Building contractor Angelo Perryman's summer project
gives new meaning to the term "fast-track construction."
That's because his company, Perryman Building and
Construction Services Inc., has less than six weeks to turn the entire Wells
Fargo Center and its parking lots into what amounts to a pop-up city for
50,000, including the 6,000 delegates and 15,000 journalists, at the Democratic
National Convention starting July 25.
As part of the $1 million-plus contract that he manages,
Perryman, 56, will oversee construction operations before, during, and after
the convention, hiring subcontractors to handle everything from power and cable
access to scaffolding towers and other foundation needs under the direction of
Hargrove Inc., the event's general contractor.
Seems stressful,
given the short timeline. You just got into the building in late May, and you
have to be out by Aug. 19. Very tight.
Anytime you are striving to perform a great job for the
client, there is stress. We planned our work and are working our plan.
If it works out,
it will be an impressive credential.
Probably the biggest thing that comes from the
opportunity is that [we], as a construction manager, will get new vendors
coming to [our] portfolio to evaluate and add into the normal cycle.
The project itself
attracts new subcontractors?
Yes. Building new and fresh relationships is a good
capitalistic and economic model. When you knock on the door in different communities,
a lot of those communities want to know that you're utilizing people that are
from those communities. So for us, it's a positive direction in our
presentation to clients all over the city.
There's always
been talk about the lack of diversity in construction among unions and
contractors. Why is that?
My experience from all the different places that I
worked, there's always been a market that is small, medium, and large. You
couldn't work for a large firm saying, 'I just did my mom's bathroom.'
Philadelphia's talent development doesn't seem to have a middle. Only a bottom
and a top, and it's a tip-top.
Is your point that
there's a lack of a middle range of contracts for small minority-owned firms to
attain as they move up?
Yes, otherwise the market will say, 'Large firm, drop
down and do some of those jobs.' And that doesn't allow the full economy to be
appreciated by everybody.
How can that
change?
Somebody has to guide it. It's not that you let everyone
run rampant.
Isn't that the
free market?
Philadelphia's construction market was typically about
$2.5 billion as a whole [before the recession], and we're now close to $12
billion a year. The question now becomes for all the people that we couldn't
help when the economy went down, why didn't we make a place for them when the
economy went back up?
How do you feel
about getting jobs through minority set-asides?
I don't think we get them that way.
We take a lot of pride that Perryman Building represents
a firm that knows how to grab first-of-a-kind projects: Utilize talent that may
not have done that kind of work before, but [use] the things they learned in
other spaces and weaving that together to come up with new ideas.
If I look at my dad's administration of the business, we
were only known as having skilled, talented people that know how to do the
work.
Nobody started the conversation with minority anything,
but these days the start of that conversation is that 'You're stupid first. You
are incapable first, and I'm going to give you a chance.' For us, there's
nothing on any document that we do, or that we put out, or on the awards we've
won, that even brings the subject up.
Especially with a
name like Angelo.
They're usually shocked when I come in. They're usually
surprised at what the Angelo looks like.
Interview questions and answers have been edited for
space.
Source: Philly.com
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