The first 5 months of 2018 for Ross Engineering have been extremely busy on all fronts. Moving forward we plan to update our website blog monthly due to the volume of new projects coming in and completing construction. First, we want to Welcome new staff additions to our company including Mr. Javier Valdes, Mr. Franklyn Garris, Ms. Stacey Hymowitz, Ms. Susan Hernandez and Mr. Rodolfo Sucre. The company has been in a growth period since the summer of 2017 and has brought on professional consultants including DCS for engineering and project manager support; CADpro for CADD support; Complete IT Care for IT services for our network servers and computers; Lashbrook & Associates for accounting and tax preparation services and AE Assistance Group for marketing support.
We are happy to announce that we have finalized our contract with Miami-Dade County Water and Sewer for the $3.3M SBE set aside contract for small diameter pipe design, permitting, construction inspection and certification. We successfully negotiated with WASD staff our first task work order for new 8 inch water-mains on two streets in the South Miami area. For this task work order, Surveying is being handled by our subconsultant, Longitude Surveyors, while our largest subconsultant Thompson & Associates will be assisting with quality control and quality assurance. For the past 9 months we have been working closely with King & Associates on a focused Miami-Dade Water & Sewer water main and sewer main design project in the downtown Miami area which includes both office and field engineers. We have had as many as 5 employees working on this exciting project on a monthly basis and have assisted the team in completing roughly 2,000 design sheets. The project is anticipated to go into the construction phase this summer where we will assist with construction engineering inspection. https://www.rossengineers.com/projects
On the municipal, county and school board front, we recently won a contract with the City of North Miami for Water and Wastewater design services for engineering design fees of $250,000 or less. For this category, three firms submitted and we came in 1st place. We have executed our 4 year contract with Broward County School Board for General Civil Engineering Consulting Services and anticipate a good amount of task work orders starting this summer. For Miami-Dade County School Board we partnered with HKS Architects and successfully won a large project for new facilities at the FIU North Campus in North Miami for buildings that both FIU and Miami-Dade County Public Schools will occupy. In Palm Beach County there is a significant amount of school board work that is starting to hit the street and we successfully obtained our SBE and WBE certificates with the school board to team with our Architectural clients for upcoming opportunities. We continue to work closely with Song & Associates and JAG Architects on multiple Broward County School Board projects under their continuing consulting contracts as their civil engineering subconsultant. Projects include Royal Palm Elementary School, Gulfsteam Academy, Taravella High School, Henry Perry Middle School, Lauderdale Lakes Middle School, Bright Horizons Center and soon Driftwood Middle School.
In other news, Melissa Ross, President of Ross Engineering, and Dodie Keith, President of Keith Associates have both been accepted into a Broward County Mentoring program together. Ms Keith (as mentor) and Ms Ross/Ross Engineering (as protege) have been paired together in the program and as we explore opportunities to team with Ms. Keith and her firm the program called Team UP:
http://www.broward.org/EconDev/Out-reach/pages/Mentoring.aspx
This program will provide our company valuable insight on growing a small CBE/DBE business from 10-20 employees to the 120 employees that Keith & Associates has become today. Additionally Principal Melissa Ross graduated from the Jim Moran Institute’s Entrepreneur program while Principal Robert Ross graduated from the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program in Miami Florida. https://www.rossengineers.com/clients
About Jim Moran Institute for Global Entrepreneurship
As the challenge of operating and growing a small business becomes increasingly complex, the Jim Moran Institute remains a source of expertise and executive education. For this reason, our focus is on assisting businesses with a minimum of three employees and in business for over three years for little to no cost. Maintaining one of the most extensive small business outreach programs in the nation, the Jim Moran Institute serves small business owners and non-profit organizations throughout the state of Florida by offering programs, an expert speaker series, and an annual small business leadership conference.
Since the Jim Moran Institute's inception more than 20 years ago, it has served small business communities across Florida. Its commitment to advance entrepreneurship extends to several non-traditional communities as well. Working with Junior Achievement Big Bend, the Jim Moran Institute supports an extensive youth development program aimed at developing future entrepreneurs. In addition, the Jim Moran Institute hosts the widely acclaimed Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV), an intensive program designed to teach entrepreneurship and small business management to post-9/11 veterans with service-connected disabilities. https://jmi.fsu.edu/about-us/jim-moran-institute
About Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Program
Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses is an investment to help entrepreneurs create jobs and economic opportunity by providing greater access to education, capital and business support services. To date, the program has served over 6,700 small business owners across all 50 states, and has resulted in immediate and sustained business growth for the alumni of the program. http://www.goldmansachs.com/citizenship/10000-small-businesses/US/#