Venegas Construction

Business View Caribbean 9 New York and Florida. Initially, our reaction was, ‘No way; we could never do that. All our competitive advan- tages are here. We don’t see how that could even be possible.’ That was five years ago. But more recently, we decided that we’re going to expand and establish construction management operations in Florida and New York. Therefore, we currently find ourselves in the process of obtaining licenses to perform as a general contractor in these states. We have some help from existing clients, but mostly, we need to introduce our- selves; we need to let the local industries know who we are in Puerto Rico and what we can do for them in Florida and New York.” While the recent recession in Puerto Rico has severely hampered the construction sector throughout the is- land, Venegas says that his company has managed to hold its own during that time span. “If you graph the growth or extinction of the construction economy during the past five years against our performance,” he says, “it’s remarkable. We’ve been able to sustain good performance in an extremely onerous market. And it is a real challenge to maintain that. If we can maintain our current performance in our current in- dustry in Puerto Rico during the next five years, we’ll be very satisfied. And I would like to see a meaningful growth of successful operations in the United States, as well.” As Venegas Construction begins its next period of de- velopment and expansion, Venegas reflects on what has made the company so successful in the past and how this new generation of leadership plans to con- tinue that same trajectory. “We did not become a spe- cialty contractor to do our projects,” he says. “We just learned, educated ourselves, got the necessary