractors & Engineers
San Jose-based Rosendin’s solid performance was noted by the regional editors of ENR, who chose the firm as the Specialty Contractor of the Year in California.

Rosendin has successfully expanded into a number of marketplaces, such as Virginia, Texas, Canada and Guam, and has focused profitably on wind farms and data centers. And, again, not surprisingly, with revenue gains and geographic expansion comes hiring: Rosendin’s employee count was 2,150 employees in December 2009, 2,290 in December 2010 and 2,465 in June 2011.


The firm traditionally puts great emphasis on community involvement with such organizations as the San Francisco AIDS Walk, Diabetes “Step Out,” and Habitat for Humanity. Rosendin also worked with Project HOPE to restore a 73-bed hospital in Milot, Haiti as part of the Haiti Earthquake Relief effort.


We’ll have more Oct. 10.