NewsBreak! Articles > December 3, 2008

NEED MORE WORK? NC MILITARY CONSTRUCTION NEEDS YOU!

With construction slowing in the Carolinas, a possible avenue could be Army and Navy construction work in eastern North Carolina, where an estimated $5 billion will be spent at military installations over the next five years. The huge volume of work projected drew about 520 attendees on Nov. 19 at the 2008 NC Military Construction Summit, co-hosted by the NC Military Business Center and the NC Military Foundation, and sponsored by Carolinas AGC. Interestingly, an estimated 70 percent of the attendees, many looking to diversify their work, had not done such federal military work.

Participating in the Summit were over 40 construction and contracting officials from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Fort Bragg, Camp Lejeune, Cherry Point, Seymour Johnson AFB and the U.S. Coast Guard.  In addition, general and specialty contractors, design firms and construction suppliers participated in the Summit.

The Summit included presentations by Army and Navy construction agencies on their $5 billion program of work at military installations in North Carolina over the next five years. The Summit also included 18 breakout sessions on topics essential to winning and performing military construction contracts, “speed networking” among government agencies, prime and subcontractors and over 45 vendor booths. The NCMBC will work with CAGC to develop specific programs to help members leverage military construction opportunities.

Meantime, one breakout session involved CAGC members discussing military construction opportunities in eastern North Carolina. The 40-minute discussion, which drew about 60 attendees, was moderated by Raleigh attorney Bill Gammon of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP and included panelists Damon Jones of Daniels and Daniels, Carlos Norris of Crowder Construction and Dan Estes of Weaver Cooke Construction. Gammon, co-chair of the NC Bar Association-Construction Section/CAGC Joint Committee, focused on why the construction industry should enter the military-construction market now and in the future, noting that billions of dollars in construction money would be spent in eastern North Carolina in the next few years.

Damon Jones said the federal government is "a great client to work for. The money is always there and they only want what they told you they wanted from the beginning."

Carlos Norris recommended that, in doing military construction work, the construction industry must be flexible, patient, creative and resourceful in managing and the performing the work. Dan Estes said that while his firm had not yet landed a military construction job recently in North Carolina, it would continue bidding on work and follow-up in military debriefings on what steps should be taken in that regard.

Each of the speakers emphasized the need for partnering through joint ventures or other vehicles as a method of gaining the necessary experience to obtain and profit from government construction contracting. However, each expressed concerns about the fairness of the typical or existing partnering-type documents. Dave Simpson, NC building director for CAGC, noted that the ConsensusDOCS, developed by AGC of America and wide-ranging construction groups that are designed to be favorable to all parties in the construction job, might be an excellent vehicle to obtain such fair documents. 

For more information, on military work in eastern North Carolina, go to:

http://www.ncmbc.us/