Grupo Estrella – Dominican Republic

Grupo Estrella – A Dominican construction company

Business View Caribbean profiles Grupo Estrella, a consortium of fabrication and construction companies, with Headquarters in Santiago, Dominican Republic.

Grupo Estrella is a construction business based in the Dominican Republic. The group is made up of: Ingeniería Estrella, a contractor of civil engineering and road construction projects; Acero Estrella, a leader in the fabrication and erection of steel structures and cold formed steel products; ConcreDom, a producer of hydraulic concrete; Cemento Panam, a producer of maximum-resistance Portland cement; and Laminados Estrella, a manufacturer of products for roofs, mezzanines, interior partitions, and exterior enclosures for residential, commercial, and industrial installations.

Over the years Grupo Estrella has worked on many projects including: Higher Education Centers, Airport Construction, Commercial Establishments, Tourist Infrastructure, Cultural and Sport Installations, Ports and Dams, Industrial Warehouses and Buildings, and Road Construction Projects. The work of the Grupo Estrella companies has been defined by a culture of quality, responsibility, punctuality, and honesty, and they replicate this practice in all the projects that they carry out, in relation to their customers and the partnerships of which they are members.

The company was originally founded in 1983 as Arquicentro, offering engineering services. In 1985, Estrella, Grullón & Peralta was formed, which worked mainly on housing project and hotel buildings at the height of tourism development in Puerto Plata and the North Coast. In the early ‘90s the company began to offer earth moving and private construction services. In 1995, it introduced the metal deck system to the Dominican market, which revolutionized the construction of multi-story buildings.

In 2001, the group expanded its diversification by investing in the Cibao International Airport, and several years later in the communications media, paint manufacturing business, health sector, and hardware store environment. In 2004, Acero Estrella became the first and only company in the Dominican Republic to be certified to international quality standards by the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC). In 2006, Ingeniería Estrella began highway construction projects in the Northern Region of the country, and established its asphalt plant in Villa González. In 2011, Estrella began the construction of the Cemento Panam plant in Villa Gautier.

In 2013, the company expanded its presence in Haiti with camps in Port-au-Prince, Gonaïves, Caracol, Lascahobas, and Les Cayes for the execution of a range of infrastructural projects. In 2014, the Dominican-Costa Rican consortium, Estrella-H. Solis, signed a contract with the government of Costa Rica for the design and construction of the northern stretch of the Route 39 Beltway for the city of San José.

The current President of Grupo Estrella is Manuel Genao. He has been a member of the executive team in charge of the company’s internationalization process since 2007, starting with the construction of roadway infrastructure in Haiti, with financing from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the European Union. Genao has also played an active role in Estrella’s entry into the Panamanian market with the Panama City Metro project, and in Costa Rica, with the Northern Bypass construction. He is a Civil Engineering graduate from the PUCMM University with a Masters in Business Management and a graduate of North Carolina State University with a specialty in Construction Engineering and Management.

Fundación Estrella, the group’s charitable foundation, was created in 2011 to consolidate the company’s commitment to education and to promoting youth entrepreneurship and training. The main objectives of the Fundación Estrella are:

• To promote economic growth in the communities through support for the creation of new sources of income, especially in areas beneficial for small and medium-scale companies, such as tourism, agriculture, and crafts.
• To encourage the creation of micro-businesses, cooperatives, and chambers of commerce to offer more employment opportunities in the communities.
• To support public and private institutions in vocational training and education for workers.
• To organize events with business owners and traders from all over the country in order to instruct and train new entrepreneurs in seminars, workshops, and lectures.
• To encourage public-private sector alliances for promoting policies that contribute to a more dynamic and competitive workforce.
• To help access to new technologies and other resources for optimizing the work process and to pursue the establishment of national and international agreements with governments, universities, and technological centers that are dedicated to creating a more advanced environment for the workforce.

AT A GLANCE

WHO: Grupo Estrella

WHAT: A consortium of fabrication and construction companies

WHERE: Headquarters in Santiago, Dominican Republic

WEBSITE: www.estrella.com.do

PREFERRED VENDORS