By Maricelle Ruiz Calderon

Josen Rossi, president of Aireko Construction Corp., is as candid as they come.
When the 40-year-old –– who coaches Little League baseball in his spare time –– is asked how he got to the company's top post at such a young age, he'll probably respond, "I inherited it."
The he'll kick back, relax and smile. Wait, is this the same guy who two minutes ago described work as a hobby. Indeed he is.
Do not be deceived. Behind the nice guy, life is good attitude is a University of Virginia MBA who believes in doing an excellent job instead of wasting time on excuses for being the founder's son. Among Rossi's business tactics are bouncing off ideas with the so-called Old Guard, holding brainstorming sessions as a method of reaching effective alternatives, and staying debt-free.
"Construction is a risky, volatile business," Rossi expained during a recent interview. "We have a self-imposed requirement to stay debt-free and amply capitalized."
Rossi joked Aireko officials tend to irritate bankers because they rarely use multi-million dollar lines-of-credit set aside for the 600-employee company. Despite that, he said, the company's revenue grew 32% during fiscal year 1998 to reach $56 million.
Aireko jumped 48 spots to become the 96th largest company on the island in the 1998 CARIBBEAN BUSINESS Top 300 list. To date, private sector projects account for approximately 65% of Aireko's work. The remaining some 35%, includes government projects.
Among the company's largest construction and renovation projects are Ramallo International Center, Hewlett Packard and Ponce Hilton. But the company also specializes in smaller projects such as a $160,000 waste treatment plant donated to Rossi's alma mater, Humacao's San Antonio de Abad School.
"Aireko is the major locally owned multidisiciplinary construction company on the island," Rossi siad. "We take care of all major civil, electrical, and mechanical work in-house and are capable of advising clients from a project's planning stages to the time its ready for maintenance work."
"In fact, more than 80% of our latest private sector projects include repeat clients. People trust us. And when there's trust, working together becomes much easier."
Areko's top brass includes professionals with diverse training, Rossi noted. Executive Vice President Lorenzo Dragoni is a mechnical engineer. Rossi is a civil engineer.
Aireko engineers, superintendents and skilled workers, meanwhile, provide technical support to vocational school programs in Ponce's Bernardino Cordero and San Juan's Miguel Such institutes, while the company provides eight-to-twenty week internships to engineering students.

THE EARLY DAYS
Thirty-five years ago, Jose Enrique Rossi, Rossi's father, and Osvaldo Ortiz founded Aireko, six months after meeting during a construction project.
"There were job opportunites in the southern part of the island, perto-cehmical-facility development was in full force," Rossi Jr. explained, adding his family, including eight children, is originally from Ponce.
:My dad left a job at Union Carbide and joined forces with Don Osvaldo. Each invested $5,000 to start the company."
Aireko first installed air conditioners in Casa Manresa, a retreat facility near Ponce, Rossi said, adding the company's name is a combination of the Spanish word "aire" or air conditioner and "ko" for construction.
Josen Rossi joined the company's employee ranks in 1972. He first worked summers while he was a boarding school student at San Antonio de Abad. Rossi noted the boarding-school experience encouraged him to become more independent, but conceded he still yearned to follow in his "old man's" footsteps.
"Working in a construction company allows you to be outside and keeps you on the go,' he added.
After graduating from Cornell University with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering in 1980, he worked full-time in his first project, the construction of Moca's San Carlos hospital. Four years later, Rossi's management skills were put the test during the construction of the 44 million, 80-room La Ceiba y La Fuente Hotel in Rio Grande build for the Teamsters Union.
"We agreed on a maximum price and a set construction time prior to the beginning of the project," he said, adding that although later company workers had to blast rock and vary design to complete the project, they delivered as planned.
During the Rio Grande project, Aireko employees also had to deal with constant rainfall. Precautions taken included gravel roads and temporary ditches for rainwater drainage.
"In the Rio Grande mountains, near El Yunque (tropical rainforest), it rains constantly," Rossi sade. "We invested in necessary precautions to minimize the rain's impact. In construction, one may lose the entire day as a result of a half-hour rain shower."

PROMINENT PROJECTS
In 1990, Aireko engaged in another challenging venture the $32 million construction of the 156-room Ponce Hilton.
"We needed to put in place the necessary infrastructure to provide for a 400-room expansion," Rossi said. " The hotel also included what's known as architectural finished concrete, which requires skilled laborers and specialized concrete forms.:
Other buildings exhibiting architectural finished concrete –– a type of concrete work which doesn't crack or require paint –– are local U.S. District Court building and the San Juan Judicial Center in Hato Rey.
Aireko renovated and expanded San Carlos hospital between 1996 and 1997, a task that demanded laborers keep disruption to a minimum.
"We had to build a floor on top of an area full of patients and to expand the operating room area (while surgery was in progress right next door)," Rossi said, adding the project's total cost reached %5.5 million, including a 45,000 square foot expansion and renovations in a 10,000 square foot area.
Also in 1996, numerous Aireko engineers and workers set shop in Aguadilla for a 200,000-plus-square foot renovation and expansion at local Hewlett Packard headquarters.
The company has already billed $47 million on a project which requires turning storage areas into manufacturing facilities as well as building additional manufacturing facilities and a cafeteria. They expect to complete the project by April 1999.
"We need to provide structure with air quality control to safeguard manufacturing processes," Rossi explained, adding Aireko has established a consortium with Oregon's Andersen Construction Corp. to complete the HP project.
Aireko's largest project in terms of square footage is the 423 million, 370,000 square foot Ramallo International printing center on PR-1, a project which required what Rossi describes as Aireko's preconstruction strategy sessions.
"We spent six months working with the architect and the owner to reach an acceptable budget for the project," he said, explaining the center's construction is being funded through a $60 million Afica bond issue.
Afica is a Government Development Bank for Puerto Rico (GDB) financial instrument used to provide long-term, low interest capital for projects in certain industries such as tourism, education and health.
Prior to begining the Ramallo center construction, Aireko workers has to deal with unstable soil. "We used a large crane to drop a 20,000-pound weight thousands of times (on the project site) to prepare soil and subsoil for the new building," Rossi said, adding that the so-called dynamic compactation method saved the client time and money.
Aireko is also installing so-called postensioned concrete floor slabs in the building. Rossi noted the construction of these slabs requires less concrete and reduces the incidence of cracks in the floor. The company, meanwhile, expects to finish the printing facility in August 1999.

FUTURE PLANS
Aireko officials are reviewing offers to form joint ventures outside the island in places such as Santo Domingo and Mexico. Rossi, meanwhile, will assume the reins of the local Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) chapter in December.
When asked about AGC-related plans, Rossi deferred to his colleague Pablo del Valle, the organization's president, noting his term as president has yet to come.