Tom Whitehurst

A bridge between design and construction

Jim Barnette's alma mater, the University of Mississippi, has named him its Distinguished Engineer of the Year, which is a bigger deal than it may sound.
   Barnette is the Coastcon in Fulton/Coastcon General Contractors, a joint venture since 1982 of two construction companies that combined resources to get bigger jobs. His career hasn't been short of accomplishment or accolades - past president of both the local engineering society and general contractors association, past chairman of the Chamber of Commerce. But he says this one is significant because a prestigious engineering award was given to a construction contractor, an unlikely occurrence.
   Unbeknownst to me and perhaps other non-contractors and non-engineers, there is somewhat of a disconnect between engineers and contractors. It might seem strange to those of us who would have thought that the two fit together neatly. We might have thought, aren't engineers logical and contractors practical? But they are two camps, historically. There is ample room for conflict - contractors doubting that the designs are practical, engineers doubting that the contractors' bids are logical.
   One historic example is the Old Nueces County Courthouse, built in 1914. There's a reason that the vacant, dilapidated old courthouse consistently passes the test for structural soundness. It's because contractors in those days routinely tripled the building specs because they didn't trust architects or engineers.
   John Michael, a principal in Naismith Engineering of Corpus Christi and president-elect of the Texas Society of Civil Engineers, acknowledges both the historic distinction and Barnette's success in packaging the two.
   "When you can combine the engineer who works in the office with the contractor who works in the field," Michael said, "you can't get any better than that."
   Barnette has been erasing the lines between engineering and construction since 1973. When he started contracting, he never stopped being an engineer, and he hired engineers for his contracting company. He formed Coastcon as a solution to a recurring problem - construction bids that were consistently higher than his estimates.
   "I was on the other side of the table, doing designs and getting embarrassed during the bid process."
   He became one of this area's early advocates and practitioners of the design-build method of construction, which, exactly as the name suggests, marries the two functions. Practitioners say it improves the finished product, cuts costs and shortens schedules. It also prevents cost overruns, Barnette says, because the price is agreed upon up front. The only change orders are those initiated by the owner.
   Among Fulton/Coastcon's large design-build projects are Christus Spohn Hospital South, Bay Area Medical Center and Vista Automotive's new auto mall.
   Barnette's engineering award, he thinks, serves as an example to professional engineers that construction is a worthy career path.
   "In the old days it was rare that a graduate engineer went to work for a contractor," Barnette said. "More recently, young engineers have been going into the construction business."
  

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