| With '09 revenues of $1.7 billion, Suffolk Construction's John Fish is working with the downturn to make his company more tech savvy, efficient, and sustainable. Fees are lower than ever, down 25 to 30% from a few years ago, but John says his firm is growing. | |
| We snapped John, Jeff Gouveia, Kim Steimle, and Mike Azarela plotting strategy for some new projects: Suffolk University's $28M Modern Theatre, the $151M Miami Science Museum, $75M parking garages for the Florida Marlins, a $35.5M Los Angeles middle school campus, and a $17M Dulles, Virginia office for Raytheon. John says that challenging economic times create opportunities to cement long-term relationships and raise performance levels to meet higher expectations. The weak economy will take down many contractors, but he's determined to be a survivor. So when competing for the Miami Museum Suffolk won last month, his team was prepared with a BIM-built proposal outlining the challenges, schedule, and estimated cost: ?We showed we understood.? | |
| As a Boston Fed board member, John looks at industry and macroeconomic trends. One point: Since 1964, efficiency in the overall economy has increased 224%, but in construction has fallen 20%. John says Suffolk can counter that by using tools like BIM t o estimate and schedule jobs much sooner than before and pre-fabricate components to save time, materials, and improve quality. Also, after 22 years with a CRE focus, Suffolk has jumped into more healthcare, sci/tech and education, ?pockets of opportunity nationwide.? Last fall, it acquired William A. Berry, a healthcare and sci/tech construction specialist, which upped Suffolk to 1,000 employees, compared to 800 just a few years ago. | |
| Suffolk isn't only fleet of foot in contracting, it helps field a tough team of Boston student athletes. Its charitable arm, the Red & Blue Foundation, sponsored the Boston Scholar Athlete program for Boston Public School students a week ago Saturday. At the event, 72 student athletes were honored for outstanding academic achievement. We snapped Boston Scholar Athlete staff: Kate Sheridan, Brian Morrissey, Bruce McKinnon, Katy Meade, Keir Evans, Alyssa Karam, and Evan Davis. |
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