Georgia on their mind

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/04/2017 (3308 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Brandon steel-buildings manufacturer — Behlen Industries — is hiring at least 20 more skilled workers after winning the biggest contract in its 47-year history.

The $45-million contract is to build three indoor sports arenas for three cities in the country of Georgia — Batumi, Telavi and Gori.

The kinds of workers Behlen is looking to add to its current staff of about 250 include welders, brake-form operators, rolling-mill operators and steel-manufacturing tradespeople, said Sean Lepper, vice-president and general manager, in an interview Monday.

Lepper said the company, which is Canada’s largest manufacturer of steel building systems, will be hiring the workers as quickly as it can find them.

“Getting the right people is always critical,” he said.

What sets the Georgian contract apart from others Behlen has won, aside from the high dollar value, is that it will be doing all of the work itself.

Lepper explained that what usually happened in the past was that Behlen would get the contract to supply the structural steel, and others would be hired to design it and to build it. But in this case it will be doing everything, from the architectural drawings right through to the completion of the project.

“Which inflates the contract value significantly — like by a factor of two or three,” he added.

Lepper said Behlen started going down this track with overseas contracts about two years ago, when it won a contract not only to supply the structural-steel, but also to erect the building. This time it took it one step further and bid on the entire project.

“In the overseas markets, we’re looking for added value we can offer to differentiate us from our competitors. If you were just trying to sell steel by the pound, it gets to be a pretty low-cost game,” he said. “This is our first venture into this style of sale, and if we’re successful, we’ll be pursuing further opportunities.”

The three arenas will all have basketball and handball courts, but also can be used for a variety of other types of sporting events. The largest, to be built in Batumi, will have a seating capacity of 3,500 people. The other two will each have a capacity of 2,500 people.

The Georgian project will be overseen by staff from Behlen’s Moscow office. Work on the three arenas, which will be built at the same time, is well underway. Behlen hopes to complete all three by the end of this year.

“Our steel buildings go together very quickly, relative to other forms of construction,” Lepper said.

Behlen has been doing work in the former Soviet Union for more than a decade. This is the third contract it has landed in Georgia. It’s also building some warehousing facilities at a port city on the Black Sea.

“So we’re familiar with the market,” Lepper added. “That helped us get this contract.”

In addition to the projects in Georgia, the company has built about a half a dozen basketball halls in Moscow, and two large soccer complexes — one in Russia and the other in Siberia.

While the company is doing more overseas work, Lepper said Canada still accounts for more than 80 per cent of its business.

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca