By: Kim Betton and Paul Lambert, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
There is good news for laid off workers at Spokane based Burton Construction, Inc. Thanks to a $590,000 award through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the company is hiring back employees for a project at the Kooskia National Fish Hatchery (NFH).
Approximately 20 tradesmen and laborers will work on system upgrades to egg incubation systems including pump upgrades at the hatchery. Company officials say receiving the stimulus funding has a major impact on business and staffing.
“The big thing for us is the additional work has allowed us to bring back employees who have been laid off.” Burton Construction project manager Chuck Omlid told the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “This week alone we have brought an employee back to work and hired a new employee. We have very loyal and dedicated workers – we don’t like to lay people off,” he said. “The stimulus projects have meant a lot to us.”
Burton Construction is a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned business opened by Jerry Burton in 1978. Burton lost most of his hearing while engaging the enemy in Vietnam. Burton was named the 2005 Minority Small Business Person of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration, and his company won the University of Washington Rising Star Award in 2003 and 2004.
Burton Construction works on numerous large-scale construction projects, both private and public. Omlid notes the company has a special interest in the work done at Kooskia.
“It is a specialized area of work because it deals with rearing fish, releasing them to the rivers and studying their long voyage from Kooskia to the ocean and back,” Omlid said. “That’s unusual and exciting to us, and it has to be carefully done with specially-skilled fabricators and tradesmen on our end. Stimulus money has been good for helping us getting those people back to work.”
The Recovery funding through the Service opens doors for businesses such as Burton Construction to complete projects that help to conserve, protect and enhance fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats. Projects are also geared toward conserving energy and water – all for the continuing benefit of the American people.
“Because we are switching from an outdated 180-ton chiller to a modern 20-ton chiller, the improvement in the egg incubation system alone should cut our electricity usage from $12,000 a month to around $4,000 to $6,000. Over the six to eight months these pumps run each year, that is an annual energy savings of about $40,000 to $60,000,” said Adam Izbicki, manager, Kooskia National Fish Hatchery. “We are also replacing 25-year-old 25-horsepower pumps with more efficient 10-horsepower pumps to help us save on both electricity and water usage.”
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 gave $3 billion to the Department of the Interior. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service received $280 million in stimulus funds. The ARRA funds represent an important component of the President’s plan to jumpstart the economy and put a down payment on addressing long-neglected challenges so the country can thrive in the 21st century. The project at the Kooskia NFH is one of many ARRA opportunities that is helping to save and create jobs across America.
Originally posted 02/04/2010
