You can count on me
Antonio dos Prazeres Costa, or “Dedinho,’ joined Odebrecht in 1968 and sets an example of motivation and the aptitude for service
written by ◦ Valber Carvalho photo by ◦ Christian Cravo

Issued by the São Felipe, Bahia, registry office, his birth certificate shows his name as Antonio dos Prazeres Costa. When he got that name in July 1948, little Antonio never suspected that it would only “last’ 20 years.

When he was 6, his family moved to the Retiro district of Salvador, the state capital. At the age of 10, he went to work, assembling crates in a soap factory.

One day, after completing his obligatory military service, he sought out a neighbor called Deusdete to see if he could find him some work. It was 1968, and Deusdete, who was working at Odebrecht, offered him a job on the Funil Bridge construction project, which would connect the southern side of Itaparica Island with the mainland.

Antonio, who is 1.59-m tall, was not the sort of man to think twice. He took the job, but he didn’t even last a week. On the fifth day, he nearly sliced off his right thumb. After getting first-aid at the jobsite, Antonio had his wound treated at a medical clinic in Salvador.

“Where’s the name?’ yelled the doctor when he was reading Antonio’s chart. The nurse at the construction site had forgotten to write down his name when he filled in the data. “I’m going to write your name down here as ’Dedinho’ (the diminutive of “finger’), and next time I’ll only see you if the form is filled out completely,’ said the doctor. From that day forward, Antonio disappeared and Dedinho was born.

Because his wound took a long time to heal, Dedinho was transferred to the project’s office in the Retiro district. He worked directly with the supervisor for the Funil Bridge project, who was known as “Seu Costa.’ That was when Dedinho’s good qualities came to the fore: he is hardworking and gregarious, with a prodigious memory and a tremendous desire to learn. When the project was completed in 1970, Dedinho got a permanent job with the company as an assistant construction worker.

Soon he was promoted to assistant storeroom clerk and later to administrative assistant. Finally, he became an administrative assistant (grade II) in 1998, a position he held until he retired. He observes that the company’s directors did not have secretaries until the early 70s, and because of that, he often came into direct contact with them. He was sent out on missions that could sometimes be unusual, to say the least. “Once I had to go to a director’s house to get his signature late at night, in his kitchen,’ he says with his fast staccato speech.

In addition to the Funil Bridge project, Dedinho has worked on the Rio Pardo Bridge in Camacã, southern Bahia, the Salvador Marine Outfall, Odebrecht real-estate ventures (housing projects in the Caminho das Árvores and Vilas do Atlântico sub-divisions), oil drilling projects at OPL - Odebrecht Perfurações, in Aracaju, and the Salvador Works and Land Department (DOS).

In 1980 he began working in the Bidding Area as a sort of administrative “jack-of-all-trades.’ “I know all about construction projects, and I know the CREA (Regional Board of Engineering and Architecture) like my own house,’ he says proudly.

One of his favorite memories of the company is that it gave him an opportunity to improve his schooling by financing his studies so he could get a high-school equivalency certificate.

Dedinho retired in 2002, but in his words, “I can’t stay far from Odebrecht.’ Today he works at the Center for Information and Engineering Development (Ciaden) and on any given day he can be found at the offices of Salvador Mass Transit - TMS 2 on Tancredo Neves Avenue in Salvador.

Legally married since 1979, Dedinho has a 23-year-old son and a 4-year-old granddaughter. Someone tried to call him by a different name once, but gave up at the first work meeting when he realized that the directors all called him Dedinho. What’s the secret of his popularity? “I’m cheerful with everybody and I treat everyone the same – from the boss to the security guard.’