Despite Pandemic, HCC Beats Own Best in ENR’s Top 600 Specialty Contractors

Every year Engineering News-Record (ENR)  publishes a list of the top 600 Specialty Contractors in the US. The ranking is based on construction revenue as well as backlog (work under contract but scheduled to start at a later date). Revenue must be from specialty contracting either in a Prime or Subcontracted role. This year Hodess Cleanroom Construction placed higher than in our previous 8 years of submitting qualifying data. For 2021 we placed 291, moving up 187 spots from 2020, and beating a previous best of 374 in 2017.  Our ranking puts HCC well above other design build cleanroom contractors that submitted data to ENR.  

“I think this growth is a testament to how diverse we are as a Cleanroom integrator compared to some of our competition” notes company President, Blake Hodess. “While many other companies focus on a single industry that utilizes cleanroom technology, Hodess is well represented in Pharma, Medical Device,  Semiconductor, Electronics, Defense, and Nanotechnology but also in industries many don’t consider would have a need for cleanrooms, such as Lithium-Ion Battery and Automotive. It is this diversification that allowed us to grow even through a pandemic.”

While the pandemic caused many in the construction industry to scale back due to loss of revenue, those on ENR Top 600 Specialty seemed to grow and Hodess was no different. The COVID 19 crisis did create new challenges that needed real time solutions, specifically on how to address labor and material shortages.  “We saw many of our projects start to be prioritized by owners, especially if they were projects related to fighting the virus,” explains Jason Dollarhide, the Director of Development for Hodess.  “We had to adapt our thinking and start finding ways to release materials very early in the design process, sometimes going from concept to buy out within just a few weeks. It took total commitment from all sides: owners, us as the GC as well as our supply partners.”

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