San Antonio Construction News October 2015

The Industry’s Newspaper

™CONSTRUCTIONCONSTRUCTIONSan Antonio

Delivering a clean slate

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From father to son A captain of industrial

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With 45 years of history surging through JV Electric, Jesse Vil-larreal Jr. is working to make

sure the company that his father started has a bright future. Jesse Villarreal Sr. was the presi-dent and general manager of Jesse & Chandler Electrical Contractors. He was also one of the owners who started the business in 1952. In 1970, he went out on his own and established Jesse Villarreal Electrical & HVAC Contractors. “In high school, I worked for my dad during the summers,” recalls Jesse Villar-real Jr. “I got my journeyman’s license soon after graduating from college in 1983, and after that I went to work for my dad full-time, mostly as an estimator. Af-

ter my dad retired from the electric busi-ness in ’91, I got my master’s license.” With his master’s license and his bachelor’s degree in business administra-tion from UTSA, Villarreal took over his father’s business Jan. 1, 1992. In 2002, he decided the company would no longer do air conditioning and focus strictly on electrical, and then he changed the name to JV Electric. “When my dad split from Chandler, he didn’t miss a beat,” he says. “The busi-ness kept growing, and I’m just carrying on what he started. I don’t claim to be near the businessman that he was. He had a lot of other business interests. When he retired in ’91, he had plenty of

At JV Electric, Jesse Villarreal Jr. is carrying on the legacy his father started building almost half-a-century ago.

Unsure whether he was consulting or selling as a manufacturers rep, Robert Ober found himself strug-

gling for years with what he believed to be a conflict of interests. He realized his goal of resolving that predicament when he formed Robert Ober & Associates in 2006. “I said to myself: someday, I’ll have the opportunity to have a firm that doesn’t represent any manufacturers but yet we know just as much as anybody about what these manufacturers manu-facture,” recalls Ober. “We’ll continue to stay on top of what it is they do, and we’ll consult our clients and become real de-sign build, or engineer procure construct [EPC] contractors for our niche markets.

We’ll be able to get on the same side of the table as these clients when it comes to selecting machinery and equipment.” To fill the niche as a full-service in-dustrial contractor, Ober established his EPC provider company with two divi-sions, Plant Architects to do the design side and Plant Outfitters to do the build side. His team includes industrial and commercial architects and industrial, mechanical, civil and structural engi-neers working for the build purpose, typically an industrial facility. They also do terminals for intermediate storage of silica sand, cement and ceramic prop-pant.

Robert Ober found his niche in the industrial market when he formed EPC contracting company, Robert Ober & Associates.

As the Windcrest area revitalization draws new businesses to the neighborhood, Rhino Design

Build did a building renovation for the new UPS Store that moved into 5003 Wal-zem Road across the street from Rack-space. E. Daniel Garcia, owner of Rhino Design Build and the project manager/superintendent on the job, began work on the project in April and finished in September. The UPS Store shares space with a Boost Mobile in a small, free-standing building that is a total of roughly 3,500sf. The project scope included renovating the entire exterior of the building and the interior on the UPS side of the build-ing. Previously, the location was an Al’s Formal Wear tuxedo rental shop, which meant that the layout had to be reconfig-ured for UPS. Rhino gutted the space and

made it “a white box” for UPS to come in after completion to do its own tenant fin-ish out. “We started with the demolition of the interior space,” recalls Garcia. “We took out all the interior walls, ceiling grid, the two-by-fours on the walls, sheetrock and flooring. All the plumbing and elec-trical was demoed. “We sprayed foam insulation on the roof decking to give it better energy effi-ciency, and then we basically rebuilt the inside. We came back with metal studs, batt insulation on the exterior walls, new electrical, new HVAC and new plumbing. “On the exterior, there was an exist-ing canopy that just didn’t work. So, we demoed the entire front of the canopy and rebuilt everything. We came in with steel, new parapet wall, and painted the exterior of the entire building.” Garcia adds that they increased the

Rhino Design Build updated the exterior and completely renovated the interior of this space for the new UPS Store (left) in Windcrest.

Trick or Treat!

San Antonio Construction News • Oct 2015


CONSTRUCTION NEWSSan Antonio

The San Antonio Construction News (ISSN 1547-7630) is published monthly by Construction News LTD., dba San Antonio Construction News, and distributed by mail to construction-related companies of record in Bexar and 7 surrounding counties. All submissions should be mailed 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. Construction News, Ltd. , dba San Antonio Construction News, will not be liable for errors in copy or in advertisements beyond the actual cost of space occupied by the error. Publisher reserves the right to reject any advertisement at any time.

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Cooking up something special

The Peanuts gang is hard at work building a barbecue trailer to make this the best and biggest Construct

A Kid’s Christmas (CAKC) yet. This year’s Construct A Kid’s Christ-mas Gala at the Freeman Coliseum Expo Hall will host Snoopy’s Cook Shack Raffle for the custom-made 16-foot enclosed barbecue trailer that will make all gala guests declare, “It’s a Construct A Kid’s Christmas, Charlie Brown.” Buddy Doebbler, publisher of Con-struction News and member of the gala committee, says, “Snoopy’s Cook Shack is really taking shape. The number of compa-nies donating materials, labor and money to build the trailer is overwhelming to say the least. Of course, this is the San Antonio construction industry where good causes are always welcomed with generosity.” Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Lucy and the gang pulled out all the stops. The trailer has metallic ruby red paint with diamond plate skin on the outside, and on the in-side, the trailer features all the comforts a grill master could ask for, including built-in cabinets, a custom pit and firebox, sound system and television with Direct TV antenna and more. See the ad on page 30 for a juicy sneak peek. Doebbler adds, “I think everyone will really be sur-prised to see the finished product.” At its 15th anniversary, this year’s gala, which will be held Dec. 3 from 5:30-11pm, promises to be the biggest in its history, moving to Exhibit Hall C, which is approxi-mately 67,500sf, because last year’s gala barely contained all the guests – not to mention the live band. Texas Unlimited will be returning to perform at this year’s gala. Early registration/payment pricing for sponsorship is: Corporate $1,650, Gold $550, Program $275, Table for 10 $700, Indi-vidual Tickets $65. Early registration pric-es are only available before 10/31/15. After that date, pricing changes to: Corpo-rate $1,850, Gold $650, Program $325, Table for 10 $775, Individual Tickets $75. Guests are encouraged to bring an unwrapped toy that will be added to the annual Construct A Kid’s Christmas Toy Drive, held the next day, Dec. 4 from 10am-2pm at the Construction News office,

4047 Naco-Perrin Blvd. The unwrapped gifts and gift cards collected are donated to Bexar County Child Protective Ser-vices for Bexar County foster children. Associations participating in the 2015 gala include the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), Associated General Contractors (AGC), American Subcontractors As-sociation (ASA), Builders Exchange of Texas (BXTX) Educa-tion Council, Construction Financial Management Associa-tion (CFMA), Construction News Ltd., Hispanic Contractors Association (HCA), Independent Electrical Contractors (IEC), Mechanical and Sheet Metal Contractors Association (MCA-SMACNA), National Association of Women in Con-struction (NAWIC), Plumbing Heating Cooling Contractors (PHCC), Surety Association of South Texas (SAST) and Tex-as Air Conditioning Contractors of America (TACCA). –mh


It’s Construct A Kid’s Christmas, Charlie BrownThursday, December 3, 2015

5:30 to 11 pmThe Expo Hall at Freeman Coliseum

A Peanuts Themed Eventbenefi ting the Bexar County Foster Children

Tickets include Full Buffet, Beer & Wine • Cash Bar will be availableMusic by Texas Unlimited Band • Dancing • Casino Games

Everyone attending is requested to bring an unwrapped gift or toy for the kids.

Register Early Before10/31/15 and Pay:

Corporate Sponsor $1,650Gold Sponsor $550Program $275Table for 10 $700Individual Tickets $65

Beverage Sponsors $1,000Casino Sponsors $1,000

Diamond Sponsor $2,500Only 2 Available ONLY 1 LEFT!

Corporate Sponsor $1,850Gold Sponsor $650Program $325Table for 10 $775Individual Tickets $75

Register After10/31/15 and Pay:

Other SponsorshipLevels

For Registration, Sponsorship Opportunities or to donate Auction Items, please contact Gala Co-Chairs:Sandee Morgan [email protected] OR Karen Ridout [email protected]

A 501(C)3 non-profi t organizationwww.CAKC-SA.org

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Tim BlaziProject ManagerDrash Contracting

Industry FOLKS

At 28 years old, Tim Blazi is proud to have been promoted to the posi-

tion of project manager at Drash Con-tracting in December. He joined the firm in March of last year as a superin-tendent. For a few months, he was as-sisting Andy Drash, and now he is run-ning several projects on his own from start to completion. A few of the projects he recently finished include the state comptroller’s office and a 7to7 Dental. He’s also work-ing on jobs for the San Antonio Ortho-pedic Group (SAOG) and some small medical office buildings in the Stone Oak area. Blazi has been working in the in-dustry since he graduated high school 10 years ago. He started out working for a friend’s father at an architecture firm for four years while earning his associ-ate’s degree from San Antonio College and then his bachelor’s in architecture from UTSA. After that, he worked as an estimator and project manager at South Texas Interiors, and then as a de-sign coordinator and project manager for BRAVI Design/Build. Having known Andy Drash for six years, Blazi gave him a call and joined Drash Contracting while finishing his master’s degree in project manage-ment from Texas A&M University, which he completed in December. Outside of work, Blazi stays busy with his wife, Heather, and their three furry children – two dogs and a cat. They met when he was working at his first architecture firm. His wife, 26, is a Kansas State graduate with her master’s

in architecture, and she works at Pfluger. They are both members of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) San Antonio. They are also involved in a couple of community organizations. They be-long to the First Edition Society, a group of young professionals sup-porting the San Antonio Public Li-brary Foundation. They also belong to the Witte Society, a group of young professionals supporting the Witte Museum. Both organizations host fundraisers and offer networking op-portunities for their members. Heather is also vice chair for com-munication for the Junior League of San Antonio, which is a women’s orga-nization that promotes volunteering and improvement efforts within the community. With his wife very active in her position, Blazi is brought into some of those fundraising and career fair efforts, too. When they are not at work or par-ticipating in one of those organiza-tions, Blazi and his wife spend their time with their families, who live in the area. Blazi’s father, Joey, works for an electrical contractor, and his moth-er, Susie, is the coordinator of special education for Clark High School. –mh


Power to the employees

As Alterman Inc. celebrates the 30th anniversary of its employee stock ownership plan (ESOP), the

company’s employees are reaping the benefits, literally, of being part of the employee-owned company. Employees can breathe even easier knowing that Alterman was recently named one of the Principal 10 Best Com-panies for Employee Financial Security, a national award given by the Principal Fi-nancial Group. “Being employee-owned, the mon-ey stays within the company,” explains John Wright, president and CEO. “And there’s two things that you do with it: you reinvest it in the company to contin-

ue to grow, which we do, and you pro-vide benefits to the employees. “By having such a robust benefits plan, our employees also take home more money in their check to have a bet-ter lifestyle now. We don’t take out for matching contributions to healthcare. It’s 100-percent employer paid. That gives them more money in their checks. So, their quality of life today is better along with their quality of life down the road, because of our robust retirement plan.” With approximately 900 employees now, Alterman continues to grow and carries a 98-percent employee retention rate. Also, the electrical contractor did not layoff a single person during the eco-

nomic downturn. “Over the last five years, we’ve had seven people retire early,” says Wright. “When you look at the U.S. overall and the news, people are working longer be-cause they can’t afford to retire, and yet, we’re still having as many retire early as we are on time, and nobody is staying because they don’t have the financial ability to leave. The people who are stick-ing around love to work and they want to stay here and work.” Celebrating more than 90 years in the industry, Alterman is an employee-owned electrical contractor based in San Antonio with an office in Austin. –mh

A national award received by Alterman Inc. included a $2,500 donation to charity, and Alterman chose Respite Care of San Antonio as the recipient. L-R: Charlie Gonzalez, board

member of Respite Care of San Antonio; John Wright, Alterman; Bert Pfiester, president and CEO of Respite Care of San Antonio

John Wright accepted an award from Principal Financial Group recognizing

Alterman Inc. for providing an outstanding level of financial security to its employees.


Patty TaylorPresident

Taylor Made Hose

1415 West PoplarLocated at I-10 & Colorado

www.toucanrecycling.comM-F 8:30–5:30 Sat 9:00-3:00737-2267

On the eve of the 35th anniversary of Taylor Made Hose, Patty Taylor has been keeping her husband’s

company running since he passed away eight years ago. At 66, she is grateful to her team and family at Taylor Made Hose for helping her after the loss of Don Taylor, who founded the company with his father. To-day, Don and Patty’s son, Jeff, and her brother, Gerald, have joined her in the business. “I do not know how to make a hose,” says Patty, explaining that she and her brother handle the paperwork and the business side of operations. “I can bake a cake at the drop of a hat, but not a hose.”

Where did you grow up? I was born and raised here in San An-tonio. I’m the oldest of five children. I have three brothers, Tom, Gerald and Mark, and a sister, Karen. I grew up on Texas Avenue and went to Little Flower School and Our Lady of the Lake. I was very lucky to have a magical childhood. I didn’t have a lot growing up, but you wouldn’t know it, because my life was so full of love. My mother was a very crafty lady and a fantastic cook. This truly is the reason I got into the bakery business and used some of her recipes. She had traditions from her mom that were special. These have been handed down to my children and grand-children. My dad was a plumber by trade and could fix anything. He was such a gen-tle man with a big sense of humor.

Tell me about your time in the bakery business. I worked as a claims representative for Motors Insurance for 12 years. It was a great job, but a tough one. I had to know parts of a car and went to Detroit for training. It paid way better than working for the bakery business. I decided I would go to San Antonio College and take a couple of courses on how to do cakes, because my mom was so good at it and always made ours for special occasions. I took three courses and loved baking cakes. I was working at Motors Insurance during the day and baking cakes all night long. My husband said, “One of these has to go.” So, I gave up Motors Insurance. I had two children by then. It was neat to be able to stay home with them. My husband always knew I wanted a bak-ery, and he made that dream come true. My husband started Taylor Made Hose

about this time, and we moved to a new location. It had an upstairs. That is where Patty’s Cakes began. I carried cakes and supplies up and down the stairs. It helped keep me skinny then. It was a strange combination, hose company downstairs and bakery up-stairs. My homemade cakes and word of mouth gained me lots of wonderful cli-ents. I was fortunate to bake for David Robinson and Avery Johnson, and to make the Top 5 for Food Network. I ap-peared several times a year on The Living show for over 10 years. My husband moved the company across the street and built me a brand new bakery location next door to his company. He was a jewel. He helped me deliver cakes on the weekend, along with being chief of police in Grey Forest and running Taylor Made Hose. After his death in 2007, I gave up the bakery to help run our present company.

Do you still make cakes? My grandkids get a special cake for their birthdays each year. They have handed me some real challenges. I hope to continue this tradition, but my daugh-ter, Leslie, does a great job of baking, too. I do bake for special friends and fam-ily from time to time. I love cooking and baking. My husband would stay up all night finding me recipes. I would sort through them in the morning and find good ones. I didn’t realize that I was working every weekend, because I was with my best friend, my husband. I enjoyed meeting the people and setting up their weddings and making sure I did everything just right. I worried and prayed that all would go great. I wanted their events to be perfect and, knock on wood, I never had an unhappy bride. I treated each wedding as if it were my own daughter’s.

Could you tell me about your hus-band? Don was my best friend and the love of my life. After 37 years, I still smiled ev-ery time I saw him walk into a room. We met working at Bruner’s department store. You weren’t supposed to date the employees. He asked me to a dance, and we got caught – the boss ended up going to the dance, but it worked out. I was wishing for a lifetime more with him, but Lou Gehrig’s Disease, or ALS [Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis], took him away. He fought this disease with all he had. We have a local ALS association, and we have an annual walk and Battle ALS with Flowers each year. I’m very active with the association, and I hope they find a cure for this disease. I have lost many friends to it. We lived with the disease the best we could. Don still walked his daughter down the aisle at her wedding. We made trips on his bucket list to Alaska and Italy. He was making plans for Ireland, but it didn’t happen. I just went there for a wedding two weeks ago in his honor.

I’m sure he was there with you in spirit. He was. There was a full moon – our icon of him is the full moon. He was a character, and he used to moon people [laughs]. Everybody knows him – he did it here at Taylor Made Hose. He passed away on Christmas Eve, and when I walked out of the hospital, there was a full moon. Anytime the family is on a trip,

there’s usually a full moon. So, yes, he is with us. That’s our God’s wink, as they say.

What are your kids doing now? My son, Jeff, is vice president at Tay-lor Made Hose. He was a plumber before we got him involved in the business. He is an avid fisherman and barbecue cook-off participant. He is married to Paige and has two children, Dalton, 8, and Leslie Dawn, 5. My daughter, Leslie, a beautiful red-head, works at Capital Group with the sales team. She is married to Conner Aus-tin, who has had three kidney transplants and is our miracle man, and has twin boys, Carson and Lyndon, age 6. She is a great cook and bakes cakes better than I do. My husband’s name was Leslie Don, so she’s named after him. His mom’s name was Dawn, my beloved mother-in-law. Don’s grandfather was Leslie Warren and now my granddaughter is Leslie Dawn. Tradition continues. I have been so blessed with my four grandchildren. Since the loss of Don, they have helped me live a happy life. They keep me busy. I can see Don in all of these children.

When did you come into the business? Don passed away in 2007, and I had not had an active role in the business, ex-cept putting in my two cents once in a while. I was busy with the bakery, but stopped baking in August before he died in December. I started taking an interest in 2008. It took about two years to get on track with the help of all our wonderful employees. We had two of our older employees retire last year after 22 years of service. We have our right-hand man, Rene Guerrero, who has trained everyone. He’s been with us for about 25 years. His knowledge is priceless.

How did Don get into the business? He had worked for a company and got interested in selling hydraulic hose. He wanted to start a business with his dad, George Taylor, who retired from Hormel. When people heard we had a hose company, they thought we sold pantyhose. Don was a salesman. He could sell an Eskimo an ice cube. He worked hard. Don had a personality that you loved the min-ute you met him. He had such ambition, and he was successful. I named the company for him, and he named my bakery. The company start-

ed out small, and we have moved our lo-cation three times. Don’s dad had a great sense for bookkeeping, and Don knew all about hose. It takes a long time to know all about it. We have over 40,000 parts in the ware-house. It takes over a year or so to get a person trained and acquainted with ev-erything we have. I believe that we give the best service in town – you can come by and have a bag of popcorn while you have a short wait. What do you like to do in your spare time? Everything! I am a huge quilter. I have a fantastic quilt group with Stepha-nie, Barb, Terry, Bev and Ginny. We have quilt class once a month and try to get together more often for other projects. I have two sewing machines going all the time. I was up until midnight mak-ing items for the grandkids going back to school. I love baking and cooking and read-ing recipes and cookbooks. I have quite the collection and over 5,000 cookie cut-ters. I love traveling, gardening, photog-raphy and all crafts. I tell my grandkids that you are never too old to learn. I am getting depressed that I won’t finish every project or recipe in my life-time. I wake up early running to get it all done in a day. Anyone who knows me knows I love my church. It’s Our Lady of Guadalupe in Helotes, where I live, and we have a won-derful community with ACTS retreats. I have really good friends, and we call ourselves the “Traveling Gs” – G is for grandmas. I have a place at Lake LBJ, where we fish and ski and visit with our Aunt Nel. My best friends, Sandy and Bubba, just moved to Tennessee, so I’m traveling to see them a lot. I support 4-H in Helotes, and Taylor Made Hose is a member of the Clover Club. I support the ALS association and help with their activities, and St. Jude’s and AARC. I love paying it forward in honor of my husband. He always bought lunch and dinner for people without them knowing about it. Spending time with my grandchil-dren and family is a big priority. This is my number one obsession. I love playing with them and escorting them to activi-ties. They are the biggest gift in my life. I am hoping for more time to watch them grow and leave them my legacy. –mh

Patty Taylor (right) has been carrying on her husband’s legacy as president of Taylor Made Hose. L-R: Gerald Potter, business operations; Jeff Taylor, vice president; and Patty

MUSTANG COLT SERVICESServing Customers HonestlyElectrical Contracting • Commercial/Industrial

Special Projects

San Antonio, TX 210 494 7100Weslaco, TX 956 969 5703


Partnered for the future

To ensure the longevity of MK Mar-low Company beyond the day in the distant future when founder

Mark Marlow decides to retire, Marlow has brought his vice president, Todd Thomas, into a partnership. Now a co-owner of the business, Thomas came on board a little over three years ago. He and Marlow clicked right away. Soon, they were talking about a potential partnership, and two years ago, they began building up to a buyout. Now, Marlow explains that they are on a 10-year program that is part of his long-term exit strategy. “[I had] a commitment to all the peo-ple we brought in to keep the company going, to have continuity when I started to slowly back out of the company,” ex-plains Marlow, who is 53. “We needed a next generation to take over, and since I don’t have any family as such that would take over the business and Todd and I work so well together like partners any-

way, it was a natural progression of things.” Thomas, 46, feels part of his new po-sition and responsibility encompasses “due diligence to take the company and make it better than it’s ever been.” He notes that, currently, they’re aiming to pick up work in the Austin area, and one of his goals is to open an office in Hous-ton within the next year or two. When Thomas graduated high school, he joined the Army bringing him into airborne infantry. After five years, he got out of the military and went into con-struction, starting as a laborer sweeping floors. He worked his way up to opera-tions through the field, spending 20 years with a company in Central Florida until the economic downturn brought him to San Antonio – and subsequently MK Marlow – three years ago. Celebrating its 30th anniversary, MK Marlow Company is a drywall and acoustical contractor that is based in San Antonio. –mh

Mark Marlow and Todd Thomas already shared the responsibilities of running MK Marlow Company. Now, they share the ownership of the business, too.

In tune for six decades

L-R: NAWIC South Central Region director Jennifer M. Swinney and executive vice

president Dede Hughes

L-R: NAWIC San Antonio chapter board: Director Jan Meuth, director Elizabeth Connally, director Lynne Grix, vice president Patty Wylie, director Delia Miranda, president Michelle

Urbanczyck, treasurer Kari Wirth, director Gretel Lott, parliamentarian Dawn Holmes, Crystal Campos, secretary Melissa Flathers (Rebecca Rodriguez not pictured)

Music City was the setting for women in construction to hit all of the right networking notes

Sept. 2-5. The National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC) hosted its 60th annual Meeting and Education Conference in Nashville, TN, bringing to-gether South Central Region chapters to celebrate the harmony of their unique sisterhood. Highlights of the “Sounds of Suc-cess” event, held at the Omni Hotels and Resorts, included a mini trade show, an installation luncheon, meetings, semi-nars and workshops and an awards gala. Some members also took part in some sightseeing in Tennessee’s capital, in-cluding catching a Dwight Yoakam con-cert at Ryman Auditorium and visiting Nashville’s famed eateries. “NAWIC AMEC 2015 in Nashville, TN was a smash!” declared Michelle Urbanc-zyk, San Antonio Chapter president. “There were over 400 in attendance and we had over a quarter of the attendees as first timers. “We had a long day of business: 2015-2016 national officers were installed (the national treasurer, Jennifer Swinney, ASA, San Antonio, and the national presi-dent, Riki Love Joy, RFL Consulting, St. Hedwig), many workshops on how NA-WIC did and where it’s projected for next year, along with some insight on busi-ness success or how to achieve it, plus how to understand the importance of safety and the risks involved with not fol-lowing procedure. “All in all, it was a huge success, and I am so looking forward to next year as AMEC comes to San Antonio in August 2016.” –mjm/mh

Members of NAWIC’s South Central Region at the convention in Nashville

Jennifer Swinney, Region 7 director, earned the national recognition of “Red Rose

Recruiter,” awarded to members who recruit 18 members within a 3-year period. A gold star is awarded to a Red Rose Recruiter who

recruits an additional 18 members within a 3-year period. Swinney was awarded her

second gold star at the annual Meeting and Educational Conference in Nashville. She has earned her Red Rose Recruiter Jacket and both gold stars since 2010. L-R: Sandy

Field, 2014-2015 NAWIC national president; Jennifer Swinney; Vickie Nickel, national

membership chair


Smoking pits and barrels

The San Antonio Masonry Contractors Association (SAMCA) hosted its 15th annual BBQ Cook-Off and 20th annual Sporting Clay Tournament Sep. 11 at

the San Antonio Gun Club. –mh

Sporting Clay WinnersClass A1st: Stephen Ethridge, Frost Bank2nd: Wade Mayfield, Joeris General Contractors3rd: Matthew Haddox, Joeris General ContractorsClass B1st: Hector Gomez, I-10 Building Materials/Stone Source2nd: Sid Smith Jr., SS Smith & Sons Masonry3rd: Pat Langlinais, I-10 Building Materials/Stone SourceClass C1st: Mike Moilanen, Joeris General Contractors2nd: Ryan Stone, Rick Stone Masonry3rd: Trey Rabke, Guido Construction

Joeris L-R: Justin Sinclair, David Shea, Wade Mayfield, Hubert McBride, Mike Malone,

Matthew Haddox

L-R: Mark Koski, Veneer Stone, and Danny Bryant, Acme Brick

San Antonio Masonry & Tool Supply L-R: Robbin Bostick, Pearl Ozuna and Ben Morales

Chef’s Choice and Best Dessert: Prosoco L-R: David Frink and Bob Holmes (not pictured:

Zak Wilske and Weston Sherrill)

Best Pork Spare Ribs: Acme Brick/Featherlite L-R: Troy Palmer, Willie Durazo III, Willie

Durazo Jr.

Road Kill Katering L-R: Curtis Hunt, Custis Hunt Restorations; Jade Hunt; Buster Talley; Travis Crow

L-R: Pedro Cardenas; Jeff Windham, Alamo Cement; Andy Cordova, Blackson Brick; Pat Kidder, Alamo Cement

L-R: Matt Bowman, BCO Design; Art Nahera, SK&A Architects; Chris Moore, RVK Architects; David Garza, Bartlett Cocke;

Tracie Martin, ACME Brick; Alejandro Luna, BCO DesignBest Chicken and Best Brisket: Borracho BBQ (I-10 Building Materials/Stone Source) L-R: Hector Gomez, Emanuel

Delgado, Bobby Wolfshohl, Michael Hunt

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A nursery for the family trees

In just over 46 years, Fairway Land-scape & Nursery has come a long way from its roots. In 1969, Jose H. Perez

started out with a nursery. Today, at 74, he is the president of the business that many members of his family have joined and expanded into a wide range of services. “I always liked plants. When we start-ed in the nursery, if you wanted to buy a plant, you had to go to a nursery,” he ex-plains, adding that after Home Depot and other major stores started selling plants and trees in the mid-‘70s, Fairway had two options: close the doors or ex-pand into landscaping and other areas. When they expanded, their income became steadier, but Perez believes his biggest accomplishment is having his children involved in the family business. Adela P. Gonzales is the secretary/treasurer and office manager. Estela Per-ez-Garcia, who is in her second term as president of the Hispanic Contractors As-sociation (HCA) de San Antonio, is the

vice president of business development. Estela’s twin brother, Steve Perez, is Fair-way’s licensed irrigator and vice presi-dent of production. The other children, Joe M. Perez and Richard Perez, both previously worked at Fairway for years. Also, Perez’s wife, Manuela P. Perez, has been involved since the beginning, helping with the plants and selling at the nursery while raising their five children. Several members of the third generation have worked at Fairway, too, mostly dur-ing the summers. Estela’s son, Oscar, is a project supervisor, having joined the family business in December 2011. Both Perez and his wife are still very active. They live on 36 acres in Atascosa where they grow their own trees for use on their projects. Fairway Landscape & Nursery offers services including general landscaping, landscape lighting, hardscape, aquatic scapes, erosion control, and irrigation de-sign and build. –mh

The Fairway family celebrated the 74th birthday of its patriarch (third left) on Apr. 21.L-R: Richard Perez, Adela P. Gonzales, Jose H. Perez, Manuela P. Perez, Jose M. Perez,

Estela Garcia-Perez and Esteban Perez

Fountain of roof

The networking flowed for Texas’ roofing industry Sep. 16-18. The Roofing Contractors Association of

Texas (RCAT) hosted its 40th annual con-ference and trade show, a three-day get-to-know-you extravaganza featuring fun-for-all events. It all kicked off Wednesday morning with a foreman-only class and an RCAT board of directors meeting at the Omni Hotel. However, business quickly turned to pleasure at RCAT’s golf tournament at Fort Worth’s Waterchase Golf Club Pavil-ion. The North Texas Roofing Contractors Association (NTRCA) then made everyone feel at home with a “Welcome to North Texas!” reception and awards dinner. While exhibitors prepared their booths Thursday morning at the Fort Worth Convention Center, seminars and educational programs were held for at-tendees. A ribbon cutting started off the RCAT trade show, which featured more than 80 roofing industry exhibitors. That evening, attendees walked the red car-pet at the “BIG 4-0 Celebration” and awards ceremony and kicked their heels up to the tunes of the Preston Scott Band. Some attendees may have retired early from the festivities due to Friday morning’s RCAT license exam, but for those not testing, more seminars, educa-tional programs and the trade show

awaited. Finally, it was back to business for the RCAT board, which held a final meeting before saying “Happy Trails” to their good time in Cowtown. –mjm

Ross Manufacturing LLC

MBCICertainTeedABC Supply Co. inc.West End Roofing Siding & Windows

National Roofing Contractors Association

Equipment Depot

DOT Metal Products

SPEC Building Materials Corp.

A.C.T. Metal Deck Supply

Southern Shingles

Hunter Panels


Key employee protection:Preserving your businessKirk Quaschnick, PresidentMogul Wealth Strategies, LLCMcKinney, TX

As a construction company owner, you recognize the importance of insuring your building, inventory, and

equipment. These assets are vital to the success of your company. But have you considered what would happen

if a key employee died unexpectedly or became disabled?

Key employees are the foundation of a successful business. They are business owners, supervisors, project managers, CFOs, or any other individuals who are sources of leadership and profita bility, and who would be extremely difficult to replace. Unless the proper steps are tak-en, the death or disability of a key em-ployee can be devastating to the finan-cial well-being of your company.

The Solution: Key Employee Protec-tion Funding a plan to protect key em-ployees may give your business the ad-ditional funds it needs to:• Hire and train replacements.• Replace an employee’s contribu tion to profits.• Maintain the confidence of clients and creditors.• Meet possible loan obligations if the key employee was also a guarantor on busi-ness loans. There are three basic options for funding the costs associated with the sudden loss of a key employee: cash ac-cumulation or a sinking fund, borrowing from a bank, or life insurance.

Option 1 - Cash or Sinking Fund In this option, a business establishes a savings plan, much like a bank account, to protect itself from the death or disabil-ity of its key employ ees. At death, the cash in the savings plan is used as a source of funding. Unfortunately, this method has several drawbacks:• A savings plan accumulates funds over time. What if funds are needed tomor-row?• Accumulated cash could cause an accu-mulated earnings problem.• Any growth on the accumulated funds may be income taxable.• A savings plan may be depleted to pay for other expenses.• The business owner(s) will pay dollar for dollar, thus depleting the amount of cash that could be used elsewhere.

Option 2- Borrowing Funds In this option, funds are borrowed, usually through a bank loan, to replace the financial loss caused by a key employ-ee’s death or disability. Drawbacks of this

option include:• A potential slowdown in business growth due to additional loan repay-ments.• A reduction in future profits may occur because of the loan repayment.• The business owner(s) will pay dollar for dollar plus interest.• The company’s credit may be adversely affected due to greater debt.

Option 3 – Insurance Purchasing life and/or disability in-surance on your key employees can be a cost-effective way to safe guard your business and minimize the impact of a key employee’s death or disability. Life insurance and/or disability insurance can provide your business with the following advantages:• Funding with insurance is easy to ad-minister.• Funds are available even if death or dis-ability occurs the day after coverage be-gins.• Although the premiums are not deduct-ible, the life insurance proceeds at death are generally received income tax-free to the business.

Funding the Future Plan The business applies for a life insur-ance policy on the life of a key employee. The business is the owner and beneficia-ry of the policy. As policyholder, the busi-ness pays premiums to an insurance company for the policy as long as the key employee is alive and an employee. Should an insured key employee die, the death benefit proceeds from the insur-ance policy would pass generally income tax-free to the business, providing an im-mediate cash source for debt repayment, liquidity, or other related concerns. Kirk G. Quaschnick, CLU, ChFC, ARPC, is the president and co-founder of Mogul Wealth Strategies, LLC in McKinney, TX. Since 1992, Kirk has helped his clients in fi-nancial, business, and estate planning, as well as financial advising, investment advi-sory and wealth management services to business owner executives and individuals. For additional information on the informa-tion or topic discussed, please contact Kirk at 214-420-7152, or email him at [email protected].

The HR to-do list just keepsgetting longerCyndi Mergele,, SPHR, SHRM-SCPPadgett Stratemann & Co.San Antonio, TX

It’s been a busy summer for employment law changes and there are more changes to come. In June, the U.S.

Supreme Court issued two significant rulings. The first confirmed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was finally (or at least for now) the law of the land. The second ruling recognized same sex marriages.

ACA Compliance. Employers who issue 250 or more W-2s are required to report the cost of employees’ healthcare insurance on the W-2. “Applicable large employers” (employers with 50 or more FTEs) will be required to complete, pro-vide to employees, and file Forms 1094 and 1095. Information must be reported for 2015 in early 2016.

FLSA. In July, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced a proposed change to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The proposed change would re-quire employers to pay overtime to any employee who earns a salary of less than $50,440 per year. This could have signifi-cant impact on the construction industry, as it means, regardless of the work per-formed, an employee who is paid $24.24 per hour or less must be paid overtime.

On July 15, 2015, the DOL issued Ad-ministrator’s Interpretation 2015-1 provid-ing further guidance (and strong warn-ing) regarding the challenge of employ-ers continuing to misclassify employees as independent contractors. It is impor-tant to note this interpretation specifi-cally cites the construction industry in providing an example: “Example: A highly-skilled carpen-ter provides carpentry services for a con-struction firm; however, such skills are not exercised in an independent manner. For example, the carpenter does not make any independent judgments at the job site beyond the work that he is doing for that job; he does not determine the sequence of work, order additional mate-rials, or think about bidding the next job, but rather is told what work to perform and where to perform it. In this scenario, the carpenter, although highly-skilled tech-nically, is not demonstrating the skill and initiative of an independent contractor (such as managerial and business skills). He is simply providing his skilled labor. In contrast, a highly-skilled carpenter who provides a specialized service for a variety of area construction companies, for example, custom, handcrafted cabi-nets that are made-to-order, may be demonstrating the skill and initiative of an independent contractor if the carpenter markets his services, determines when to order materials and the quantity of mate-

rials to order, and determines which or-ders to fill.”

The interpretation also states that the DOL has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and a number of states (including Texas) to share informa-tion obtained in audits to insure compli-ance with DOL regulations. Companies need to carefully examine their indepen-dent contractor relationships to ensure compliance with IRS, DOL, and Texas Workforce Regulations. Misclassifying an employee as an independent contractor can cost an employer back wages for un-paid overtime and unpaid federal and state taxes. And, on Monday, Sept. 7, 2015, Presi-dent Obama issued an Executive Order Establishing Paid Sick Leave for Federal Contractors that will require federal con-tractors and subcontractors to provide seven days of paid sick leave per year to all employees. The Order states that af-fected employees must be permitted to earn no less than 56 hours of sick leave per year and can carry over any unused balance into the following year. The Sec-retary of Labor will issue regulations re-lated to this Order no later than Septem-ber 30, 2016. It will become effective for government contracts in 2017. As the HR to-do list continues to grow, it is important for construction companies to invest time and resources to ensure proactive compliance. While there is cost to proactive compliance (hir-ing a human resources professional, a hu-man resources consultant, or an employ-ment attorney), it is far less costly in terms of reputation, legal cost, back wag-es, taxes, and penalties.

Cyndi Mergele is the Senior Manager of Human Resources Consulting for Padgett Stratemann & Co., one of Texas largest, lo-cally-owned CPA and business advisory firms, with offices in San Antonio, Austin, and Houston. Cyndi assists clients with hu-man resources strategy, staffing and re-cruiting, policy and program development, merger and acquisition strategy, and solv-ing their most complex work force issues. For more information, please contact Cyndi at 210-828-6281 or [email protected].


Falling for golf

Staying powerConstruction News ON LOCATION

The day we stopped by Rexel was the day Nancy Sanchez, operations manager, marked her 34th anniversary with the electrical supplier. L-R: John Luis, Nancy

Sanchez, Judson Entrekin, Oscar Macias and Daniel Rios –mh

With 182 golfers, the American Builders and Contractors (ABC) South Texas Chapter took to the

green Sep. 14 at Fair Oaks Ranch Golf & Country Club for its annual fall golf tour-nament. –mhBlackjack Course1st Low Gross: Catto & Catto1st Low Net: Gardner Law Firm2nd Low Net: Red Hawk ContractingClosest to the Hole: #7: Bruce Culver #17: Pete HansenLongest Drive: Men’s: Jaime Amoretti Women’s: Melissa Kidd

Live Oak Course1st Low Gross: Koontz Corporation1st Low Net: Bartlett Cocke General Con-tractors2nd Low Net: Hart Acoustical & DrywallClosest to the Hole: #7: Mike Merritt #11: Bryan EhrlichLongest Drive: Men’s: Greg Sims Women’s: Amanda Moguel

1st Place Low Gross, Blackjack Course

1st Place Low Gross, Live Oak Course

1st Place Low Net, Blackjack Course1st Place Low Net, Live Oak Course

The competent person inconfined space operationsJoann NatarajanCompliance Assistance SpecialistOSHAAustin, TX

Under the new confined space in con-struction, OSHA defines a competent

person to means one who is capable of identifying existing and predictable haz-ards in the surroundings or working con-ditions which are unsanitary, hazardous, or dangerous to employees, and who has the authorization to take prompt correc-tive measures to eliminate them. The competent person has a num-ber of duties under the new confined space in construction. The competent person must determine what confined spaces exist on the jobsite, which spaces are permit spaces, and evaluate the po-tential and actual hazards in the spaces that workers will enter. Final §1926.1203(a) requires each employer that has employees who may work in a confined space to ensure that a compe-tent person identifies all confined spaces on the site, and to determine, through initial testing as necessary, which of these spaces are permit spaces, and to consider and evaluate other elements of the con-fined space. Therefore, under §1926.1203(f) of this final rule, the entry employer must also ensure that a compe-tent person compile the information nec-essary to determine whether a reevalua-tion is necessary, and conduct the reeval-uation when necessary. The employer must ensure that a competent person performs a full reevaluation of the permit space before reclassifying the space. The competent person is require to be trained on their duties. The employer

must provide training to each employee whose work is regulated by this law, at no cost to the employee, and ensure that the employee possesses the understanding, knowledge, and skills necessary for the safe performance of the duties assigned under this standard. This training must result in an understanding of the hazards in the permit space and the methods used to isolate, control or in other ways protect employees from these hazards, and for those employees not authorized to perform entry rescues, in the dangers of attempting such rescues. Training re-quired must be provided to each em-ployee in both a language and vocabu-lary that the employee can understand, before the employee is first assigned du-ties under this standard, before there is a change in assigned duties, whenever there is a change in permit space entry operations that presents a hazard about which an employee has not previously been trained; and whenever there is any evidence of a deviation from the permit space entry procedures required by §1926.1204(c) or there are inadequacies in the employee’s knowledge or use of these procedures. The training must establish employ-ee proficiency in the duties required by this standard and must introduce new or revised procedures, as necessary, for compliance with this standard.

[email protected] x232

You’re insured against the big-ticket rip and tear damages, right?Stephanie O’Rourke, PrincipalCokinos, Bosien & YoungSan Antonio, TX

There is no question that the installation and subse-quent removal of defective work or product will

leave a mark. Such damage might be reasonably thought of as “physical injury” or “impaired.” However, if you are considering whether such damage might by covered by your insurance policy, the meaning of phrases such as “physical injury” and “impaired property” may not be so clear. In fact, the Fifth Cir-cuit has recently determined those phrases to be so ambiguous in the context of GCL policies as to require interpretation by the Supreme Court of Texas.

In U.S. Metals v. Liberty Mutual Group, 589 Fed. Appx. 659 (5th Cir. 2014), U.S. Metals supplied flanges to be used in non-road diesel facilities in Exxon refiner-ies. After the flanges were irreversibly welded into place, testing revealed the flanges were defective and did not meet the applicable industry standards. Exxon removed all 350 flanges and eventually settled with U.S. Metals for approximate-ly $6 million. Metals submitted the claim to Liberty Mutual Group, but Liberty de-nied the claim, arguing that the rip and tear damages were excluded by the poli-cy by the following standard exclusions: m. Damage to Impaired Property or Property Not Physically Injured; “Proper-ty damage” to “impaired property” or property that has not been physically in-jured, arising out of: A defect, deficiency, inadequacy, or dangerous condition in “your product” or “your work”; or A delay or failure by your or anyone acting on your behalf to perform a con-tract or agreement in accordance with its terms. This exclusion does not apply to the loss of use of other property arising out of sudden and accidental physical injury to “your product” or “your work” after it has been put to its intended use. The policy defined the term “im-paired property” as: 8. “Impaired property” means tangi-ble property, other than “your product” or “your work”, that cannot be used or is less useful because: It incorporates “your product” or “your work” that is known or thought to be defective, deficient, inadequate or dangerous; or You have failed to fulfill the terms of a contract or agreement; if such property can be restored to use by the repair, re-placement, adjustment or removal of “your product” or “your work” or your ful-filling the terms of the contract or agree-

ment. However, the policy did not define the terms "physical injury" or “replace-ment.” Noting the lack of controlling au-thority on the interpretation of these terms, the Fifth Circuit asked the Su-preme Court of Texas whether “physical injury” and “replacement” in the context of the “your product” and “impaired property” exclusions are ambiguous. Among other things, the Fifth Circuit asked “[D]oes ‘replacement’ of the in-sured’s defective product irreversibly at-tached to a third party’s product include the removal or destruction of the third party’s product?” In the past, injured insureds have at-tempted to avoid the exclusion by argu-ing that contrary to the requirements of the definition of “impaired property,” the property could not be restored to use by repair or replacement of the named in-sured’s product or work if it required con-siderable destruction of other property. Under the certified questions, the “rip and tear” associated with repair and re-placement of an integrated part will sim-ply be regarded as part of the excluded property damage to impaired property, rather than third party property, and may be excluded. Oral argument was heard by the Court on Sept. 9, 2015. Not surprisingly, numerous Amicus briefs have been filed to assist the court with its interpretation of these common exclusion terms. As rec-ognized by the Fifth Circuit, “The Texas Supreme Court’s interpretation of these terms will have far-reaching implications due to the commonality of these exclu-sions within CGL policies.” Stephanie O’Rourke is a principal of Cokinos, Bosien &Young, a full service law firm with offices in Houston, San Antonio, Dallas and Austin. For more information on our services, please visit www.cbylaw.com


They can hold their own

What’s your biggest pet peeve?

The way people drive around San Anto-nio, especially during the times when it’s raining.

Jesus Chavero, Helotes Pits

I spend a lot of time in traffic during the day traveling from job to job, and I would say the traffic and the road conditions here in town.

Steven Stanush, S&S Plumbing

When people fail to use their vehicle turn signal. It’s a way to communicate with other drivers, people. Use your blinkers BEFORE you start turning.

Sherill Stanush, S&S Plumbing

I have a lot of them. I hate bad grammar. I hate bad spelling. I hate slow people driving in the fast lane on the highway. My biggest pet peeve is probably people who drive too slow in the left-hand lane.

Jeff Vexler, Toucan Recycling

I guess when something isn’t perfect.Robert Bowen, Texas Tables

I’d say the biggest pet peeve within the business today is contracts. Other than that, life is rosy.

Robert Cauble,R.R. Cauble Lath & Plaster

My biggest pet peeve is the lack of ac-countability of our government organi-zation.

Mark Neville, Villa Park Architects

Right now, what’s kind of driving me nuts is the politics that are going on with the primaries fixing to start, but I’m not sure that’s a pet peeve.

Jesse Villarreal Jr., JV Electric

Tardiness. It’s a lack of respect.Rebecca Rowell,

Advanced Door Control

Paperwork. Without paperwork, you don’t get paid. Every week, we bill and then we get the invoices in, and then we get our schedule value sheets done, and it just goes on and on. For any company to function correctly, you need to have your paperwork done.

Vinnie Gonzales, VP&R Construction

It’s people not saying thank you or smil-ing. That means a lot, and that’s what I’ve tried to teach my grandchildren. When a car lets you in, you just give them that little wave – my grandson asked me the other day, “Why do you do that?” And I said, “To thank that person.” I will go above and be-yond doing anything for anybody, and I need no payment in return, but just the kindness and appreciation.

Patty Taylor, Taylor Made Hose

It’s seeing a completed home with the stickers still on the windows. I’ve seen homes where people have lived for sev-eral years and stickers are still on the win-dows. It means that the job was not com-pleted – or cleaned properly or some-thing.

Bill Krupa, Jim Filipowicz & Associates

Horses that buck. I’ve been nursing a shoulder injury going on two months since I was thrown.

Curt Lundberg, Lundberg Masonry

America would be a much better place if when Americans came into work, they just simply put in eight hours honest work.

Karl Keene, Alamo City Soda Blast

Right now, it’s the fact that we’re all split. It’s hard communicating with our staff over at the Schertz office. I’m glad we’re growing this quickly, but being split sometimes has its difficulties, especially being so far away.

Monica Simpson,Texas Utility Engineering

Workingmen’s warehouseConstruction News ON LOCATION

L-R: Jacob Fultz, Baltazar Lopez, Erik Villarreal, Trent Willoughby,Efrain Figueroa and Steven Troutman were working hard in the warehouse at

Summit Electric Supply, preparing orders for customers and staying on the move to make on-time deliveries. –mh

Despite pouring rain that initially held up some participants, the American Subcontractors Associ-

ation (ASA) San Antonio Chapter packed in the fun and flavor for its annual Pour-Off, Texas Hold ‘Em Tournament and Sal-sa Taste-Off Sep. 10 at Aggie Park. –mh

Best Frozen Drink: KCM CabinetsL-R: Audrey Perez, Ray Fehner, Jose Del

Bosque, Roxana SanchezPhoto by Mary C. Haskin Photography

Best Non-Frozen Drink & Best Salsa: Ridout Barrett L-R: Valerie Kopecki, Sheri Krueger, Sherry Rodriguez, Lisa Good and Cece Colon, Vanessa Ruiz

Left: Best Bar Set Up: Vision ConstructionL-R: Stacey Graham and Sunny BaileyPhoto by Mary C. Haskin Photography


Firm on the rise

Since LNV, Inc.’s San Antonio office was established in 2004, it has pre-dominantly provided civil engi-

neering services to public clients, but with its collective resources, the office can support a broad spectrum of servic-es extending from multiple engineering disciplines to surveying, architecture and construction. Derek Naiser, who is the “N” in LNV, is a principal and senior vice president of the firm and is principal-in-charge for the San Antonio and Dallas offices. He is a li-censed professional engineer and a certi-fied floodplain manager. Prior to LNV’s inception in 2000, Naiser spent 11 years working for TxDOT. “LNV established its San Antonio of-fice because the firm’s leadership be-lieved the ‘City on the Rise’ was the most attractive environment for business in the country,” says Naiser. “The expansion was supported by the wealth of opportu-nities throughout the area, including an educated workforce and a business-friendly climate. The citizens of San Anto-

nio care about their investments in infra-structure, and by opening an office, LNV knew it could help improve the commu-nity in which its family too would live.“ Naiser is passionate about his family, his company and his Aggies. He played football at Texas A&M University under head coach Jackie Sherrill and was a member of the renowned “12th Man” kickoff team. LNV’s San Antonio office has 32 em-ployees: 20 civil engineers, one mechani-cal engineer and five surveyors support-ed by marketing, business development and administrative staff. The branch is currently working on a new water well project for the San Antonio Zoo, along with several other projects for the City of San Antonio, SAWS, Bexar County and other entities in the surrounding areas. LNV, Inc. is a multi-disciplined firm with 140 employees and seven Texas locations: Austin, Dallas/Fort Worth, Corpus Christi, Harlingen, Laredo, McAllen and San Anto-nio. –mh

Along with Dan Leyendecker and Robert Viera, Derek Naiser is a founding principal of LNV, Inc. and the principal-in-charge of the firm’s San Antonio office.

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In memoriam

Andrew “Sonny” Belz, vice presi-dent of Alamo Interiors, passed away Aug. 21. He served more

than 40 years in the construction indus-try, 35 of which were with Alamo Interi-ors.

Friends recall that people always knew they were in with Sonny when they were given one of his famous nick-

names, some of which were Stick, Cheetah, Mama Dog, Jack, Pup-py, Spec, Slim, Woman and any other moniker he would choose for those he knew well.

In his youth, he enjoyed hotrods and racing. He was a Vietnam veteran, earning six medals, including the bronze star, in the year and seven months he spent in the Army after being drafted. He loved his family, tak-ing pictures and his work. He will be remembered for making oth-ers smile and laugh, and for con-stantly helping others, especially his neighbors and co-workers. He loved the outdoors and his dog, Texas, a dear companion for over 10 years.

Survivors include his wife of 41 years, Kathy; his sons, Gregory and Justin; his brother, Edmond; his nephews, Jason and Jeffrey, and their children, Jake and Wy-att. –mh


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THE COST OF DOING BUSINESSJUST WENT DOWN

Vigil-antesSubmitted to Construction News

SpawGlass team members participated in Pro-Vigil’s seventh annual Customer Appreciation Dove Hunt Sep. 9 at its dove lease, Loop 410 and I-35 S. L-R: Jason Hennesey, Justin Calvin, Garrett Fox, Clint Ullman, Robert Hernandez –mh

Human nature seems to require most fishermen to try and make something happen before it’s really the ideal time. Getting a jump on post-fall and

pre-winter sow trout seems to be a popular topic around the marinas and on the boat lately. Speckled trout, especially the larger trophy sized ones that popu-late the waters of the Laguna Madre and Baffin Bay, be-come one of the most sought after fish for lure chunking gurus in the area during the cooler months of the year.

In search of winter sowsby Capt. Steve Schultz

Sponsored by:Premier Yamaha Boating Center, Majek Boats,

E-Z Bel Construction, Power Pole Shallow Water Anchor, Aggregate Haulers, ForEverlast Hunting and Fishing

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Michael Rodriguez of San Antonio hooked up on the 28-inchredfish last week on a fishing outing with Steve Schultz

Outdoors.

Typically, wade fishing is the norm when searching for trophy specks along the shallow shorelines of our bay system. However there are areas that are not fea-sible for wading and must be accessed from the boat. There are also many of my clients that simply will not get out of the boat under any circumstances for any fish, and I’m fine with that. I like fishing out of a boat as much as anybody, but if you really want to have a good chance at catching the fish of a lifetime, wading is one of the best ways to do it. Even though one of the biggest trout I’ve ever caught came out of the boat this year in the

Landcut. Preparation is key when wade fishing. I will start with what I think is one of the most important aspects

of your trip. Wading apparel is very important when fishing out of the boat and I don’t cut corners when se-lecting it. A good set of waders and wading jacket is a must when bailing over the side of your boat. After all, how can you concentrate on your fishing if you’re cold, wet and not confortable. I prefer Simms wading gear simply because they are the best. Staying dry is key to staying warm so avoid the bargain bins for these items. A good working rod and reel is just as important as your apparel. Having problem with your reel early in the morning can sure be frustrating when your buddies are hooked up beside you. I recommend spooling your reels with 30# braid and using a 30# fluorocarbon leader for fishing the rocks in Baffin Bay. A good pair of polar-ized sunglasses is a must for seeing on the water. Most anglers have these already, but if you don’t, invest in a quality pair instead of the Bill Dance economy ones. And finally, don’t forget about your feet. There is a wide selection of wading boots available on the market. Make sure you size them accordingly to fit over waders or neoprene socks. As I prepare my wade box for the day, I make sure I have all the bases covered. Winter fishing requires a slower presentation and a smaller offering. Top Pups and Spook Jr’s are at the top of the list. Your favorite soft plastic should be readily available with either a 1/16 oz or 1/8 oz jig head. Another bait that I always carry and is the one that gets the most press is the original Corky and Corky Fat Boy. These hard to come by baits are top producers of trophy trout during winter months. Other lures I add to the arsenal are the Mirr-O-lure Pro-MirrO-dine. These are proven favorites of mine and I seldom leave the boat with out them. Fall marks the start of a new fishing season with fewer boats on the water and less pressure in your favor-ite fish spots. Come down and enjoy the cooler weather and some of the best fishing Texas has to offer. To schedule your next bay fishing trip give Capt. Steve Schultz a call at 361-813-3716 or 361-334-3105 or e-mail him at [email protected]. Good luck and Good Fishing.


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This summer, Mark Neville, principal of Villa Park Architecture, took a mo-

torcycle trip through Colorado on the Colorado Backroads Discovery Route (COBDR). He and riding partner, Chris Christofferson, SMS (Safety Manage-ment Systems), went over nine mountain passes and did some camping and fish-ing along their journey. –mh

Riding to new

heights

Ken Milam’s Fishing LineSince 1981, Ken Milam has been guiding fishing trips for striped bass on Lake Buchanan in the Texas Hill Country,. You can hear Ken on radio on Saturday and Sunday mornings, 6-8

AM on AM 1300, The Zone – Austin, or http://www.am1300the zone.com

I know you are awfully busy with work and family and now it’s getting to be hunting season, but you need to pay

attention to this proposed amendment to the Texas Constitution. We need to protect our right to hunt and fish in Texas from outside pressure from the Federal government or anyone else to restrict or remove our current privileges. Don’t just take my word for it. Check it out for yourself. A good place to start for just the facts is: http://ballotpedia.org/Texas_Right_to_Hunt,_Fish_and_Harvest_Amendment,_Proposition_6_(2015) I always encourage people to get outside and bring their kids out to hunt or fish or camp and hike. We have an ob-ligation to pass our love for the outdoors down to our young people. Already we have seen a decrease in people enjoying our state and national park resources. Fewer and fewer hunting and fishing li-censes are being sold to people under the age of 40. Without the revenue gen-erated by our participation, access to the great outdoors will dwindle. Outdoor

equipment retailers are concerned with this trend too. The worst part of this is the decline in the number of people who

understand the importance of outdoor life to our own health, happiness and well-being. That is why this state consti-tutional amendment is so important. We have finally come to a time when the people who are coming to power in our

Protect our right to hunt and fish in

Texas! Vote “yes” forProposition 6 on

November 3

society and our government may not have enough of a connection to the out-doors to understand the impact of the changes they want to implement. Our existence and the very heritage of our county have been built upon our ability to procure food for our families and pass the knowledge of hunting and fishing down to the next generation. In more recent times it has been the effort and money spent by sportsmen that have paved the way for research and con-servation of the fish, animals and habitat we so cherish. We understand important role we must play to preserve the bounty we have been given, and harvesting game is an important and necessary tool to prevent overpopulation and disease in animals as well as providing our families with a safe, healthy alternative to pro-cessed meats, (and it tastes better too). When you get right down to it, I hate to think what would happen to our peo-ple if the lights go out a couple of genera-tions down the line from losing our right and opportunity to hunt and fish. If for no other reason, the knowledge of how to sustain ourselves and the right to do it should be protected. Please make the effort to go and vote on this very important issue! So of-ten we tend to overlook things like amendments in the grand scheme of things. Then further down the line we find where something has become law that we don’t approve of – simply be-cause we didn’t take the time to vote and a bunch of busy bodies did vote it in. Vote for Proposition 6 in the Nov. 3, 2015 election and let your voice be heard!

‘40s fishing family


One wild summer

Mike McGinnis, controller and di-

rector of purchasing and inventory control for Al-len & Allen Company, took his family on quite an adventure this sum-mer. McGinnis, his wife, Lisa, and their sons, Wy-att, 14; Dylan, 12; Tyler, 9; and Ryder, 6, went to Yellowstone National Park, Big Sky and Jack-son Hole. Along the way, they saw Old Faithful, the famous geyser in Yellowstone, and lots of wildlife, including bear cubs and elk. –mh

Quail comes back into town

McGinnis and his boys, L-R: Tyler, Ryder, Wyatt and Dylan, in front of the Sapphire Pool at Yellowstone National Park

The McGinnis family, front and center, conquered these white water rapids in Jackson Hole, WY

Sunset at the Big EZ Lodge in Big Sky, MT L-R: Tyler, Lisa, Ryder, Dylan, Wyatt and Mike McGinnis

On the hunt in HondoSubmitted to Construction News

Craig Noto (not pictured) and Bruce Johnston (left), president and vice president respectively, Quality Fence & Welding, took Billy Mayes (right), owner of Drive-In

Truck Salvage, on a dove hunt at Paloma Pachanga in Hondo. –mh

The Quail Coalition San Antonio Chapter hosted its annual conserva-tion banquet Aug. 27 at Alzafar

Shrine. With approximately 450 guests, the event moved to the Alzafar Shrine from the Leon Springs Dance Hall, where it has been held the last several years but was outgrowing the space. This year, they were able to welcome about 100 more attendees at the new location. –mh

Hill Country Bridge L-R: Butch Leist,Bill Alexander, Jerry Godwin, Boyd Mulkey,

Tim Lucas

L-R: John Sandstrom and Sean Murray, Future Concrete Structures; Robbin Bostick, San

Antonio Masonry & Tool Supply

L-R: Josh Aljoe, Urban Concrete; Tom Lindell, Jason Harmonand Joseph Daniel, Metropolitan Contracting

Ella S.A. Contracting L-R: Bobby Flores, Hector Casarez, Robert Mason,Julian Garcia, Juan Aguero

Serving San Antonio & South Texas since 1984

Specializing inMachine Laid Curb

23306 Blanco RoadSan Antonio, Tx 78260

Email: [email protected]


Where the wind blowsSubmitted to Construction News

L-R Tino Longoria, president of Tino's Welding & Fabrication; Bexar County Commissioner S. “Chico” Rodriguez, Pct. 1, congratulating the team on the Speed

Loading Shoot-Out portion of the day; Kristi Villanueva, deputy program manager at HJD Capital Electric; and Terry Page operations manager for South Texas/Louisiana for

Jacobs Engineering, and colleagues gathered for a fun and relaxing day of skeet and trap in preparation for the start of dove season. –mh

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Success to call his own

Starting his own firm was always a goal for architect Mark Neville. Last year, his firm, Villa Park Architects,

celebrated its 15th anniversary, and the dream has proven to be as positive and rewarding an experience as he had hoped. “I graduated from UT at Arlington during a time of rather bleak economic growth,” recalls Neville. “We were doing a lot of interior finish outs, and so I began to realize that when economic growth comes to a slow down, more interior fin-ish out work is done.” He kept this in mind when building Villa Park, dedicating a portion of the firm to interior finish out. Today, Ashley Voss, who does architectural interiors and is an interior designer, runs a majority of the firm’s interior finish outs. “In the economic slowdown of 2007, ’08 and ‘09, it was very much a benefit for our firm,” he notes. “It kept us busy, kept

us still growing and strong. We are glad that we have ventured into the interior architecture and interior design arena to complement our architectural experi-ence.” Before starting Villa Park, Neville worked for a firm in Dallas doing ware-houses and retail centers. Then, a firm gave him the opportunity to return to San Antonio, where he was born and raised. Eventually, he decided the way to achieve his goals in life was to be self-employed. With his own firm, Neville has done warehouses, shopping centers, office buildings and interior finish outs for those buildings for a variety of tenants. Villa Park also does master planning for large, multi-tenant mixed-use facilities. This summer, Neville took his first two-week vacation since starting the firm. At 55, he has three grown children, Taylor, Kassidy and James. His wife, Kim-berly, is a science teacher for NEISD. Villa Park Architects is a full-service professional design firm that is exclusively commercial and does architecture, plan-ning and interiors. –mh

The Villa Park team at the office on West Bitters Road

in CONSTRUCTION NEWSis the

Send your Stories and Photosto your city editor

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Who can make a structure out of cans of food that will be do-nated to the San Antonio Food Bank? The answer is partici-pants in the American Institute of Architects (AIA) San Anto-

nio Chapter’s Canstruction event, which kicked off with a Can Opener reception Sep. 14. The 13 structures were on display at North Star Mall through Sep. 26. –mh

Structural Ingenuity:“Grab Hunger by the Horns”

Overland Partners - 2,500 cans

Best Meal: “The End of Hunger: Anything’s Popsicle” Marmon Mok Architecture

2,925 cans

Best Use of Labels: “Abraham LinCAN”Beaty Palmer Architects

2,465 cans

Juror’s Favorite: “JAWS Takes a Bite out of Hunger”Mdn Architects - 6,000 cans

Honorable Mention: “MexiCANa”Alamo Architects/Turner Construction - 2,416

Best Use of Orange: “Big Hero 4 Hunger, Are you satisfied with your can?”PBK/Kimley Horn - 4,000 cans

“Hunger…it’s not a game” LPA/Joeris - 3,500 cans

“Make a “Point” to Defend the Hungry!”Ford, Powell & Carson/Cleary

Zimmermann/Pugh Construction1,555 cans

“Hunger is unBEARable”Open Studio Architecture/DBR Engineering

3,612 cans


Primed to take their shot

The Hispanic Contractors Association (HCA) de San Antonio hosted its first ever shoot event, the Paloma

Primer, Aug. 21 at the San Antonio Gun Club. The inaugural event drew 65 regis-tered shooters, and Matthew Walters-dorf, CMC Construction, won the shot gun raffle. –mh

Winners:1st: All-Tex – Pito Garcia, Bob Walsh, Brent Tomes, Justin Garcia, Allen Odell2nd: SpawGlass – Dustin Cox, Rex Cody, Ross Wood, Rod Dzierzanoski, Clint Ull-man, Boddy Miller.Most Room for Improvement: Jonathan Dietzel, DES

1st Place Winning Team

Tom Quintero and Erika Yates, IBTX

Lynwood Building Materials L-R: Jason Emerson, Kevin Brown, Carl Schumann,Chris Christians, Ben Noriega

L-R: Erika Yates, IBTX; Patty Cardenas and Miriam Urrabazo, HCA; Edward Pape, Vaquero Group; Nathan Estrada, The Cromeens Law Firm; Jesse Torres, CPS; Estela Garcia-Perez, Fairway Landscape & Nursery; Rafael Llera, Shorm Consulting; Dave Sanchez, executive

director of HCA de SA; Shelly Woitena, Padgett Stratemann

L-R: Chris Camacho, apprentice for JRO Electrical Services, and Homer Gonzales, project manager for general contractor CS&S Construction, were renovating a

building along NW Military Highway in Castle Hills. It is the site of the new SuperTop Convenience Store, an Asian convenience store. –mh

Top of the hillsConstruction News JOB SIGHT

Greetings at the doorConstruction News ON LOCATION

L-R: Ralph Betancourt and Gary Penshorn work counter sales at Architectural Division 8, where they have access controls, hardware and hardware finishes displayed. –mh


An evolutionary journey

210-587-7634www.GPSofTexas.com

The Associated General Contractors (AGC) and American Institute of Architects (AIA) San Antonio chapters hosted their Joint Membership Luncheon at the Bright Shawl Aug. 24

with 192 attendees. L-R: Steven Jones; Nicki Marrone, AIA chapter president; Clark Davis; and Kristian Pearson, AGC chapter president –mh

Photo by Mary C. Haskin Photography

Two chapters mixSubmitted to Construction News

Subs aim for success

The American Subcontractors Asso-ciation (ASA) San Antonio Chapter hosted its Sporting Clay Shoot Aug.

20 at the National Shooting Complex with 161 shooters participating. –mh

Photos by Mary C. Haskin Photography

AA Division1st: Doug Mercer2nd: Bryan Boehme3rd: Marty AdamsA Division1st: Chris Eyhorn2nd: Chip Goode3rd: Kane WellsB Division:1st: Wes Hayes2nd: Chris Delgado3rd: Tom WrightC Division:1st: Jeremy Jones2nd: Barry Moltz3rd: Greg BealLeading Lady: Michelle Seward DavisTop Team: RC Page – Rug Ferguson, Perry George, Steven Mafridge, Jody Johnson, Marty AdamsThe “Clays Got Away” Award:Celeste Estep, Keller Martin GC

Top Team

1st Place, B Division

Leading Lady

The 20th anniversary of VP&R Con-struction marks two decades of the company’s continuous evolution

and growth, having come a long way from where it originally started. Established in 1995 by Vinnie Gon-zales as Vinnie’s Painting & Remodel-ing, the owner started out doing repairs and remodeling work after serving four years in the Navy on the construction side. He started with drywall and paint-ing. Soon, he got into insurance work. When his company ventured into construction, Gonzales rebranded under VP&R Construction. He remembers the crossover into commercial about 10 years ago as a struggle, but a necessary transi-tion as residential work became nearly nonexistent. Today, as a smaller general contrac-tor, VP&R is in the city’s mentor-protégé program with Davila Construction. Gon-zales estimates that 20 percent of his

commercial work is with Davila, including projects such as the Central Library and several of the other libraries in town, and painting all of the police substations. VP&R has also done work with Guido Construction, including the restorations of Mission Concepcion and Mission San Jose. One project Gonzales is particularly proud of is painting the ceiling of the Alamo. The VP&R team consists of around 18 to 20 full-time employees. A few key team members are Raymond Reyna, superin-tendent; Liz Janowski, who does all the clerical; and Scot Rower, who does all the project management. At 47, Gonzales works out in the field and doesn’t have time to do much of any-thing outside of work, except the occa-sional fishing trip to the coast. VP&R is a general contractor and sub-contractor. The company is focused on com-mercial work with residential accounting for about 10 percent of its total workload. –mh

L-R: Scot Rower, Liz Janowski and Vinnie Gonzales, along with Raymond Reyna (not pictured), are key to the operational success of VP&R Construction.


continued from Page 1 — From father to son

continued from Page 1 — A captain of industrial

continued from Page 1 — Delivering a clean slate

We provide a full line of rock, masonry, stuccoand foundation materials along with mixers,

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We do custom rebar fabrication for alltypes of projects, including shop drawings.

other things to do. He didn’t retire from business; he just retired from the electri-cal business.” Today, Villarreal runs things differ-ently than when his father ran the busi-ness. His father built a strong reputation in the multi-family industry, doing elec-trical and air conditioning for a lot of large apartment projects in town. Toward the mid-‘80s, the company started shift-ing more toward commercial work, and the younger Villarreal gravitated toward it, too. His first big project was a perfume factory in Pleasanton. Early projects in-cluded grocery store renovations, and then grew more on the retail side with shopping centers, retail stores, shell

buildings, and medical offices. There are two areas Villarreal aims to increase going forward. Though JV hasn’t done multi-family in years, he thinks the company may reconnect with that mar-ket in the future. Mostly, he hopes to ex-pand into the service business, which his father moved away from for project work when starting his own company. Outside of the business, Villarreal en-joys winemaking. This season, he is excit-ed to have found some Texas grapes, typically bought up by Texas wineries, for the first time in years. JV Electric does commercial electrical projects with the majority of its work in re-tail, dental and medical. –mh

A unique example of their work is the Suncor Dover facility in Alberta, Canada. They were hired to demobilize and stabi-lize the underground mine. Properly tak-ing it down entailed re-commissioning it after 15 years of disuse, and then filling it in with concrete, all the while dealing with underground conditions and tem-peratures near 70 below Fahrenheit. With two of the original founders of Haven for Hope encouraging him, Ober embarked on a charitable enterprise ear-lier this year, starting the De Novo Foun-dation of San Antonio. The foundation helps people coming out of Haven for Hope’s programs transition into self-sus-tainment by adopting their cause and helping them financially.

“They need a lot more help than graduating from a program that got them stabilized,” he says. “We sometimes can fill in those gaps.” Also an avid car collector, Ober gives financial support to and is involved with Ferrari Kid, a group of Ferrari owners that give kids with cancer and other illnesses a ride in a Ferrari that will make them feel like a celebrity, offering a special memory during a difficult time. Headquartered in San Antonio with an office in Monterrey, Mexico, Robert Ober & Associates does industrial design build proj-ects across North America and has approxi-mately 200 employees. –mh

height of the parapet wall, making it look a lot taller from the street. Adding to the front canopy gave it more visibility and better coverage from the elements. They tried to keep the sun out as much as pos-sible to increase the energy efficiency since the space has a lot of storefront glass. They also tinted the glass on the UPS side to help keep the interior a little cooler. The exterior appeared dingy and dated, but the changes and exterior ren-ovation gave the building a more mod-ern look. The team painted the brick, and on the new canopy, they used EIFS, exte-rior insulation finishing system. The stuc-co-like material gave it a clean, fresh look and was also painted. On the building exterior, they used a light beige, a darker beige and a red border to make every-thing pop. Other work included resurfacing and restriping the parking lot, and to meet ADA compliance and current code, they installed a handicap ramp and railing. They also did the service on the electrical side with CPS Energy, since, Garcia says, anytime service is moved from one spot to another, work has to be scheduled with CPS. The weather presented the greatest challenge to the build, creating signifi-cant rain delays. They couldn’t start the demolition of the canopy when thunder-storms were rolling in, and even though most of the work was on the inside, the threat of water getting in and causing complications was still a big concern. Garcia notes that owner, Casa Bunch LLC, was very easy to work with, making the process very seamless and staying open to making changes here and there as needed. This was Rhino’s first time working with the City of Windcrest. Garcia ob-serves that the process is very similar to other municipalities he has worked with

before and that it was a positive experi-ence. The architect on the job was Nor-man Cates, and Garcia credits him with helping to take this old building and give it new life. Subcontractors included Ap-proved Electric, Airtech for the HVAC, Miranda Plumbing, TNC Services for the framing and Rick the Roofer. Founded in 2004, Rhino Design Build is a full-service general contractor that does commercial work including retail, tenant finish out and interior remodeling. Com-mercial accounts for approximately 30 per-cent of its workload. –mh

The interior demolition of the space allowed Rhino to create a white box for UPS to do the tenant finish out for its new store on Walzem.

www.constructionnews.net

The Sundt Foundation, the charitable arm of Sundt Construction, donated more than $5,000 to two local nonprofit organizations, ChildSafe and Junior Achievement

of South Texas. Employee donations were matched dollar for dollar by Sundt. L-R: Alexis Marshall, Sundt; Kim Abernethy, ChildSafe president and CEO; Maliha Imami,

ChildSafe director of development; Todd Calder, Sundt –mh

Securing the future for kidsSubmitted to Construction News

Past editions can bedownloaded at

www.ConstructionNews.net

Did youknow?


Specialty Contractors

HOWELL CRANE& RIGGING, INC.

AUDIE HOWELLPresident

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24-HOUR SERVICECRANES 15 TO 500 TON

P.O. BOX 200576SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS 78220

The pre-school-year crunch

Mark Eichelbaum, Vice President and COOCram RoofingSan Antonio, TX

During the summer, school work keeps the construction industry busy. As

soon as kids get out for the summer in early June, contractors move in, and as soon as kids go back in late August, con-tractors have to finish and clear out. Mark Eichelbaum, Cram Roofing, says that it takes coordination and the ef-forts of the team to get jobs done before the kids come back for the new academic year. He adds that parents and teachers, and sometimes even owners, might not realize what goes into making the school beautiful for when they get back. If there is still minor work to be done, some only see that the roof isn’t done and the impression can be that the con-tractors had all summer to do it. “A lot of the time, we’ll be substan-tially complete – in other words, the roof is on and there may be some details still to be done or punch list items to be done,” explains Eichelbaum. “Those we can still do after the kids are back, but we have to work around the school sched-ule. So, we may not be able to start until 4 o’clock in the afternoon after kids have

gone home for the day. It requires a lot more coordination.” He also points out that there is a lot of steps and juggling that goes on during the summer reroofing season. The sum-mertime construction period is generally about 10 weeks. On the small side, some projects in that period might be repair projects around $5,000 to $10,000, or they are hired to do the flashing for a new AC unit. Such a project might require a crew of two to three guys for two to three days. On the larger end of the scale, they might be reroofing an entire wing of a school, which might be 300,000sf of roof-ing. Those projects might require a crew of about eight guys working six days a week for nine weeks. The various projects over the course of just 10 weeks can run everywhere in between those two extremes. On aver-age, Eichelbaum says their reroofing projects have a crew of six to eight guys, depending on the job, and it might be 15,000 to 20,000sf of roofing surface that is being re-covered. Those projects might take about

four to five weeks, but they might also begin the project with the idea that it will be done by the end of June and then they will move on to the next one. How-ever, if it rains – which it did to an unusual degree this June – that can push the en-tire schedule back. Sometimes, the general contractor might not be ready for the roofers to come in and do their work. In that case, they might not be ready on one building and have the roofer work on another building first, but that other building might require a different crew. “It’s a lot of moving pieces, and the general public may not necessarily real-ize that,” he says. “There are all types of different roofing systems, and we inter-nally have different crews for the differ-ent kinds of roofs that specialize in those areas. The general public may just say, ‘I just need a roof.’ But it’s a metal roof, and we want to send you our metal roofer. If it’s a singly-ply roof, we want to send you our single-ply roofer. “If it’s through a general contractor and you throw in all the other specialty trades – well, we can’t flash an AC unit un-til the AC unit has been put in place by the HVAC contractor, and if the HVAC contractor gets pushed because of weather or one of their other projects or the materials haven’t been approved yet – they go through the same process [with submittals] that we do – that can affect our piece of the puzzle.” Delays can also happen regardless of months of advanced planning. When Cram is working directly for the school district, they bid on those projects in Jan-uary or February, even though they can’t

start until June. Knowing the job is coming up, they do all their preparatory work in the spring-time. A lot of times, the clients specify what type of roof they want, and Cram finds out what color the principal or dis-trict representative wants and other minor details. The submittal package goes to a consultant or the clients’ architect or de-sign professional for approval. Once ap-proved, Cram can order the materials. Sometimes, however, Eichelbaum notes that June comes and they cannot begin, despite being ahead of the game. As examples of reasons why, he says they might not be able to start fabricating the metal because the client hasn’t chosen a color, or they haven’t received their ap-proved submittals so they do not know what to order. With all of these issues factoring into a two-and-a-half month work schedule, Cram might only have two or three proj-ects in a summer, but this summer, Eichelbaum explains it was triple that many projects. With a very wet June to contend with, the trademark South Texas heat, and all of the aforementioned problems that may arise, Eichelbaum says their an-swer is to put in that much more over-time or manpower to meet the deadlines for completion. Cram Roofing was established in 1986 by Gary Cram, who is still owner and presi-dent of the company today. Having recently celebrated his 13th year with the company, Mark Eichelbaum is vice president and COO. The roofing contractor does commer-cial and governmental work. –mh

Regular session of the 84th Texas Legislature

Mike WhiteTexas Construction AssociationAustin, TX

The 84th Texas Legislature completed its Regular Session on June 1, 2015.

The Texas construction industry will ben-efit from the passage of the following bills:

Consolidated Insurance Programs (CIPs) – SB 1081 Effective Jan. 1, 2016, principals of a CIP will be required to provide certain in-formation about the CIP to a contractor who is to be enrolled in the CIP not later than 10 days before the date the contrac-tor enters into a construction contract. This information will allow the contractor to compare the coverage provided by the CIP to the contractor’s own insurance and will allow the contractor to make an informed decision on whether to enter into the construction contract. In addi-tion, a contractor may request in writing from the principal a complete copy of the insurance policy that provides coverage under the CIP.

State Budget - HB 1 The state budget for the biennium beginning Sept. 1, 2015 appropriated just under $1 billion for construction of new state buildings. In addition, approxi-

mately $630 million was appropriated for deferred maintenance projects at state facilities. This became effective Sept. 1, 2015.

Higher Education Revenue Bonds - HB 100 This bill authorizes certain higher education institutions across the state to issue $3.1 billion in revenue bonds to fund 64 construction projects over the next two years. This became effective Sept. 1, 2015.

Pre-Litigation Requirements for Con-do Owners’ Associations in Defect Cases- HB 1455 This new law restricts condominium unit owners’ associations in condomini-ums that have eight or more units from filing lawsuits or initiating arbitration proceedings to resolve a claim relating to the construction or design of a unit on behalf of all of the owners unless they first obtain an inspection and written in-dependent, third-party report that iden-tifies and describes the condition of the specific units or common elements that are subject to the claim and obtain ap-proval from unit owners holding more than 50 percent of the total votes in the

association at a regular, annual or special meeting. This law became effective Sept. 1, 2015.

Public-Private Partnerships - HB 2475 In 2011, legislation was passed that established a process for governmental entities to contract with private entities to construct, finance, and operate a vari-ety of facilities, including ports, pipelines, parking garages, hospitals, schools, and other public works projects. State high-ways were not included. Performance and payment bonds are required to be in place before the start of any public-pri-vate partnership project. The new law establishes a center for alternative finance and procurement within the Texas Facilities Commission to consult with governmental entities re-garding best practices for procurement and financing of qualifying public-private partnership projects and to assist gov-ernmental entities in the receipt of pro-posals, negotiation of interim and com-prehensive agreements, and manage-ment of qualifying public-private part-nership projects. The creation of the center is intend-ed to increase the use of public-private partnerships by Texas governmental en-tities. This law became effective Sept. 1, 2015.

Construction Manager-At-Risk Used by a Governmental Entity - HB 2634 This measure amends the Govern-ment Code to remove the exception to a prohibition against a governmental enti-ty’s project architect or engineer serving,

alone or in combination with another person, as the construction manager-at-risk. The new law is intended to eliminate conflicts of interest in certain govern-mental construction contracting. This law became effective Sept. 1, 2015. Mike White, vice president of govern-mental affairs, is a graduate of Texas A&M University and received a law degree from the University of Houston. White came to TCA in 2010 with thirty years of diversified responsibilities in governmental and public affairs arenas for two major multi-national corporations, a public agency, and a busi-ness organization. –cw


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Wage hikes, start-upsaffect business

Jared Moala, Partner Pacific Environmental Group LLCDallas, TX

Has your company experienced an increase in business or a slow-

down? We’ve definitely experienced an in-crease, especially in asbestos abatement. We’ve been getting a lot more calls from general contractors that are working on municipal projects that need abatement. To be honest, we’ve had to hire more of-fice and field personnel to handle the in-crease in the workload. I don’t know that we’ve done anything different; we’ve just expanded, hiring more people to handle more projects. Many companies in the industry are challenged by a shortage of qualified labor. Has that been true for your company as well? Yes, especially this past summer. The biggest abatement project to ever go on in D/FW is D/FW Airport, which they’ve been doing for the past few years. There were about 300 abatement workers out there. There is a huge shortage of abate-ment workers, so companies have start-

ed to work with each other in sharing the labor pools. I’ve been doing this for 12 years, and actually have gotten to know competitors much better this year than ever before. We had to share the labor pool back and forth and also subcontract with oth-er companies when things got so heavy over the summer. Summer is the time when all of the kids get out of school and all of the school districts do their abate-ment. You have millions of dollars of abatement over the summer going on in D/FW just for the school districts, and they really don’t do any abatement at all during the school year. It was a tight time because we had that summer rush which happens every year but we had it on top of the population boom that we’re expe-riencing that’s causing all of the con-struction in the area.

Are there any major changes in your industry related to what you do? There haven’t been any recent major changes related to my industry in D/FW,

but there is concern that abatement su-pervisors are leaving companies and starting their own companies, but the quality of work is just not there. There has been an explosion in abatement compa-nies in D/FW. There were maybe a hand-ful of companies that everyone knew about a few years ago, but now there are so many start-up companies. The most frustrating part is when they are called out to a bid; they really low-ball it in their hunger to get work. The funny thing is, there is still the same core group of com-panies that are doing all of the reputable work – the school districts, the city work, the general contractors – and then you have 30 new abatement companies that no one has heard of. We have been get-ting a lot of calls to come in and “clean up” these new companies’ messes; it’s very common now, whereas 10 years ago you just didn’t see that. I’ve been doing this for 12 years, my brother John has been doing it for 16 and our Dad, William Moala, was one of the pioneers in abate-ment 30 years ago. This has been the big-gest change I’ve seen lately.

Have you noticed any cost increases related to what you do? Yes, the cost in labor has significantly increased because of simple supply and

demand. Because the labor pool is so tight, these guys demand a premium. For the past decade, abatement workers have made about $12 an hour, which was the standard. I’d say the standard now is about $15 an hour, but that just jumped in the last year or two. In the summer-time, that goes up to about $20 an hour. It’s significant when you have 20 guys working a job for a month; it’s a huge cost increase not just for us but for the cli-ent as well.

How have you been meeting this chal-lenge? Profit margins have definitely be-come smaller across the board, which is common in any industry following an in-crease in competition. Some of the in-creased labor cost is absorbed by the contractor because they have to stay as competitive as possible on bids. But ulti-mately, when everyone has to pay that upcharge in labor costs, it has to be fac-tored into bids and the buyer ends up paying for it as well. Pacific Environmental offers asbestos abatement and testing, mold remediation and testing, lead-based paint (LPB) abate-ment, flood response and demolition ser-vices. –mjm

What do you do on a daily basis at Las-co Acoustics & Drywall? I am the safety director at the Austin office but I also travel to work in Dallas and San Antonio. I train our guys on how to work safe on a daily basis and I provide bilingual training because I can speak both Eng-lish and Spanish. I oversee projects and I make sure the crew have what they need to com-plete the job.

What is your perspective about the lo-cal construction industry? I think things are still booming. There are lots of construction projects going up in Austin and around the state. The economy is still doing well this year.

Safety first priority at Lasco

Juan Mendoza, Safety DirectorLasco Acoustics & Drywall Inc. Austin, TX

What are a few challenges you have seen in your industry lately? The biggest challenge I have seen is finding qualified workers to get the job done. The wages for construction workers have increased because there is not a lot of man power. We have very competitive wages. It is not just us, other companies in the area do, too. Laborers have various backgrounds and have experience working in land-scaping, cleaning companies and other construction related businesses. We have programs where we teach our employees how to install drywall cor-rectly. Training is essential.

Most of the training we do is in-house; however, sometimes when we are required to have a specific training on specific equipment, we call the providers and have them do the training for us.

In your opinion, what are ways to at-tract new laborers into the construc-tion industry? We have placed ads in newspapers and we announce job openings within our company. We also have employees refer us to their friends and family members who may want to work at the company. What is rewarding about your job? I have worked in this industry for al-most 20 years. This is what I know. I start-ed out working in the field with my tools. I worked my way up over the past 15 years I have worked at Lasco Acoustics & Drywall. My favorite part of the job is training new employees and keeping our em-ployees safe. At the end of the day, when I see the

workers are going home the same way they left in the morning, it is rewarding to know that they are going to go back to their families and see their children. That is my biggest joy.

What do you think is on the horizon for your industry? I think things will keep booming for a few more years. The construction industry is cyclical, so eventually in about three or four years we won’t have as much work as we do right now. I think things may be steady for a while and things might go down a little bit. We might be building enough homes and buildings right now but even-tually the rise in the population will de-mand us to build more.Lasco Acoustics & Drywall Inc. provides dry-wall, acoustics and plastering in the com-mercial construction industry. The compa-ny has a corporate office in Dallas and also has offices in Austin and San Antonio. –ab


They saw everything!Construction News ON LOCATION

Well, not everything – granite, really – but they could probably saw anything with this behemoth! L-R: Jimmy Stanton, Paul Waterhouse and Ernest Marcelle were working in the shop at Bellezza Granite Co. where large industrial saws are part of

the everyday work environment. –mh

Associated Buildersand Contractors, Inc.

South Texas ChapterThe Foundation of Construction

in South Texasand

Your Pathto the Future!

Let Us Work For You!

814 Arion Parkway, Ste. 204San Antonio, TX 78216

(210) 342-1994 f. (210) 342-5385www.abcsouthtexas.org

A team of Stantec’s San Antonio employees joined Habitat for Humanity of San Antonio to help build roofs for two new homes for needy families. The volunteer effort was part

of the design firm’s third annual day of companywide community service. –mh

Putting a roof over a habitatSubmitted to Construction News

In last month’s issue,Zach Hayes Baker,

an installer forSolar Electric Texas,

was mistakenly identified as Zach Hayes Taylor. –mh

Correction

Publishing the Industry’s News . . .

TEXAS StyleHome Office

(210) 308-5800www.constructionnews.net

Dallas/Fort Worth

Austin

HoustonSan AntonioSouth Texas

H Location H Location H Location H Location H Location


Round-Up Association CalendarContent submitted by Associations to Construction News

ABCAssociated Builders & Contractors

Oct. 9-10th: 3rd Annual Fishing Tournament, Rockport; for more information, email Ruby Trejo at ruby@

abcsouthtexas.org

AGCAssociated General Contractors

All events are held at the IEC office un-less otherwise stated.Oct. 1: Mandatory Cook’s meeting, Helotes Fairgrounds, 1pmOct. 6: STP Unit 2: Oral & Written Com-munication, Class 2; 1-5:30pmOct. 10: Safety Fair and Barbecue Cook-Off XXII; Helotes Fairgrounds, 12210 Les-lie Rd.; 10am-4pm; fun for the family with face painting, petting zoo, magician, cari-cature artist, and clowns; $9 per ticket in advance, $200 for a picnic pack of 25 tick-ets, $10 per ticket at the gate, free for kids 12 and under; for more information or tickets, call 210-349-4921Oct. 13: STP Unit 2: Oral & Written Com-munication, Class 3; 1-5:30pmOct. 16: Technology ExpoOct. 20: STP Unit 2: Oral & Written Com-munication, Class 4; 1-5:30pmOct. 22-23: PMDP Module 4: Risk Man-agement, 7:30am-5pmOct. 27: STP Unit 2: Oral & Written Com-munication, Class 5; 1-5:30pm

AIAAmerican Institute of Architects

Oct. 8: Committee on the Environment Cinema; outdoor theater event for the public; Travis Park, 301 E. Travis St.Oct. 14: Andres Jaque Lecture, UTSA Downtown, a Latinos in Architecture His-panic Heritage Month eventOct. 16: Closing Reception for LiA Nexo Exhibit, Center for ArchitectureOct. 17: Annual Homes TourOct. 23: Leadership Institute Regional ProgramOct. 29: Design Awards Juror Lecture, Center for ArchitectureOct. 30: Awards Banquet Info, The DoseumFor more information on these events, visit www.aiasa.org

ASAAmerican Subcontractors Association

Oct. 15: Annual Golf Tournament, Silver-horn Golf Course, 8amOct. 20: Membership Mixer, ASA Office Parking Lot, 5:30pm

CFMAConstruction Financial Mgmt. Assn.

Oct. 27: Chapter Luncheon; Petroleum Club, 8620 N. New Braunfels; 11:30am-1pm; to RSVP, contact Stephanie at 210-828-6281, ext. 1575, or [email protected]

ECATEarth Moving Contractors of Texas

Oct. 10: Fall Board of Directors meeting; Hilton Garden Inn meeting room, 4449 Ridgemont Dr., Abilene; 3:30pm; all members are welcome to attend; anyone having business with the board can con-tact the executive secretary at 830-629-1620 or through www.earthmovingcon-tractors.com

GSABAGreater San Antonio Builders Assn.

Oct. 10-18: Parade of Homes at the Bluffs; preview party Oct. 9, 6-11pm, $85 per person; Parade of Homes tickets $13 per adult at the gate (cash only), $11 pre-sale at local Home Depot locations, $9 children ages 5-12 (no presale discount); for more info, call 210-696-3800, email [email protected], or visitsabuilders.com

HCA de San AntonioHispanic Contractors Association

Oct. 16: 16th Annual Golf Tournament; The Quarry Golf Club; benefits the HCA

de SA and the Alamo College Scholar-ship; for more information or to partici-pate/sponsor, contact Patty at 210-444-1100 or [email protected], or visit hcadesa.org

IECIndependent Electrical Contractors

All events are held at the IEC office un-less otherwise stated.Oct. 12: Continuing Education Class, 5-9pmOct. 17: Electrical Maintenance Techni-cian Class, 8am-5pm; Foreman Training Class, 8am-5pmOct. 20-24: IEC National Con 2015, Tam-pa, FLOct. 28: Journeyman/Master Prep Class begins, 5:30-9:30pmFor more info call 210-431-9861 or visitwww.iecsanantonio.com

MCA–SMACNAMechanical Contractors Association

Sheet Metal & A/C Nat’l Assn.

Oct. 7: Regular and Associates meeting; Oak Hills Country Club; 11:30am; speaker is Bethany Thompson, Gardner Law FirmOct. 14: Joint Labor/Management Meet-ing Plumbers, Pipefitters and Sheet Met-al; MCA-SMACNA office; 11amOct. 21: Joint Industry Fund meeting, Oak Hills Country Club, 11:30am

PHCC Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors

All events are held at the PHCC office unless otherwise stated.Oct. 3: 22nd Annual Fishing Tournament; Rockport; registration form at www.phcc-sanantonio.orgOct. 6: Training Session; 7-10am; speaker is Hugh Cunningham, AO Smith Com-mercial Water Heaters; to RSVP, email [email protected]. 8: Monthly meeting; SAWS, 2800 US Hwy 281 North; 11am-1pm; speaker is Mark Peterson; members $25, non-mem-bers $30, includes lunch; for more infor-mation, call Heidi Trimble at 210-824-7422Oct. 16: Training Session; 8am-5pm speaker is Ron Collier, flat-rate pricing class with TACCA; TACCA and PHCC mem-bers $275, non-members $325; for more information, call 210-901-4222 or email [email protected]. 22-23: Training Session; 8am-5pm; speaker is Kirk Alter, “Super Foreman Class”; members $450 for the first attend-ee, $395 for the second and each addi-tional attendee; non-members $550 per person; to register, call Alicia Dover at 800-992-7422

SAABESA Assn. of Building Engineers

Oct. 28: Luncheon; Embassy Suites, I-10 and Callaghan; 11:30am; cost for guests is $25 per person and they must RSVP to [email protected] no later than Oct. 26

SDASociety for Design Administration

Oct. 22: Monthly Chapter Luncheon; The Barn Door, 8400 North New Braunfels Ave.; noon-1pm; topic is Employee Medi-cal Benefits 2016/ACA Wizard; for more info email [email protected]

TACCATx Air Conditioning Contractors Assn.

Oct. 16: Workshop: Master Your Service Department: Managing Your Company’s Most Profitable Department with Ron Collier; Collier Consulting, PHCC San An-tonio 10103 Broadway; 8am-5pm; $275 for TACCA GSA and PHCC San Antonio members, $325 for non-members; for more info, contact Dawn Thompson at [email protected] or 210-901-4222, or visit TACCAGreaterSan-antonio.org

Round-UpSubmissions

This is a monthly section for brief company announcements of new or recently promoted personnel, free of

charge, as space allows. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Email (w/digital photo, if available)by the 15th of any month, for the

next month’s issue(published 1st of each month).

Email info to appropriate city issue, with “Round-Up” in the subject line:––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––San [email protected]@constructionnews.netDallas/Ft. [email protected]@constructionnews.netSouth [email protected]

Gasoline – On Road Diesel – Off Road DieselOn Site Fueling – Wet Hosing – Temporary Loaner Tanks

We Loan City Approved UL-2085 Vaulted Tanks

210-666-6002Brent & Mark Marshall

Edward J. Sanchez has joined Project Control as senior project manager. He is managing the Santikos Casa Blan-ca Theatre project at Alamo Ranch. He was previously with ABM Government Services at Lackland Air Force Base where he served as a special projects manager and performed medical and health care construction facilities management. He studied civil engineering at UTSA and earned his bachelor’s degree from Excel-sior College.

BESTConstruction Tool?

ADVERTISING inConstruction News

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While some people have dynas-ties that revolve around ducks, Robert Bowen jokes that the

dynasty he has now at 62 is gathered around tables, Texas Tables. After three decades doing a wide va-riety of work in construction, including framing, foundations and steel work, Bowen started his company about three years ago. He started designing picnic table frames as a hobby, making them out of steel, then turning to wood to be more cost effective. When he realized he wanted to spend more time home with his family, he set out to make his living making tables out of his shop at home in Medina Lake. As clients found him through his website and word of mouth, his business has picked up to the point where he has a couple of carpenters helping him. On aspects of the work such as sanding and sealing, he also gets help from his family, including daughters, Casey, Jessica and Raylynn and his son, Robert Bowen IV. He uses southern yellow pine and SPF (spruce, pine and fir) white wood to

Texas Tables go everywhere

make A-frame tables in adult, children and toddler sizes as well as slide-through wood-frame picnic tables among other types of tables. On finishing, he also uses a mildewcide additive in every coat on his tables. Bowen estimates that he can pro-duce a typical A-frame table in four or five hours. He has sold tables to the pub-lic as well as commercial restaurants, in-cluding Blanco BBQ, Over Bar & Grill and Baby Acapulco in Austin. His largest order to date was for the Jungle Queen River-boat Company in Fort Lauderdale, FL. “That was the only order outside of Texas,” recalls Bowen. “The client found me, flew out and came to my shop, and he ordered 55 ranch-style tables. It took about 30 days to make them. A lot of it was because of finishing. Then, we load-ed them up, drove them to Florida and put them together for him.” Texas Tables does made-to-order wood tables, including picnic tables, patio tables, ranch-style tables, benches and chairs. –mh

“The Floater” with a Texas party picnic table, has wheels for towingand can be driven into the water. - no trailer necessary.

Delivering to China (Sun)Construction News JOB SIGHT

On his fourth drop of the day, Montana Locklear, an 18-wheel operator for ABC Supply Co., dropped off materials for a roofing project that Bravo Roofing is working

on at the China Sun on Naco-Perrin Boulevard. –mh


LOOK WHAT’S HAPPENING!

THIS YEAR WE’RE BUILDING A VERY SPECIAL 16-FOOTENCLOSED BBQ TRAILER WITH LOTS OF GOODIES.

WE EVEN NAMED IT IN HONOR OF THE GALA THEME THIS YEAR.“It’s Construct a Kid’s Christmas, Charlie Brown”

“Get-It-Done”Committee MembersBuddy DoebblerMike McGinnisJon MarekTom HewittSandee MorganBruce JohnstonDesign Team:Carlos SalazarMarvin Ohlenbusch

We want to thank our donors for helping with this visionAffordable TrailersAlamo City Hydraulics Alamo Crane Service Inc.Alamo Stamp & EngravingAllen & Allen Co.Alterman Inc.Anthony’s Planet PickupBeth and John FelderComfort Air Engineering, Inc.Delta Steel, Inc.Don Young CompanyDumas Hardware Co.Fire Alarm Control Systems, Inc.James Doebbler, CPAJW Dielmann, Inc.KCM Cabinets Inc.Lynwood Building Materials

M & M MetalsM. Jacks Fire & Safety Equip. Co.One Day SignsPadgett StratemannPrimo PlumbingQuality Fence & WeldingReliance Steel & Aluminum CoRiver City Steel & RecyclingSheet Metal Workers Local 67Sherwin-Williams PaintSouthern American Insurance AgencyTexas Sheet Metal & S/S FabricatorsTraugott Inc Painting & DecoratingTriple-S SteelUnited Tool & Fastener Inc.Western States Fire Protection Co.Wilborn Steel, Ltd.

The winning raffl e ticket will be drawn at theConstruct A Kid’s Christmas Gala, December 3, 2015

Raffl e Tickets $100.00 each or 5 for $400.00

To purchase raffl e tickets contact:Karen Ridout: [email protected] Morgan: [email protected] Doebbler: [email protected] your participating association or committee member

MCA-SMACNA Raffl e for Construct A Kid’s Christmas

SNOOPY’S COOK SHACK RAFFLE

Bright Diamond tread plate exterior with ruby red paint accentsStainless steel interior wallsLaminate cabinetsCustom pit and fi reboxChrome wheelsHonda EU3000is inverter generator

Winegard Sat TV antenna roof mounted32-inch televisionKenwood DVD touchscreen receiverJL Audio ampJL Audio exterior marine speakersYamaha speakers insideLED lighting

3 fold down butcher block bar topsHot water on demandFire extinguishers110 @ 12 volt systemsToot your own air hornand more . . . .

FEATURES

You do not have tobe present to win


Want to be included in Construction News? Call or Email us!

There is no charge for stories or photos.

[email protected](210) 308-5800

The South Texas Division of Spaw-Glass hosted the general contrac-tor’s 11th annual fishing tourna-

ment Sep. 11-12 on South Padre Island. –mh

Redfish1st: Vance Sherrod, SpawGlass (7.40 lbs., 27-3/4")2nd: Roy Botard3rd: Ernie Ortiz

Trout1st: Alan Simon, Omnitrax (3.75 lbs., 24-1/4”)2nd: Chris Daniels3rd: Roger Mendoza

Flounder1st: Jeff Vermillion, United Rentals (3.10 lbs., 20-1/4")2nd: Joe Mendyk3rd: Joe Sanchez

South for fishing season

1st Place Redfish

1st Place Flounder

1st Place Trout

San Antonio Construction News October 2015

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Transcript of San Antonio Construction News October 2015