As of August, $1.77 billion in contracts had been awarded in connection with the expansion at Fort Bliss, and of that $357 million or 20 percent has gone to El Paso companies.

A breakdown of the $357 million shows El Paso companies have won prime contracts amounting to $96.1 million and subcontracts totaling $261 million.

Contacts amounting to $550,000 – or three one-hundredths of a percent of the $1.77 billion – have gone to El Paso small businesses.

To the Associated General Contractors of El Paso, an organization made up of about 125 member contractors, 20 percent is too low and reflects the difficulty that El Paso contractors, subcontractors and small businesses have had in getting a piece of the action at Fort Bliss.

The Pentagon plans to spend $4.6 billion at Fort Bliss by early 2013 on construction projects related to the Base Realignment and Closure process that is expected to more than double the post’s soldier population from the present 18,000 troops to 39,000 in the next three years.

Larry Trejo, executive director of the Associated General Contractors, said Monday that winning contracts and subcontracts at Fort Bliss has been “a big conundrum for our people.”

Some of the prime contracts, such as one he said amounted to $450 million, have been far too large for El Paso companies and all but a handful of national companies to compete for.

Then, there are the tough bonding requirements that must be met to win a federal contract.

Those requirements, in fact, have always been the problem for El Paso companies trying to hook onto contracts at Fort Bliss. Companies must prove they have the experience and financial capability to handle new projects and must have the required bond from a certified insurer to effectively guarantee completion of the contract.

In the Associated General Contractors’ May-June newsletter to members, Trejo wrote, “When word originally came several years ago that Ft. Bliss and El Paso would be the recipients of good fortune from BRAC, everyone seemed to be happy.

“In order to have the massive additions to Ft. Bliss ready for the arrival of three combat brigade teams … the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has pushed an aggressive construction schedule and limited who can bid.

“Unfortunately, this has eliminated many El Paso general contractors from the eligibility list. The major reason is the bonding capacity of many local firms.”

Today, Trejo called Newspaper Tree to make additional comments about the situation that were more optimistic.

“A lot of our members were concerned about not getting the work … here in our back yard,” he said. “We’re making do the best we can with what we’ve got. Some of our major, general (contractors) are working as subs with some of these companies.

“There are some that are tremendously successful. Garrick Electric is extremely successful at Fort Bliss. They’ve got more business than they ever had in their life.”

Projects totaling more than $100 million at Fort bliss have attracted companies from around the country to El Paso, Trejo said, that are changing the competitive landscape in the city’s business community.

“El Paso suddenly has a lot of competition. It’s no longer the four or five companies that control the market now,” he said. “A lot of people are saying El Paso is booming. It’s approaching 1 million people in the next 10 years, and there’s a lot of possibility of growth.”

Richard Dayoub, president of the El Paso greater Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber has worked closely with Fort Bliss and the Corps to go over opportunities for El Paso companies to participate in construction projects.

“They have made, in my view, every effort to make opportunities available to El Paso contractors,” Dayoub said. “The chamber has been their lead on this … to get the word out to members and non-members about every contract that becomes available.

“Are we satisfied? A simple answer to that would be ‘no,’ but, the practical answer is we should never be satisfied entirely. We should always be trying to improve the success rate.”

Dayoub said some El Paso companies that had worked on a subcontract basis have been elevated to prime contractor status, including Urban Associates.

While it may be true that the business that has come to El Paso companies isn’t enough, he said, it is still true that more than $350 million is business has that might have gone elsewhere were it not for the cooperative efforts involving the chamber, El Paso contractors and prime contractors at Fort Bliss.

Jason Hauck, the director of the Fort Bliss program office for the U.S. Corps of Engineers, said it is and has been his agency’s intention to bring as many El Paso companies as possible into the contracting process.

“But they are pretty big contracts, and I don’t know that there are any individual firms that have the bonding capacity or even the construction capacity to keep up with the work that is being put out for bid,” Hauck said. “Just look at the size of the firms that are in El Paso.

“They don’t generally do $100 million or multi-100 million dollar projects as a normal part of their business. They’re going to have a challenge to be competitive as prime contractors. We encourage prime contractors to use local contracts as subs and they do that as much as they can.”

The other challenge is the speed required on the contracts.

“Every facility has to be in place by September 2011,” he said.

In addition to Urban Associates, Hauck pointed to Prime Irrigation & Landscaping Co., whose owner, Ricardo Gutierrez, began as a landscape worker and established his own company that now is involved in a $20 million landscaping contract.

He said the greater chamber has done a good job of hooking prime contractors up withEel Paso contractors and that the Small Business Association has conducted repeated training sessions to educate local companies on where to look for federal business and what to do.

“Quite frankly, 99 percent of the contractors at the August meeting were complimentary about what had been done, and while they would like to have more work – even the primes want more work – they felt they were getting a pretty good chunk of the business. Whether it’s fair is in the eye of the beholder.”

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To reach David Crowder, write to dcrowder@epmediagroup.com or call (915) 351-0605, ext. 30, or 630-6622.