Building Nevada - November 2005

Burke and Associates

Improving Nevada One Building at a Time

by Carol Patton

Kevin Burke hates to turn customers away. But sometimes, the president and chief executive officer at Burke and Associates does so to avoid his 21-year-old commercial general contracting firm from growing too big, too fast and too out-of-control.

"On some occasions, we cannot build a project," he said. "It’s difficult to say no to a client. But now more than ever, we have a very disciplined approach to our growth and [won’t] get ahead of ourselves."

The local builder, whose office is located near Desert Inn and Valley View roads, supports 55 employees and is currently managing about 15 projects under construction, such as the $35 million Las Ventanas Life Care Facility at Charleston and Town Center and the $28 million Avi Indian casino in Laughlin.

Despite the company’s controlled growth plan, Burke said its No. 1 challenge is staffing. While field employees are sometimes difficult to find, professional talent is even harder. Like other builders across the country, his company has been impacted by the shortage of skilled workers and spends a lot of effort recruiting qualified talent to fill positions like project manager, estimator, superintendent or project engineer.

The firm uses traditional recruiting methods, such as newspaper advertising, and partners with university placement centers. However, he said it can take up to five years before a new engineering college graduate actually impacts the firm’s bottom line. So it seeks experienced professionals from outside the state, mostly throughout the West and Southwest.

Still, Burke and Associates has managed to keep pace with developers’ demands by diversifying in the local marketplace instead of expanding across state borders. In the past, the company was mostly involved in building schools and other public sector projects. But this year and next, Burke said his company is focusing more on private sector projects so it can better respond to Nevada’s building boom.

For example, the firm is considering building a few low-rise condominiums with fewer than six stories, but will only participate if wrap insurance is involved, Burke said, in order to avoid class action lawsuits regarding construction defect litigation, which doesn’t apply to the commercial side of building.

But inflation has hit the industry hard. During the first and second quarters of 2004, for instance, he said that the price of some materials like rebar or reinforced steel soared by 350 percent. "We’re still seeing cost escalation, but not at the rampant pace that we were in 2004," Burke said, adding that prices have been more predictable this year.

By the end of this year, the company plans on becoming certified in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), in hopes of attracting new customers, said Tony Dazzio, senior vice president of business development and governmental affairs at Burke and Associates.

"It’s an accreditation process where you learn how to build and construct projects that are environmentally-friendly," he explains. "It’s a concept that a lot of developers are starting to embrace. Public works is wanting to have more LEED certification-type projects."

Meanwhile, the company’s acquisition team, which includes Burke, Dazzio, its chief estimator and senior estimator, meets on a routine basis to analyze, debate and determine which projects to tackle, always keeping in mind one of the company’s top goals: to develop and maintain a balanced portfolio. Whether the company’s projects include a condominium, warehouse, office, hotel or casino, he said it’s the team’s responsibility to avoid becoming overloaded in any specific market segment.

"Rather than diversify geographically, we’ve diversified in the marketplace," Dazzio said. "We build a lot of different projects. It’s helped stabilize our organization over the years where we’ve always been able to have steady progress."