A Consistent Company
Marcy Marro, Managing Editor,
Posted
01/09/2012
Spokane, Wash.-based Garco Construction Inc. had humble
beginnings, starting out as the construction arm of Garco Building
Systems in Airway Heights, Wash. After being purchased in 1978 by
Tim Welsh and Bob Carter, the primarily metal building contractor
with its own steel and concrete crews, evolved into a full-service
general contractor/construction manager with its own in-house
design staff.
By adding an in-house design staff, Garco Construction became one
of the first true design-build firms around, which worked well with
the use of metal building systems. Through the design-build
process, Garco has been able to be heavily involved in the design
of mechanical and electrical systems of their projects. This allows
the company to "strive to provide as cost-efficient systems as
practical with an eye toward both upfront costs and operating
efficiencies relative to what might be expected for LEED Silver
applications," explains Bill Savitz, director of business
development at Garco Construction. "It is our experience that
accomplishing that level of standard has an operating cost payback
that justifies the effort toward improved efficiencies in systems
and controls."
As the company continued to grow, it began approaching other forms
of construction, including conventional steel and concrete
structures. "A lot of the growth and evolution of Garco
Construction involved moving away from strictly metal building
construction, to being able to provide construction methods of a
variety of sources," says Savitz.
Working Together
The ability to self-perform concrete and steel erection has
proven to be a benefit. Savitz notes that it is important to have
the same people performing the same functions time and time again
over the course of the company's history, allowing the company
better control over the project, schedule and budget. "I can't
stress the importance of self-performance enough; it's what's led
to the consistency, efficiency and quality of our delivered
projects," says Savitz.
Additionally, Garco Construction's in-house design team has the
knowledge and understanding to ensure projects are designed and
built as efficiently as possible, right from the start. By making
sure the client has a clear understanding of how a project is going
to work and what the anticipated deliverable is going to be, the
client gets a sense of confidence in knowing what is happening with
their project. Together, this provides a lot more predictable
conclusion to the project, Savitz explains.
By integrating Building Information Modeling into the design
group, clients can get a complete picture of their project. "We see
BIM as the way of the future, and getting into it early allows us
to have an opportunity to demonstrate to a client what BIM provides
to them in terms of the completed three-dimensional model and the
tracking of products that are integrated into their project,"
Savitz says. Since the federal government uses BIM as a qualifier
when handing out work, Garco Construction has been able to obtain a
fair amount of work for the government and the Army Corps of
Engineers.
Keys to Success
Garco Construction prides itself on accomplished consistent
means and methods toward high quality projects that are
consistently on time, if not early, and within or under budget.
This consistency in both the general contractor/construction
management and design-build delivery systems has been important to
helping the company grow over the years, Savitz says. "Our
reputation over 35 years has been built on those benchmarks," he
says. "We are a proven entity and our reputation to those ends is
what has driven much of our growth. Reputation, relationships and
word-of-mouth is what has driven our success and, conversely, the
lack of failures and the bad reputation that can be developed as a
result of failures is something we work hard to eliminate."
Savitz explains that Garco works hard to be sure customers are
happy on the day the keys are handed over, and for years to come
with the performance of their buildings. When an issue does
develop, Garco makes that it is taken care of and the end result is
satisfaction on the part of the client. "At the end of a project,
if the customer isn't happy about something, we will do what's
necessary to make them happy," Savitz continues. "It is our number
one goal."
A Growing Company
Garco Construction has been involved in the GC/CM construction
delivery system for the last seven
or eight years. "We do a lot of continuing work for a lot of
different types of clients, including governmental
clients. A big part of what's helped us grow is public works
projects that have gone from hard bid, design-bid-build type work
to both GC/CM and design-build. Having the opportunity to propose
on design-build or GC/CM work has really expanded on our ability to
separate ourselves from just the low-bid work that has been pretty
typical in years past, relative to public works projects."
Savitz continues, "What [GC/CM] has allowed us to do is really get
involved with projects of much greater scope than what we
historically have done, and that's largely because we've been able
to bring our construction management systems into play in larger
public works projects."
That ability has allowed Garco Construction to go after jobs in
the $50 to $60 million range. By performing well on those projects,
Garco has received good feedback and good quality ratings from its
public works clients, which can lead to more work. "Having
excellent performance in that area really helps us get qualified
for projects that other contractors would probably otherwise not
get qualified for," Savitz explains. "That's been very important
because it's allowed us to showcase our expertise and experience in
that delivery system and that has allowed us to leverage that
position into a point where we can gain further projects of that
nature."
"It comes down to consistency and delivery, and consistency and
quality, and consistency of being able to maintain budgets and
schedules, and making sure that the client is involved in the
process and is part of the solution when it comes to the challenges
that come with any construction project," Savitz continues. "It
really comes down to customer service and then being able to do the
things that you say you are going to do and doing them
consistently. That's probably the biggest and most important thing
that we've learned over the years."
Looking Ahead
While the current economic climate has been rough for many
companies, Garco Construction has been able to keep busy with a
backlog of work, including federal and Army Corps of Engineers
work. Having the experience and quality ratings that over the years
with federal work has allowed Garco Construction to be able to be
in a very select group, relative to what are otherwise pretty
sparse construction dollars, explains Savitz.
As Garco Construction heads into the future, the management
looks towards turning the company over to the younger people coming
up from within the organization, all while maintaining the same
sense of culture and mission that has helped the company to grow
over the last 30 plus years. "Our intent is to essentially continue
what we've been doing-make sure we have the right people here, make
sure that we maintain the people that have gotten us here-and to
continue with basically the same basic mission that we've always
maintained, which is to make sure we have that good consistency,
quality, budget, schedule and delivery," Savitz says.
Garco Construction Inc.
4114 E. Broadway
Spokane, WA 99202
(509) 535-4688
www.garco.com