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Professional Construction Estimators Association of Orlando
President’s GreetingWelcome from the Orlando Chap-
ter President of the Professional Construction Estimators Asso-ciation of America (PCEA). Once
again the year appears to be fl ying by, we have had 2 months of meetings and events already past us in the June 2011 to May 2012 year. Closing on our third month we have another great speaker lined up for our August 23, member meeting at the Citrus Club, Jacob Stuart with the Central Flori-da Partnership who will talk about Sun-Rail and Florida’s Super Region. Next month we have our famous (OK infamous) Steak on the Lake sched-uled to take place. For those of you who have not attended it is an opportunity to kick back at an outdoor venue drink some beer eat a little cow and other treats in a more causal environment (by the way a perfect time to bring a guest or prospective new member – I can only hope its cooler then). Coming up in October we have another social event that we like to call our storied Oktoberfest (OK so this is the fi rst year we are trying this but what can go wrong with some snacks some beer and well what can go wrong – this will happen at Willow’s in Sanford). Fall golf tournament is also on the way in November and we look forward to another great year of fundraising for our scholar-ship fund (trying to give away another $10K plus this year to needy students). All these events will be posted on the website for registration as the dates come closer. We all know that the construction market has not been stellar these last couple years and compa-
nies and individuals have had to make some hard choices about the organizations that they choose to be a part of. I would like to say thank you, to all of our returning and new members who have made the choice to stay with the PCEA Orlando. This group of decision makers and leaders in the Central Florida Construction Community has made a resolution to remain active and visible in the market. Our members understand the need to foster an organization that allows us to pursue re-lationships with the various levels of participants from suppliers to consultants to Subcontractors and General Contractors and owners. This venue, the PCEA, allows a networking environment (professional but not rigidly so) unlike any other in the Central Florida area. I encourage mem-bers to look at their business contacts and invite a friend, a colleague, somebody who may enjoy the sometimes odd, always entertaining and expand-ing network of business leaders and profession-als that make up the PCEA membership (You odd ones know who you are).Once again thank you for taking time to plow through this diatribe. Happy Au-gust.
Rob Bauer-PCEA President
In This Issue...Greetings Page 1Three Economies Page 2Calendar/Events Page 3Board/Member Co. Page 4
2011-2012Gold Sponsors
July MeetingPres. Elect Curtis Yoder- United Wall Systems
August 23, 2011 Volume 10 - Issue 03Participate, Contribute, Educate, Achieve
PCEA-Orlando Chapter 2010-2011Fiscal Year Charitable Contributions
U of F Solar Decathlon Team $ 500.00St. Judes Children’s Hospital $ 500.002011 PCEA Nat’al Convention $ 500.00Randy Welch Scholarships $ 6,450.00Student Member Scholarships $ 4,600.00Jim Crabtree Memorial Fund $ 300.00
Total $12,850.00
Special Announcement
Steak on the LakeSeptember 30th, 2011
Orange County Sportsman ClubRegister to Attend
www.pcea-orlando.org
Participate, Contribute, Educate, Achieve
Page 2
Three World Economies CollideOrange Ave Downtown Orlando 1885 Orlando Opera House 1891 Orange Ave late 1800’s
When my old gang and I were 14 or 15 years old, many centuries ago, we yearned for immortality in the fi ery wreck of a bitchin’ 40 Ford or 57 Chevy. Our JK Rowling was Henry Felsen, the ex-Marine who wrote the bestselling masterpieces Hot Rod (1950), Street Rod (1953), and Crash Club (1958).Offi cially, his books – highly praised by the Na-tional Safety Council – were deterrents, meant to scare my generation straight with huge dollops of teenage gore. In fact, he was our asphalt Homer, exalting doomed teenage heroes and in-viting us to emulate their legend.One of his books ends with an apocalyp-tic collision at a crossroads that more or less wipes out the entire graduating class of a small Iowa town. We loved this pas-sage so much that we used to read it aloud to each other.It’s hard not to think of the great Felsen, who died in 1995, while browsing the business pages these days. There, after all, are the Tea Party Republicans, ac-celerator punched to the fl oor, grinning like demons as they approach Deadman’s Curve. (John Boehner and David Brooks, in the back seat, are of course screaming in fear.)The Felsen analogy seems even stronger when you leave local turf for a global view. From the air, where those Iowa cornstalks don’t conceal the pattern of blind convergence, the world economic situation looks distinctly like a crash waiting to happen. From three directions, the United States, the European Union, and China are blindly speed-ing toward the same intersection. The question is: will anyone survive to attend the prom?Shaking the Three Pillars of McWorldLet me reprise the obvious, but seldom discussed. Even if debt-limit doomsday is averted, Obama has already hocked the farm and sold the kids. With breathtaking contempt for the liberal wing of his own party, he’s offered to put the sacrosanct remnant of the New Deal safety net on the auction block to appease a hypothetical “center” and win re-election at any price. (Dick Nixon, old socialist, where are you now that we need you?)As a result, like the Phoenicians in the Bible, we’ll sacrifi ce our children (and their schoolteachers) to Moloch, now called Defi cit. The bloodbath in the public sector, together with an abrupt shutoff of unemployment benefi ts, will negatively multiply through the demand side of the economy until joblessness is in teenage digits and Lady Gaga is singing Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
Lest we forget, we also live in a globalized econ-omy where Americans are consumers of the last resort and the dollar is still the safe haven for the planet’s hoarded surplus value. The new recession that the Republicans are engineering with such impunity will instantly put into doubt all three pil-lars of McWorld, each already shakier than gener-ally imagined: American consumption, European stability, and Chinese growth.Across the Atlantic, the European Union is dem-
onstrating that it is exclusively a union of big banks and mega-creditors, grimly determined to make the Greeks sell off the Parthenon and the Irish emigrate to Australia. One doesn’t have to be a Keynesian to know that, should this happen, the winds will only blow colder thereafter. (If Ger-man jobs have so far been saved, it is only because China and the other Brics – Brazil, Russia, and India – have been buying so many machine tools and Mercedes.)Boardwalk Empire Times 160 China, of course, now props up the world, but the question is: for how much longer? Offi cially, the People’s Republic of China is in the midst of an epochal transition from an export-based to a consumer-based economy. The ultimate goal of which is not only to turn the average Chinese into a suburban motorist, but also to break the perverse dependency that ties that country’s growth to an American trade defi cit Beijing must, in turn, fi -nance in order to keep the Yuan from appreciating.Unfortunately for the Chinese, and possibly the world, that country’s planned consumer boom is quickly morphing into a dangerous real-estate bubble. China has caught the Dubai virus and now every city there with more than one million inhab-itants (at least 160 at last count) aspires to brand
itself with a Rem Koolhaas skyscraper or a desti-nation mega-mall. The result has been an orgy of over-construction.Despite the reassuring image of omniscient Bei-jing mandarins in cool control of the fi nancial sys-tem, China actually seems to be functioning more like 160 iterations of Boardwalk Empire, where big city political bosses and allied private devel-opers are able to forge their own backdoor deals with giant state banks.
In effect, a shadow banking system has arisen with big banks moving loans off their balance sheets into phony trust com-panies and thus evading offi cial caps on total lending. Last week, Moody’s report-ed that the Chinese banking system was concealing one-half-trillion dollars in problematic loans, mainly for municipal vanity projects. Another rating service warned that non-performing loans could constitute as much as 30% of bank port-folios.Real-estate speculation, meanwhile, is vacuuming up domestic savings as ur-ban families, faced with soaring home values, rush to invest in property before they are priced out of the market. (Sound
familiar?) According to Business Week, residen-tial housing investment now accounts for 9% of the gross domestic product, up from only 3.4% in 2003.So, will Chengdu become the next Orlando, Flori-da, and China Construction Bank the next Lehman Brothers? Odd, the credulity of so many otherwise conservative pundits, who have bought into the idea that the Chinese Communist leadership has discovered the law of perpetual motion, creating a market economy immune to business cycles or speculative manias.If China has a hard landing, it will also break the bones of leading suppliers like Brazil, Indonesia, and Australia. Japan, already mired in recession after triple mega-disasters, is acutely sensitive to further shocks from its principal markets. And the Arab spring may turn to winter if new gov-ernments cannot grow employment or contain the infl ation of food prices.As the three great economic blocs accelerate to-ward synchronised depression, I fi nd that I’m no longer as thrilled as I was at 14 by the prospect of a classic Felsen ending – all tangled metal and young bodies.
TomDispatch -By Mike Davis
Participate, Contribute, Educate, Achieve
Page 3
Lake Eola 1915One North Orange Building 1900 Courthouse around 1900
The CalendarSeptember 20119-13-11 Board Meeting
9-30-11 Steak on the Lake Orange County Sportsman’s Association 4:00-8:00
October 201110-11-11 Board Meeting
10-20-11 Oktoberfest Willow’s Cafe Sanford 5:30
10-25-11 Members Meeting Citrus Club Downtown 5:30 - 7:30
November 201111-15-11 Board Meeting
11-7-11 Golf Tournament Grand Cypress
December 201112-2-11 Christmas Social @ Ember 7:00 -10:00
12-13-11 Board Meeting
January 201201-10-12 Board Meeting
July Member Meeting
Welcome New MembersTimothy McLaughlin-United Wall Systems Bob Mauntel- JA Broson
Scott Fowler- Ranger Construction Jeff Albright-Mader SoutheastNew members will have a red ribbon on their name time. Everyone please make an effort to welcome them and get to know them.
Photos by Jim Hobart -Macbeth Photography
Chuck SaulsPast President
Hardin [email protected]
Steve PeceBoard MemberPece of Mind
Tim ReichardtBoard Member
Hardin [email protected]
Kim French Board Member Gracious Living
Cady Pope Board Member
Roger B. Kennedy [email protected]
Art Higginbotham Board Member Disney World
Companies Represented by 2011-2012 Membership
PCEA Offi cers & Board Members 2011-2012
President/ Nat’al DirectorRob Bauer
Construction Cost [email protected]
President ElectCurtis Yoder
United Wall [email protected]
1st Vice PresidentNick PhillipsSI Goldman
2nd Vice PresidentRob Allen
Talyor Cotton [email protected]
TreasurerFord Hazelip
Hoar [email protected]
SecretaryMegan Madden
William [email protected]
AACP Services, Inc.Advanced Millwork, IncArchitectural Sheet Metal, inc.Atlantic Concrete WashoutAustin CommercialBaker Concrete Construction, IncBalfour Beatty Construction, LLCCCK Construction Services, IncCEMEXClancy and Theys Construction CoConstruction Cost ServicesDoster Construction CompanyEnergy Air, Inc.Enterprise Fleet ManagementFire & Life Safety AmericaFriedrich Watkins CompanyGracious Living Design CenterHardin Construction GroupHayward Baker Inc.Hensel Phelps Construction Co.Herman Miller Workplace ResourceHJ FoundationHoar Construction
JA Croson LLCJust Concrete & Masonry, Inc.Kelly Electric LLCKHS&S ContractorsKittrell ConsultingMacbeth PhotographyMader SoutheastMSINufab Rebar Orlando, LLCPece of Mind Environmental, IncPlans & Specs Reprographics, Inc.Prestige Concrete ProductsRanger Construction Industries, Inc.Roger B. Kennedy, Inc.SI GoldmanSymmons IndustriesTaylor, Cotton & Ridley, Inc.Tharp Plumbing Systems, Inc.The Meridien CompaniesTri-City Electrical Contractors, Inc.Turner Construction CompanyUnited Wall SystemsUniversity of Florida
Walt Disney ImagineeringWalt Disney WorldWilliams CompanyWilliams ScotsmanWillis Construction Consulting, IncWindow Interiors
Swith Small & Wide Format Digital Printing
2011-2012 Silver Sponsors
Committee Chairpersons- Lisa Shields, Energy Air-Social Committee Co Chair Carrie Dinger, Service Master Drying -Social Committee Co Chair Pete Chryplewicz, CCK Construction-Scholarship Committee Co Chair Paul Klautsch-Nefab Rebar- Golf Committee Chair
Newsletter EditorPatti Eaves-Plans & Specs Reprographics, Inc.
