Family-owned construction business rises to new heights with assistance of Illinois Tollway diversity programs
Luis Vazquez and his wife, Socorro, started Toro Construction Corp. as a side business in 2005 because they wanted to build something together using the experience they had gained from their full-time careers—Luis as a carpenter and Socorro as a legal assistant.
But they continued working their full-time jobs to help make ends meet as they to keep their small, family-owned construction business going.
By 2014, the couple decided to shift all their efforts to running Toro—both quit their full-time jobs, with Luis serving as president and focusing on finding projects and Socorro serving as chief executive officer and handling the administrative end of the business. They also brought in Luis’ brother, Carlos, to help run their field operations.
“It was scary, but at this point we had no choice, we didn’t want to go back,” he said, recalling that at one point he cashed in his retirement savings to plug into Toro. “Between us, we were able to achieve what we wanted to do—forge our own company and run it together.”
Their work is paying off, as company has grown from earning revenues of about $100,000 in 2010 to $3.5 million in 2015 to about $42 million in revenues last year. The business now has about 30 full-time employees working at its Orland Park headquarters, along with up to 120 carpenters and other employees working on their construction projects.
He credits an Illinois Tollway program designed to assist small, diverse and veteran-owned businesses with helping Toro Construction grow by guiding them through the steps needed to participate in Tollway construction projects.
The direction he received from the Tollway’s Technical Assistance Program helped him obtaining bonding, finding insurance and gaining other required skills so his business was better able to compete for work on projects done by the Tollway and other public agencies.
“The Technical Assistance program has helped us understand how we can excel and how we can work with the Tollway,” Vazquez said. “We also got a lot of exposure through the program so other businesses know who we are and what we do—and that’s important in this industry.”
Since participating in that program, Vazquez has worked on six Tollway contracts as a subcontractor, including five that were awarded through the agency’s innovative Job Order Contracting Program.
In that program, general contractors competitively bid from a catalog of construction tasks, which enables the Tollway to complete a large number of facility repairs and individual projects without incurring the expense and time delays of requiring bids and separate contracts for each individual project.
JOC prime contractors in turn typically use subcontractors to carry out the work included in each contract, providing additional small and diverse firms like Toro Construction with the opportunity to take part in Tollway projects.
As part of those JOC contracts, which began in 2015, Vazquez’s firm served as a subcontractor doing renovation work at the Tollway’s headquarters in Downers Grove.
On its most recent Tollway contract, Toro served as a subcontractor doing construction work and site improvements at various Tollway maintenance sites, including those in Bensenville, Alsip, Rockford and Downers Grove.
Those contracts all provided valuable experience in learning how to partner with other more established Tollway contractors—a practice Vazquez said he would like to continue to help his company land more business.
“We definitely would like join in partnerships with larger prime contractors. I think we learn a lot and that helps us attract more work,” Vazquez said. “We are looking to expand—we’re not afraid of more work.”
His company also is starting to work with smaller firms to help them gain experience working with the agency. Toro Construction recently joined the Tollway’s Partnering for Growth Program, which pairs small, diverse businesses to work as subcontractors with mentoring firms that have experience working with the Tollway.
His firm now is serving as a mentor to a suburban roofing company, Foremost Improvements Inc., assisting its owners with business development, estimating work, accounting and project management.
“We’d like to help other businesses because we know how important that is when you’re trying to grow,” said Vazquez, describing how he has told other contractors about the benefits of the Tollway business initiatives.
“We’ve been telling other subcontractors to join these programs because they helped us so much,” he said.
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