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Rebuilding A Country
Rebuilding plans for Iraq are in the early stages, and businesses around the world are eager to play a role

By Anne Straub
Brevard Technical Journal

Who snags work in rebuilding Iraq is anyone’s guess and word could be a long time coming, say two Brevard County companies that could play a part.

“I’m not so sure how fast it’s moving over there,” said Larry Shaw, president of BRPH Architects-Engineers in Melbourne.

The company has experience in the Middle East. BRPH has done work in Kuwait, primarily in communications and in designing theme shopping malls. The company is busy with other commitments and isn’t pursuing Iraq, Shaw said, but it’s interested.

“If we got a call, sure, we’d put a team together,” Shaw said.

BRPH designs specialty buildings, such as aircraft hangars, maintenance centers and schools. Any of that construction couldn’t happen until after basic infrastructure is restored in the country, where security remains questionable and electricity and running water are sporadic.

“If we’re going to get a call, it would come later,” Shaw said.

Companies that have secured work in Iraq are in early stages. Bechtel Corp., which will serve as the lead contractor in the U.S.-financed rebuilding, only now is setting up makeshift offices in Iraq.

Major contractors that have won contracts, including Bechtel and Brown & Root, are familiar names to BRPH. “We’ve worked with all these companies in the past,” Shaw said. “I’d like to get a shot at doing some schools over there, but we’ll see.

Despite planning being in the early stages, potential subcontractors from around the world have been quick to offer their services, flooding companies with pitches. Would-be middlemen have sprung up as well, claiming to have an inside track with an established contractor.

The scrambling for position is more intense than it was after the war in Afghanistan, said Stuart Dawley, investment relations officer AirNet Communications Corp. in Melbourne.

The company makes wireless base stations and other equipment used to provide high-speed wireless data and voice services to mobile subscribers. AirNet is helping to rebuild the phone system in Afghanistan and would like to do the same in Iraq.

“Of course, it’s a highly desirable market for us,” Dawley said. The company’s team would already be familiar with the security concerns and other special considerations for working in that environment. “It’s not like when you need something you run down to the hardware store,” he said.

AirNet shipped the product out of its inventory and got its people into Afghanistan quickly, with the help of the U.N. The company installed the network in two weeks and went commercial a month later.

AirNet’s technology lends itself to rapid deployment because of the high level of integration on the base station and an architecture that uses a smaller number of racks. “It really is a plug-and-play environment when it’s delivered,” said William Lee, AirNet vice president of operations.

The company installed 50 elements in five cities and now is upgrading capacity, Lee said.

That experience would translate well to Iraq, said Tim Mahar, AirNet vice president of worldwide sales. “We think we have a solution that would work very well for their country. We proved it in Afghanistan,” he said.

Telecommunications work in Iraq can’t proceed until officials grant frequency licenses. In the meantime, a variety of businesses, including established companies and entrepreneurs, are calling AirNet to ask the company to get on board a particular team.

“If some of the people we’re talking to get a license, there’s a good chance” AirNet could do work in Iraq, he said.