ELECTRICAL ESTIMATOR INDUSTRIAL PROJECTS: LARGE BUSINESS THAT TAKES CARE OF THE STAFF

What you are looking for is a career electrical construction estimating position in a quality organization with business ethics and a culture that places the staff in the #1 position. We are a great place to work, and that has helped us become a leading national electrical construction company. Private and non-family we are an example of how good long-term planning and decision making result in financial success and stability. An open book financial management system with defined profit sharing assures people who are successful for us benefit from those efforts. While many companies reward the field, we have not forgotten the estimators.

You are a strong commercial / industrial electrical construction professional with significant rigid systems experience and exposure to medium or even high voltage. You have strong estimating skills and code competence, you understand field construction issues and maybe you are a good alternatives and value engineer as well.

We are a 250 million dollar private organization that has built its reputation on the time honored principals such as taking care of the clients, delivering on all the promises we make, and watching out for the people who make it all work. Companies ceaselessly write about this, but there are ways to evaluate that truth.

All you have to do is look at the employment history of our managers, both in the field and office. We are stable and we have lots of lifelong career staff members. We have the best workforce development and leadership training program in the business. That education system has a dedicated staff consisting of lifelong electrical professionals and certified lifelong educators. For advanced courses and management courses our school is staffed by certified professors from major universities and courses are offered covering subject matter from contract law and construction finance to various forms of workplace psychology that really target professional courtesy and empathy. We have consistently and increasingly invested in our programs because we see the results in terms of business execution, efficiency and morale.

We hire for our culture. We do not hire lone-wolves or Prima Dona types because they do not make good collaborators. We support a collaborative environment. We are a team and need people who are happy in working with and supporting a group. Because we share profits by the results of the various teams, returning a defined amount of profit to the staff, in the end watching out for the team makes business as well as personal sense.

Our culture makes it a little easier for everybody. We pay all the vendors on time, we deliver EXACTLY what we committed to, you will not find any litigation out there on the Internet related to our operations for decades, and we retain our staff. This is a business based on the principals of genuine personal and professional courtesy.  Between the excellent workforce programs, the vendor’s willingness to give us the best possible support, and our client track record, your jobs are likely to be awarded and run successfully/profitably.

We are a creativity company and are looking for new ways to look at timeless problems. Take electrical estimating for example. The basis for electrical estimating is the count. We are talking about material, labor allocation, rental, subcontract requirements, site work or whatever is in that job, but all of that amounts to establishing “the countâ€�.  A visionary estimator sees the intent of design and what is not there.  That distinguished professional can “seeâ€� how the job will really be built and knows how to position the company to get the work without teaching the owners and competitors too much. Sure, a great estimator rapidly produces great counts and maybe even solid alternatives or VE, but a star looks at the whole business environment, assesses RISK, develops relationships with owners, GCs and vendors and gets to know the players, competitors.  The superstar assessed the final mission of the client and positions the company to be a solution greater that the bid number solicited by an RFP. That takes real experience, real talent and real imagination. We allow our professionals to employ their imagination.

We are a company that does not push great minds back to some ancient and seemingly safe methodology. We are business engineers and engineering does not imply relentless recycling.

 

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Our work is a mixture of commercial and industrial work. While it would be wonderful to find a commercial + industrial rollup of a person, I would tell you our greatest need is on the industrial side of the business. On the industrial side the pipe is rigid; it is occasionally stainless, and sometimes coated. There are motor control centers, I&C, unit substations, tie-breakers, spot networks and stress cone terminations. We do pharmacy on the lighter side, and we have built our share of arc furnaces, and made money building some of the world’s largest dedicated short circuits (the arc furnaces). We need a lead and we also need a solid production estimating person as well. As a lead you will be responsible for the whole project that is being estimated. You will review the overall job, and you provide a summary of the job, helping the team decide whether the department and company should allocate resources to estimate it that job at all. If the job is large, you may break the job down into systems that can be taken off by a team with your support for design or takeoff in areas that are very complex or hopelessly vague.

You will be a quality assurance and quality control manager for your jobs and will help put “the number� on the job. Senior staff help junior staff understand labor allocation methodologies, whether that is determining if it will be heavy equipment or lots of hands that locate large equipment on the basis of physical access to the space designated for installation, what the real loss of productivity there will be for lift and work at elevation, or how many field staff can efficiently work simultaneously on a construction section. Your experience includes looking at the impact of the proposed schedule, the construction types and your experience with specific coordination issues. You may have insights into the difficulties associated with working with a particular GC, and you may be able to assess the risks in bidding the minimal partial drawings really knowing what must be built for a job rather than specifically what is on the prints.

Great estimators have taken different roads to success. Some were electrical designers that, without specific degrees were never allowed to progress in engineering firms. Some were great superintendents injured on the jobs, some project managers that burned out on the daily emergencies and ugly confrontations, some field electricians that wanted to get into a career path that allowed for more thinking work, and some pure accidents. There are no special educational requirements for this job; it is the experience we seek. A senior electrical estimator must be a senior electrical estimator with industrial experience to qualify for this position. It is helpful to have real field experience in your past. The essence of the qualifications list is your possession of electrical estimating experience with a history of success in industrial electrical estimating and knowledge combined with an analytic, tactical business driven estimating approach and your ability to team smoothly and mentor others in the estimating process. The jobs we estimate do get into the millions of electrical dollars and be a senior member of our estimating staff you have to have experience dealing with fairly large electrical constructions.

The use of tools is an issue. We are a progressive company and a growth company. You cannot control a construction business or grow the business without the application of good standards and the use of information technology. While we have all met great pencil and paper estimators, we need a person who has developed proficiency in at least one of the major computer aided systems or is absolutely committed to the idea. If you have mastered one of the computer based estimating systems and you are dedicated, making the adaptation to the next system is not an issue. We also expect the systematic maintenance of the system the team uses, with the building of appropriate assemblies and templates and the maintenance of records such that looking back at jobs in the past does not require personal human memory at all.

 

CAREER PATH

We have grown organically and we have grown by aquisitions. We are adding locations and you can easily move up into a division lead or chief estimator’s slot for a division or region is you are successful.

 

COMPENSATION, BONUS AND BENEFITS

$80,000.00 to 117,500.00 is the BASE SALARY range base. The reason for the range is that we can hire a solid production hand or and experienced lead (or both). There is a bonus program and bonus goals and you will receive a bonus if you do a good job. Bonus compensation has been a meaningful additional compensation element, 10% of salary plus not unusual. We have a strong medical dental (100% employee and spouse), truly nominal for children, 401K with match, profit sharing on top of the 401K, long and short-term disability.

We will move a right fit person. We are in a region of the country that is physically beautiful, temperate, has cultural and outdoor recreational strength, historic and highly regarded higher educational facilities, great hospital networks and a low cost of living. Salary to buying power relationships will be positive here.

 

CONTACTING US

EMAIL:  powerhero@hughes.net

SUBJECT LINE:  ROBROY


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