Texas’ 2010 Top Contractors

...specialize in high-profile, high-quality finish and difficult and complicated projects, and that is why we are fortunate to make the long list and the short list for the selection.”

Flintco While acknowledging that 2009 was a difficult year for the construction industry, John A. Martin, Texas Division president of Flintco in Austin, also found a bright side.

“Our company faired well,” Martin says. “We had the relationships in place and the resources, so we weren’t so much responding but executing and carrying through what commitments were already in place.”

Flincto completed the $52-million Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum Plaza and the Lady Bird Johnson Center at The University of Texas at Austin. The company won a gold Safety Through Exemplary Performance (UT STEP) Award for safety on that project. It worked on several projects at the University of Texas and the $8.9-million Texas State University Baseball/Softball Complex in San Marcos. Many of the projects won regional or national awards.

A 102-year-old firm, Flinto has survived other downturns in the market, Martin says. He credits having financial resources and personnel to weather the storm with allowing Flinto to focus on providing job stability, safety and training for its employees and consistency in delivering quality projects for its clients. Flinto is No. 84 on the list of top contractors.

“It’s an opportunity for people to catch their breath, renew themselves, invest in themselves,” Martin says. “If you have great people, you will have great projects, and great projects produce great clients.”

Martin found subcontractors were “more laser-focused on the work they have as opposed to two or three years ago” and price escalation stopped in 2009.

“2009 was a stabilizing year in terms of procurement and a shift-gears year,” Martin says. “The strategies that worked in the past do not necessarily work any longer, and the companies that were nimble enough to see that and respond to that and advise their owners, those are the firms that are in a good place to weather the future storms as well.”