Kelly Spors, a Wall Street Journal reporter who recently quoted Walton Construction CEO Dan Frisbee in an article on small businesses accessing economic stimulus funds, offers tips for winning government contracts on her WSJ blog Independent Street. She offers links for networking with government contractors, accessing lists of projects and getting low-cost or free technical assistance. She also gives a link to the Central Contractor Registration site. All government contractors must be registered in this database prior to award of a contract.

I followed a Google Alert on my name to a post on Donna Gamache’s new blog, St. Louis Design Community Connections. Nice Monday morning wake-me-up!

Donna, marketing director at the Lawrence Group, is providing a great service to the local architecture/design community with her very timely and interesting blog. She writes about networking, job hunting, leads, tips and hints, and fun ways to keep up your good humor in tough times.

Be sure to check it out! You can subscribe through RSS or FeedBlitz. You won’t want to miss a post!

Leslie Guevarra of Greener Buildings reports on the Lawrence Group’s eco-friendly model home built of shipping containers, which is featured at the West Coast Green conference.

Amid neck-craning stacks of shipping containers at an Alameda depot, a building crew has worked for the past two weeks to fashion an eco-friendly, two-story structure from five recycled and refurbished steel cubes that had been used to haul cargo. The project by SG Blocks LLC and the design firm called the Lawrence Group will bring an 1,800-square-foot, two-bedroom, two-bath home to San Jose, where the structure dubbed Harbinger House will be the centerpiece on the tradeshow floor of the West Coast Green conference that runs from September 24 to 27. read more…

Tim Rowbottom, a principal with St. Louis-based Lawrence Group, was named in an article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch about pro-bono architecture work.

Rowbottom designed the interior for the Downtown Children’s Center in St. Louis on his first day at work and has been donating time to the project for four years. Several architects and designers at the Lawrence Group got involved in the children’s center and over the years have donated the equivalent of $90,000 in billable hours to the project, Rowbottom said.

Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Lawrence Group has completed the redevelopment of Kirberg Co.’s 44,000-square-foot headquarters and distribution facility in St. Louis. Lawrence Group provided design/build services for the redevelopment of the historic property, which contains office and warehouse space.

The two-story building achieved LEED certification with sustainable features such as bamboo flooring, motion-sensor lighting, maximized natural light, the use of recycled materials, a green roof, increased water efficiency and the installation of a shower for employees to promote alternative transportation.

Source: REBusiness Online

One of the big national AEC stories of 2007 was the number of top design firms acquired by larger companies last year. Sixteen firms “disappeared” from the ENR Top 500 Design Firms list due to acquisitions.

The trend to instantly create companies that can provide a full range of services — from planning and design through construction and even operations and maintenance — has been fueled by larger projects and clients who want single source delivery.

The U.S. dollar’s fall against foreign currencies is another factor that makes acquisition of U.S. firms by foreign companies look more enticing than ever. European companies can get 30% more for their money by using Euros in the U.S.

Still, there’s a lot to be said for the stability, integrity and commitment of firms owned by their founders, management teams or ESOPs (employee stock ownership plans). Among such successful companies in St. Louis are McCarthy, Walton Construction, Guarantee Electrical, Lawrence Group, Clayco, Kwame Building Group, Graybar Electric.

These companies and many others have found ways to provide the broad range of services owners want while still maintaining local ownership.

What other local AEC firms can you add to the list?