Year: 2019

By President and CEO Gary Garofalo

Every day, we step onto our job sites and our offices ready for another day’s work. In our roles, we face hundreds of choices. While some of those choices may be second nature, like buckling our seat belts and wearing the right personal protective equipment (PPE), others require practice before becoming habit.

Beginning today and continuing throughout the week of May 6-10th, Harkins is proudly celebrating National Construction Safety Week 2019. Though promoting a positive safety culture is a continuous initiative for everyone working at Harkins, Construction Safety Week brings these important efforts into the spotlight and allows us to share our message on a larger stage.

As a company, we commit ourselves to safety because it’s not just our personal safety that we hold in our hands. The choices we make are ones that impact our coworkers, trade partners, our community, and our family and friends. This responsibility is what inspires us to always do things the right way, the safe way. We are committed to recognizing the opportunities and challenges we face, to speak up when we see an unsafe practice, and to always make safe choices.

This year, I call on every employee-owner across every position on our jobsites and in our offices to join us in this mission. Our choices have the power to ripple across the communities and cities in which we live, work and play. Together, we can and will create a safer, stronger industry – for ourselves, our colleagues, our families, and our friends.

We are Harkins and we are SAFE BY CHOICE.

By Corporate Safety Director Bob Walsh

Keeping safety “top of mind” is important in our industry. For Harkins, the challenge is heightened as our employees are involved in large projects and spread across more than 35 jobsites in six states. In an effort to provide special recognition for employees who exemplify safe work habits and a commitment to safety above and beyond one’s normal activities, Harkins has created a Safety Commitment Coin program. Custom raised metal coins were created with the Harkins logo on them along with the saying “Safety Starts with Me.”

This program was put into effect January 1, 2019. The coins will be given out selectively to identify and recognize those employees who have demonstrated an outstanding commitment to a safe work environment. Employees will be awarded the coin based on the following criteria:

• Action: An employee who performs a distinguished act that aids, averts, or assists during a hazardous situation
• Prevention: An employee who prevents hazardous conditions and/or promotes safer work conditions
• Innovation: An employee who proposes or improves the safety of an operation
• Leadership: An employee who exhibits exceptional safety leadership in a specific situation or an exceptional record of long-term safety leadership

The first two coins were awarded on January 11, 2019 to Site Manager Drew Dunsten (top left) and Project Engineer Austin Achenbach (top right). Both are currently working on The Apex Apartment project in Arlington, VA. The job was found to have outstanding safety signage and literature on a monthly safety walk. Fall prevention signs were strategically placed every ten feet around the perimeter of the large excavation, along with numerous warning signs at the egress in and out of the site. The safe work practices and continuous responsibility for teammates and our subcontractors is what set this job apart from others.

When asked about being the first recipients of the coin, Project Engineer Austin Achenbach said, “I was honored and it felt good to be recognized for the added effort and hard work, especially on something as important as safety.” Site Manager Drew Dunsten went on to say that “It is important that all workers are aware of the hazards and that we have an effective safety program in place. I am grateful to be recognized for making safety a priority.”

When an employee is awarded a coin, they can exchange it for a branded Harkins apparel item. We hope that the new Safety Commitment Coin program will be a good investment in raising safety awareness. Our heightened awareness will pay dividends for the employees of Harkins, the clients we serve, and the subcontractors on our projects.

Harkins joined the National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC) in observing Women in Construction Week. This national week is celebrated annually during the first full week of March, and aims to highlight women as a visible component of the construction industry, raise awareness of the opportunities available for women in construction, and emphasize the growing role of women in the industry. The theme for this year was, “Be the Power to Your Success”, and we are proud to say that the women at Harkins hold the key to their own success!

Ellie Cascio, Project Manager

Ellie has over 30 years of experience in the industry, with a specialty in interior and healthcare construction. She has completed projects for the University of Maryland Medical Systems, Johns Hopkins Hospital, University of Maryland – Baltimore campus, and Towson University. Ellie most recently worked in our Commercial Group on the relocation and fit-out of the new Supreme Orthopedics HQ, the 3rd floor expansion at Harkins’ HQ, and a series of office space fit-outs in the new One Merriweather building in Columbia, MD. She is currently working on the 58,000 sq ft Riverwood project. Outside of Harkins, Ellie was involved in the revitalization of ABC Baltimore’s Women in Construction Committee and participated in the ABC Construction Awards Program, both as Chairwoman and judge. She is LEEP AP certified and past member of CASHE (Chesapeake Society of Health Care Engineers).

Andrea Warren, Assistant Project Manager

Andrea brings an added expertise in architectural engineering, which has been valuable to any project with her knowledge in quality control, management, and estimating in commercial and residential projects. Andrea has a wide range of experience, with past projects including the Eastman Corporate Business Center, Deanwood Recreation Center, The Maret School, and City Vista. Most recently, she wrapped up a renovation at the Ft. Stevens Place Apartments in Washington, DC and is now working on the Culpepper Garden I Renovation project in Arlington, VA.

Melody Padgett, Project Manager

Melody has over 20 years of experience in the development and construction industry, where she owned a custom home building company, and worked in hospitality services renovating major hotels and resorts across the country. She’s passionate about her role in the industry and feels that women are able to bring a different perspective, communicate effectively, and offer a greater level of detail to projects.

Jennifer Shull, Assistant Site Manager

Jennifer Shull is a military wife and mother of two who re-entered the workforce as an assistant site manager. Prior to her husband’s deployment, Jen worked as a field engineer on two projects at the University of Michigan campus, along with The Galia at Lost Key Marina & Yacht Club in Pensacola, FL. She joined the Harkins family shortly after her husband was stationed back in Maryland, where she is working hard at the new market rate apartment community called Beechtree Apartments community in Prince Frederick, MD.

Victoria Velikovsky, Estimator

Victoria is a graduate of University of Maryland College Park, where she studied architecture with a minor in construction project management. While interning for an infrastructure contractor, she was part of an Exxon Mobil environmental cleanup in Baltimore, MD. Victoria also was a member of University of Maryland’s Solar Decathlon Team, a university-led team that researches, designs, and produces schematic documents for an innovative solar-powered smart house.

By President and CEO Gary Garofalo

After celebrating our 50th anniversary back in 2015, we set the course for redefining our business model and delivering comprehensive client service for the next 50 years. We had the skilled personnel and financial resources to grow our company, so we set to work at expanding our geographical footprint into the Carolinas, diversifying our work product by building up our Commercial and Government Groups, and increasing the opportunities for Harkins to provide our services to new and existing clients.

Three years into our strategic plan, we have achieved significant year over year growth with over $400M volume put in place in 2018. Achieving that type of growth is not unheard of, but it can be hard to grow that fast and maintain the exceptional quality of service that our clients expect of us. One of the ways we gain feedback to drive improvement and see how we are doing is with owner and architect surveys completed after preconstruction and construction. Our project and executive teams review all of the survey results and thrive on the insights our client and architect partners offer. With an average score of 8.9 out of 10, we are very proud to create positive outcomes for all.

We are extremely mindful that this type of growth is difficult to sustain and will continue to measure our performance versus our growth to ensure that we have the resources in place to deliver exceptional construction services.

There is no way to experience this success without acknowledging the clients who entrust us with building their projects, all of the professional partners we team with to deliver exceptional results, and the shared values of our employee-owners. We are fortunate to have strong personal relationships with dozens of repeat clients, and we are excited to see the same quality relationships forming with new clients we have worked with in the last ten years.

It has never been enough for us to just be a great builder, or company to work for – our purpose has always been bigger. The more we accomplish, the more we feel the responsibility and importance of helping people who do not have the same opportunities that many of us take for granted. In addition to all of the community service programs our employees normally take part in each year, we are developing new projects that will allow us to share our good fortune.