Businesses
ENGINEERING & CONSTRUCTION
Founded in 1944, Construtora Norberto Odebrecht is the leading company for theOdebrecht Group's Engineering & Construction business.
Construtora Norberto Odebrecht's expertise in managing high-complexity projects, finding and structuring innovative financing alternatives and bonds, and relating with clients, governments and communities, has garnered invitations to participate in increasingly complex ventures in the 19 countries in which it is present, and to seek out new markets.
Wherever its teams are working, they make an outstanding contribution by transferring technology and supporting social development. They prioritize educating and hiring local workers and using services and products that can be supplied by businesses in the vicinity of their jobsites.
Some examples of these practices include the company's active involvement in infrastructure projects aimed at integrating South America, and a significant number of public works projects and investments in Angola, along with social outreach programs based on education, with a view to making a lasting contribution to that country's socioeconomic development.
Among other accolades, in 2006 Construtora Norberto Odebrecht was considered the Best Brazilian Company in its sector by the US magazine Global Finance, and included in the Business News Americas Hall of Fame as the number one Latin American contractor in the last decade. In Brazil, it was voted the Most Admired Heavy Construction Company by Carta Capital magazine and the newspaper DCI; and the Biggest Construction Company in Brazil and the Biggest Brazilian Service Exporter by Exame magazine. It also received the best performance evaluation of all Petrobras's suppliers of engineering products and services.
Jim Boldman, Tommy Valentine and Juiz in the Carnival Center´s Foyer in Miami
The most advanced performing arts center in the USA
Three Americans, Manny Juiz, Tommy Valentine and Jim Boldman, worked as supervisors on the Carnival Center for the Performing Arts construction project in Miami, completed in August 2006 by Odebrecht and its joint-venture partners, the Haskell Company of the USA, and Ellis-Don of Canada.
Juiz, Valentine and Boldman supervised teams of over 600 people of dozens of nationalities who worked on several fronts to build the two venues that make up the Carnival Center (Knight Concert Hall, with 2,200 seats, for concerts and shows, and the Ziff Ballet Opera House, with 2,400 seats, for theater, dance and Broadway musicals), which make up the most advanced facility of its kind in the USA.
Although they had to weather six hurricanes while the center was being built (from 2002 to 2006), these major forces of nature were not the biggest challenge they faced on this project. That was the artistic finishing touches required for the parts designed by architects and guest artists. The roof of the Ziff Ballet Opera House took a year to paint, due to the wealth of nuances and subtleties involved. "The quality of the details is what makes the difference at the Carnival Center," says Tommy Valentine.
Omar Terán and Nelson Rondón,
with the Orinoquia Bridge in the background
Bridging Brazilian and Venezuelan engineering
During construction, it was considered the biggest infrastructure project underway in Latin America: a 3,156-m road/rail bridge with two navigation channels and 166 kilometers of associated roadways. Built across the Orinoco River in Ciudad Guayana,Venezuela, the Orinoquia Bridge is making a decisive contribution to Venezuela's socioeconomic integration. It was the result of five years of work, during which Odebrecht teams designed and implemented a complex system of logistics, using state-of-the-art technology and dealing with the erratic currents and swells of one of the world's mightiest rivers.
Odebrecht transferred technology to Venezuela through consultants, specialists and technicians who worked side by side with local professionals. By bequeathing a legacy of knowledge, the execution of the Orinoquia Bridge project has also made a valuable contribution to Venezuelan engineering. Omar Terán, Chairman of the Bolívar State Chamber of Construction, observes: "This is a project we can proudly show the world. And now we, too, know how to build it." Nelson Rondón, Chairman of the Venezuela College of Engineers - Ciudad Guyana Section, is categorical: "Venezuelan engineering has improved after this project."
>MAP: Engineering & Construction: 2006 Highlights in Brazil
>MAP: Engineering & Construction: 2006 Highlights in Other Countries
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