From Cuba with Success

by Jonathan McGaha | 3 June 2013 12:00 am

Quality and service has been Lemartec’s hallmark since day one

When Guillermo García-Tuñón Sr. fled Cuba in 1960, he, his wife and nine children were forced to leave everything behind. That included a flourishing engineering and steel fabricating company he had spent a lifetime building.

With the knowledge and experience gained in Cuba designing and building for some of the world’s largest corporations, including Firestone, Glidden Paint, Bacardi Rum, ESSO Standard Oil, U.S. Rubber, Polar Beer and Goodrich Tires, he founded Lemartec Engineering and Construction Corp[1]. in 1979 in Miami with two of his sons, Guillermo García-Tuñón Jr., a licensed professional engineer, and Jose García-Tuñón, a licensed general contractor. This successfully established Lemartec as a design-build firm. Later, one of Guillermo Jr.’s sons, Manny García-Tuñón, joined the firm-helping it to grow both organically and through the establishment of key strategic alliances. Manny now serves as the firm’s president.

The original purpose of the company was to market and promote a three-hinge-steel truss frame grain storage warehouse system originally developed by Guillermo Sr. for various agri-industrial projects in Cuba. The warehouses had integral steel retaining walls used primarily for bulk storage of raw sugar. With standardized clear spans of 100 and 150 feet, and roof slopes in excess of 9 and 12 inches, these warehouses have since been successfully built in Florida, California and the Dominican Republic.

Fueled by its background in steel construction, Lemartec bloomed as a design-build company catering to the agri-industrial needs of Florida, as well as a supplier of steel members and components to South America and the Caribbean. Pre-engineered steel buildings were a perfect fit for Lemartec’s government, commercial and industrial clients. “Metal is one of our biggest advantages,” says Manny García-Tuñón. “Our background has been in steel design for many years. The company was born out of conventional custom-design projects which turned into an expertise of pre-engineered metal buildings.”

Cumulative success

Lemartec was recently honored by Memphis, Tenn.-based Varco Pruden Buildings for surpassing $35 million in cumulative metal building sales. “Not only does it put Lemartec in very select company, it also represents something that took decades to accomplish,” García-Tuñón says. “Obviously, the more difficult it is to climb the mountain, the more significant the achievement.”

To put Lemartec’s achievement in perspective, for more than two decades Varco Pruden has had a network of more than 1,000 independent authorized builders, but less than 15 have surpassed
$35 million in sales. “Lemartec’s accomplishment is a testament to the company’s professionalism, dedication, superior work ethic and extraordinary customer service,” says Chuck Haslebacher, president of Varco Pruden. “Quality and service has been its hallmark since day one.”

Day one for Lemartec was 34 years ago, but its roots date back to more than 50 years ago in Cuba, and before that Spain. This 50-plus year milestone was a result of careful planning, hard work, a strong culture and relentless dedication. “When you’re forced to make the difficult decision to leave everything behind for the sake of protecting your family and ensuring that your children can grow up in a free society, you go into survival mode,” says García-Tuñón Sr. “It’s one of the most difficult experiences a husband, father and professional can go through-and one which I do not wish on anyone. But we never lost sight of our values or our work ethic or our drive to be successful at what we do regardless of where we are. I think that in part, Lemartec’s success is due to our ability to develop fluid strategies, which help us adapt to changing market conditions because you never know what surprises lie ahead. Though our core values and our core competencies of sound design and construction have never changed, we are continuously evolving to meet the needs of our clients, ever growing in our use of the latest technology and design-build techniques.”

Unique systems

García-Tuñón Sr. created a unique system for grain storage that effectively simplifies the design and construction process, maximizes safety during erection of the metal structure, and even serves to increase the storage capacity of the grain being stored. “This system is a true benefit to our clients in the agri-industrial industries because we can maximize their storage capacity by designing our buildings to match the natural slope of repose of whatever is being stored,” says Manny Garcia- Tuñón. “It’s a testament to one of my grandfather’s guiding principles-Understanding our client’s processes, as they relate to our designbuild approach-has served as the cornerstone of our success.”

Lemartec’s in-house design and construction services for its pre-engineered metal buildings give it a significant advantage over their competitors who must outsource these services. This outsourcing increases costs to the owner/client. “In addition to saving the client ‘big bucks,’ we’re also able to assist them early during the conceptual and planning stages of their project-generating timesaving opportunities and mitigating the
‘surprises’ typically associated with the more traditional design-bid-build approach,” says Felipe Aguiar, vice president of marketing and communications.

Aguiar continues to explain several other competitive advantages that have allowed Lemartec to grow over the years, and even through the recent recession. “Lemartec has not only survived the global economic recession, we’ve come out as a much stronger organization thanks to various internal initiatives, including: the development of our five-year strategic plan; our top-grading efforts; effectuating a hyper-aggressive marketing and business development program; and by focusing on emerging markets that fit our niche expertise. We no longer just chase ‘bid work,’ we create it.”

“Our in-house design capabilities allow us to very seamlessly, very efficiently determine if a metal building is in the best interest of the client,” says Manny García-Tuñón. “We are able to analyze the metal building option as well as the conventional option and still be objective.”

Today, the company represents three generations of the García-Tuñón family making up the core of the operation. They participate in the firm’s daily operation, each fulfilling responsibilities in engineering, estimating, project management, sales and administration. The company’s non-family employees joke that they are not actually employed, but adopted by the Lemartec family. “We were formed on very solid values and principles which stem from being a family business and they provide a tremendous foundation for us,” says Manny García-Tuñón. As it honors its past, Lemartec looks forward to a future filled with new challenges and opportunities, with a continued commitment to provide the same quality, service and hard work to the industry that has come to expect nothing less from a professional firm with more than a half a century of service excellence.

[sidebar]

Company Profile Year Founded: 1979

Location: Miami

Services Offered: Construction Management, Design-Build, LEED/Sustainability Consulting, Pre-Engineered Metal Buildings, Building Make-Over Geographic

Areas of Service: United States, Latin America and the Caribbean

Number of Employees: 35 Metal Building

Square Footage Installed:

Projected 2013 forecast: 142,588

2012: 311,399

2011: 21,165

2010: 38,847

2009: 241,370

2008: 258,112

Management Team: Guillermo García-Tuñón Sr., P.E., Chairman of the Board Guillermo García-Tuñón Jr., P.E., CEO Jose García-Tuñón, COO Manny García-Tuñón, President

Source URL: https://www.metalconstructionnews.com/articles/from-cuba-with-success/

---