Special Report: 10.9.2009

Posted by TED Magazine on Thursday, October 08, 2009

LOCAL ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR RANKINGS -- continued

More regional lists of ECs, linked

 

By Joe Salimando 

If you've not already read it, please see the earlier Special Report post  to catch up. That one introduced the subject of local subcontractor rankings and provided info (and links to it) about the top electrical contractors, and one heck of a lot more, in CA, CO, CT, DE, MD, NJ, NY, PA, VA & Washington DC.

The rest of what's available follows, immediately below.

- - - - -

MIDWEST -- IL, IN, MO, WI

Words : Some nice stuff about EMCOR is included in a brief into.

List : A 13-page PDF ranks 125 subcontractors of all types (in the first 7 pages), gives the biggest in each of the four states (p9 + p10), and lists the top 25 electrical (p11) -- and also the top telecom contractors (p13). EMCOR is the #3 in the region with $211M in '08 sales -- surpassed by Continental of Chicago ($217.5M) and Sachs of Fenton, MO ($212M).

Digital issue .

 

NORTHWEST -- AK, OR, WA

Words: A very brief brief, not worth a link.

List : The top 66 subs in the tri-state region are listed here (with links to each). Rosendin, which has its HQ in San Jose, has an office in OR -- making it the top EC in the region, with $195.5 in sales . . . with 80% reported as electrical. VECA of Alaska is just behind Rosendin, making it 2nd among ECs on the all-subcontractor lists. But note: 15% of Rosendin's sales are reported as coming from "windpower" . . . I guess that's not electrical construction work to the McGraw-Hill editors(?).

Plus: Top subs by state . And the top 16 electrical contractors in the tri-state region are listed here , with VECA #1 and Rosendin #2 (because of that "windpower" problem). Perkin Electric is #16, with $2.2M in '08 sales.

Digital issue .

 

SOUTH CENTRAL -- AL, AR, LA, MS, TN

Words : With 110 specialty contractors listed, still the verbiage here is truncated.

Lists : All 110 are on this web page (with links). Laird Electric (Brookhaven, Miss.) is #108, the final EC on the list of all types of contractors, with $1M in '08 sales. There's also a break-out of the top contractors by sales in each of the five states .

Finally, there's a break-out by contractor type. It turns out that 31 of the 110 are electrical contractors  (Laird and 30 that are larger) in the five-state region.

Digital issue .

 

SOUTHEAST -- FL, GA, NC, SC

Words : This publication used a few more words to describe the data on 200 top subcontractors. Interestingly, the combined revenue from the listed firms for '08 "is significantly higher" than the one-year-earlier assembly had from '07.

List : The 200 are crammed into an 11-page PDF. But the state-by-state breakdown  is provided on a web page (in HTML). On the list by trade, there are only 30 electrical contractors  (30 out of 200 compared to the 31 out of 110 in the South Central magazine!). Note that the EC list just provides the company names; you'll have to go back to the PDF to find the states in which each is located (and the company's '08 sales).

Digital issue .

 

SOUTHWEST -- AZ, NM, NV

Words : For 2007, this magazine ranked 195 subcontractors. But for '08, it received only 160 submissions from electrical, concrete, and other specialty contractors. Sign of bad times? I have no idea.

List : In contrast with the region above, this one is a spacious 28-page PDF. You'll find them ranked by states on pages 21 & 22. The Top 25 ECs are provided on page 23.

Page 28 provides something special (compared to the other regions): Experience modification ratios for the contractors (safety rankings!).

Digital issue . Thanks to the need to stretch out the listings to accommodate half-page advertisements, the info above starts at page 19 and runs to page 51 of this thing.

 

TEXAS

Words : Yes, things are different in Texas, as we all know. This intro copy is the longest of any of the regionals at which we took a gander. One quote sticks out, from Ron Allison of Preferred Electrical & Mechanical: "Everything has shut down until we get more work, and we are trying to collect money from people who aren't paying us."

. . . so maybe things really ARE NOT all that different in Texas, eh?

List : There are 137 subs listed (on a web page). On yet another web page, the magazine breaks down top subs by market sector  -- 25 of them are ECs. Walker Engineering was #1 with $215M, finishing $7M higher than IES (Texas is the company's home state).

Digital issue . If you chose to look at this one, don't overlook page 1 (an EMCOR ad). I believe EMCOR bought this position in ALL of these regional publications (it seemed to pop up there time and again). But after another company's ad on page 3, turn to page 5 -- where you'll find Walker Engineering's ad. So the electrical contractor ads dominate, kinda-sorta.

 

OK -- NOW WHAT ABOUT THE NATIONAL LIST?

Engineering News-Record's 10/7 issue included the Top 600 Specialty Contractors (including a list of the top 600 with numbers and info, and an editorial list of the Top 50 Electrical Contractors). There are utility contractors and telecom contractors listed in there, too (as well as the top mechanicals, and so forth and so on). This is the final word on who was who and what was what in specialty construction in 2008.

Getting this online is possible, if you have a credit card (it's $50). There's nothing free in this world, folks. My best advice, based on what I've done in the past: Call ENR and buy a printed copy of the issue itself.

Companies of note in the Top 10 (on the list of 600 of all types of contractors):

#1 EMCOR Group (aggregated sales from both electrical AND mechanical contracting operations)

#2 Quanta Services (on the utility list)

#4 Siemens Building Technologies (not listed as an EC)

#7 MasTec

#9 Henkels & McCoy

Rosendin was #11, IES #12, and MYR Group #17.