“Sleeping Giant”

“We were always kind of a giant that no one ever knew much about,” says Richard Cavallaro, president of Skanska USA Civil, one of the Swedish construction giant’s four business units in North America. “People would ask us, ‘Where do you work?’ and when you’d say Skanska, they’d say, ‘Who?’ ”

For a while, it made sense. Once the firm entered the U.S. market in 1971, it began acquiring firms both small and large throughout the region and continued operating them under different names. By the time they were all brought under the Skanska brand in the 1990s they had four unique business units – Skanska USA Building, Skanska USA Civil, Skanska Commercial Development and Skanska Infrastructure Development – and a growing reputation.

Now they’ve become impossible to miss.

If you do a quick rundown of the New York region’s biggest construction projects, chances are, Skanska’s logo is on the site somewhere.

New Meadowlands Stadium in East Rutherford? Check.

2nd Avenue Subway and 7 Line Subway extension in Manhattan? Check.

The $500 million Brooklyn Bridge Rehabilitation? Check

United Nations renovation? Check

In 2009 Skanska USA’s Northeast operations did nearly $2.4 billion worth of business in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, more than any other contractor in the region. There are only a handful of billion-dollar jobs left in the New York region and, within the last year, Skanska has completed, started work or been awarded large contracts on 10 of them. For their dominant year, which occurred in the most challenging economic environment the industry has experienced in nearly 20 years, Skanska has been named New York Construction magazine’s Contractor of the Year...........read more