“Ninety percent of the stuff we bid is low-
bid unit priced contracts, so a lot of it is just
based on how efficient can you bring your
operations to arrive at a best value for a
government agency. How can you get the
bottomline that they’re looking for?”
Among themost recent projects have been a
large apron at Joint Base Lewis-McChord
just south of Tacoma, at which Salinas
workers completed 40 acres of concrete
paving; a thinner concrete apron around a
new hangar at Fort Wainwright in
Fairbanks, Alaska; and a role as part of the
design team for replacement a mile of full-
width interstate on Interstate 405 in greater
Seattle.
As part of the latter project, workers laid
3,400 cubic yards of concrete in a 54-hour
road closure window, a task Salinas
conceded afterward was the product of
both acumen, and swagger.
“We are confident, sometimes maybe to a
little bit of a fault,” he said.
“Concrete paving, for what we need to do,
needs to be world class. It needs to stand out
on its own. And it can be done. It’s just how
well can you plan for both the foreseen and
the unseen. We’re confident that we know
what we’re doing , that we have the
July-August 2014
| BusinessWorld |189
