BY RICHARD MIZE
LAWTON — A Lawton construction firm with a $100 million contract for work at Fort Sill is calling for help.
He and I Construction Inc. landed the contract for maintenance and repair of the post’s nonresidential buildings for 50 months, said Emmanuel Alfaro, whose parents, Al and Lucille Alfaro, own the company.
He said the firm initially bid on a five-year contract at $250 million but another bidder protested, postponing the job for three years, causing the specifications to change and the project to be scaled back.
In any case, Alfaro said, He and I, with 23 employees working out of its shop at 678 SW Bishop Road, is going to need some help. He said work is set to begin in two weeks.
"We are having a small problem finding subcontractors to take a project of this magnitude, and the larger firms may not have all the manpower to complete these projects in-house, therefore, employment opportunities and subcontract opportunities will arise,” Alfaro said in an e-mail he sent to The Oklahoman and media in Lawton and Wichita Falls, Texas.
Electrical, heating-ventilation-air conditioning, plumbing, roofing subcontractors and others are being recruited.
Expansion at Fort Sill puts the Lawton economy far out of step with the country as a whole.
Construction unemployment is at 27.1 percent nationally, according to the trade group Associated Builders & Contractors.
Lawton unemployment in general was 5.2 percent in December, less than the state as a whole and well below the national rate, according to the most recent data from the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission.
Alfaro said He and I Construction has come a long way since his father and a relative started it in a home garage in 1995. They started out installing hardwood floors and doing fire restoration work.
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