My primary impression of Hodess is that they are very knowledgeable and pragmatic. HCC’s matter-of-fact approach offers the client real choices for the project, and this reinforces the collaborative nature of the effort. Blake Hodess’ straight-talk style has been evident on every one of our projects.

The company possesses important strengths that make the project more satisfying for everyone. These include: their vast knowledge of the systems available for a project; their knowledge of the logistics issues impacting the project; and their respect for other team members’ roles and contributions.

Because Hodess has substantial general construction and construction manager experience, they are able to take a view of the project that is broader than a typical, “cleanroom specialist” view. Some cleanroom contractors or vendors just focus on their immediate task without seeing the big picture of the project. But with Hodess, the “big picture” collaborative sense of the project team has always been consistent.  —Charlie Johnsrud, AIA, Principal, Johnsrud Architects

HCC’s focus on delivering controlled environments—and their wide experience with a variety of clients, sub-markets and budgets—has provided them with a good library of data points to draw from. And this enables them to optimize results for their clients.

HCC understands the value of a fully engineered design and coordinating a project on screen. They also realize the flexibility this affords in terms of managing subcontractors.

What impresses me the most about Blake Hodess is his understanding of mechanical systems and applications. In turn, HCC has the confidence to direct purchase long lead items prior to having subs on board. And this means a fully designed project can also be a fast-track project.  —Bradley K. Hodges, PE, LEED® AP, Principal, Science Technology and Industry Group, SMRT Architects and Engineers

HCC has a very pragmatic approach to construction. They have developed disciplined processes to focus on each critical and necessary step in building cleanrooms; the result is true project efficiency.

Sometimes construction firms get distracted on parts of the construction process that are not as essential as others. They might try to over-coordinate certain details that are not as critical, without seeing the other aspects of the construction that are more critical and directly in the path. Hodess does better because of the quality of its people. With other firms, you may have a lot of junior level people who are asked to do things that they are not qualified to do. Hodess doesn’t do that; you are dealing with qualified people who truly understand what it takes to make the project move forward. They recognize the important steps in the process and focus on those steps. A construction job like this is very complicated, there are million things that have to happen and you can boil it down to a few hundred key steps. So having the experience to keep the focus on the critical path is crucial.

Imagine you have a job that was supposed to take six months and is now in its 19th month of construction and still not done. If you don’t have the people who know how to push the project forward, that’s the kind of thing that can happen.  —Mark Hemingway, PE, Principal, Sterling Engineers, Inc.

In my experience, HCC is a competitive, innovative, no-nonsense cleanroom construction company that evaluates the customer’s needs, provides a solution that works at a reasonable price and gets the work done within the advertised schedule.

They are exceptionally strong in all aspects of project delivery from concept to completion. They have an uncanny ability to determine the needs of the customer, customize the cleanroom accordingly and deliver the project successfully.

The things that set them apart: their ability to innovate with respect to cleanroom space programming/lay-out, their vast knowledge in cleanroom envelope materials, their intimate knowledge of various air handling systems to control particles, temperature and humidity, and their ability to deliver these with an experienced staff.  —Gerard R. Blanchette, P.E., LEED AP, The H L Turner Group