San Diego: Home of the Brave

Matt Reno was presented the Community Affiliate of the Year Award by Ray Roth, Pacific Southwest Region President of the Navy League.

A family traveling to San Diego to visit loved ones.

Founded in 2004, the Warrior Foundation’s mission is to give a helping hand to severely injured Marines, soldiers and sailors. These military personnel are recovering at Camp Pendleton Hospital and the Balboa Med-Hold at Balboa Hospital, San Diego. While recuperating, the Foundation provides resources to them not supplied by the armed forces.

“A Marine will never just tell you what he or she needs. But, if you ask, they’ll tell you,” explained Jay Lott, Executive Administrator for the foundation.

The San Diego Council of the Navy League (SDCNL) administers the Warrior Foundation. This past Christmas, the Foundation provided money for 200 family members to travel to their loved ones hospitalized in San Diego. Many have a long road ahead to recovery. Visits with family have tremendous benefits for the patients’ well-being.

In December, Matt Reno received the Community Affiliate of the Year Award from the SDCNL in recognition of Reno’s commitment to these wounded individuals. “Matt has made an invaluable contribution to improve the quality of life for our military personnel,” said Ray Roth, Pacific Southwest Region President of the Council.

Since its founding, Matt has hosted an annual fund-raising golf tournament for clients and employees. Since 2004, Reno Contracting has donated $250,817 to the Foundation. In addition, the company makes a yearly donation to the Foundation and other local organizations in lieu of client holiday gifts. “I am so fortunate to be able to work with the Warrior Foundation and lend a hand to those who fight for our freedom,” stated Matt at the award ceremony.

Backpacks Hold More Than Equipment: They’re Packed With Love

On the national level, the Associated General Contractors’ Rescue Task Force provides backpacks to wounded troops returning stateside.

The backpacks contain items such as a cell phone, a watch, stationery, batteries and CD player along with toiletries. AGC members across the nation make personal donations to the RTF. More than $190,000 has been contributed, resulting in 319 soldiers wounded Iraq and Afghanistan receiving backpacks at Brooke Army Hospital in San Antonio.

See what’s on the Warrior Wish List: http://www.warriorfoundation.com/needs_list.php.

Other community programs sponsored by Reno Contracting.

We Don't need a Bailout, we need a build up

The following is an excerpt from Michael Hricak, FAIA, Principal of Michael Hricak Architects located in Venice, California. He was addressing the winners of California Construction magazine “Best Of Awards for 2008.” Those honored included Kilroy Realty Corporation that was awarded Commercial Developer of the Year, with the award presented by Matt Reno.

I dare you to read any article today that examines various responses to the current economic situation and not come across the word ‘infrastructure.’ 

It is clear to me that one of the current, most commonly held strategies is to BUILD our way out of this mess.

I have no place commenting on the wisdom of adding to existing deficits by increasing government spending. I do notice, however, that most politicians and pundits think that the time has come to pay attention to both our ‘crumbling’ (and it’s always described as crumbling…not broken, not sagging, and not simply in need of repair, but crumbling) infrastructure and the need to create jobs.

To help us see where we are, how we got here, and what’s next, I’d like to share with you something I read not long ago.

The economist Thomas Friedman, in his Sunday column in the New York Times this past fall, crafted a concise analysis of several of the ‘boom, bubble, bust’ cycles in our history. Distilling down the centuries to history flash cards, he offered the following synopsis:

• The 19th century saw the expansion and indeed the explosion of the railroad system.
  
• There were winners and losers but after the dust settled we were left with an infrastructure of rails that helped expand our populations centers, settle the west and made the shipment of goods safer, more efficient and economical, to say nothing of the newly adventuresome transcontinental passengers.
  
• In the 20th century, Friedman goes on to describe, we had an Internet ‘boom, bubble, bust’ with the same cast of big winners and bigger losers.

However, similar to the rail system, the dot-com bust left us with an Internet system that continues to fuel commerce, learning and our entrepreneurial spirit.

In this so young 21st century we have seen a ‘boom, bubble, bust’ focused on financial services. Unfortunately, all this has left us is corporate jets grounded on the tarmac, and financial products that no one ever really understood.

• The point is…we don’t just need a bailout, we need a build up.
  
• We need to get back to making stuff, based on real engineering not just financial engineering.
  
• This is not just about putting people to work, it’s about a vision that, after we’re done, we’ll have something to show for it.
  
• Like a light rail system that actually reaches an airport.
  
• Or healthy ‘green’ schools, which have been shown to increase test scores while decreasing absenteeism and childhood asthma, flu, and colds by an average of at least 30%, due to increased indoor air quality. These high performing schools use 33% less energy and 32% less water.
  
• Studies show that the financial benefits of so-called green schools built between 2001 and 2006 are 20 times greater than the initial cost.

Much has been written about how a green economy can help us out of this crisis. I truly hope that the $1.73 per gallon I paid this morning to fill my tank doesn’t distract us from what we need to do, and start to do now.

And so it took a crisis, a big, scary, still not solved crisis to get our country to focus and to start to wonder if there’s a better way to do what it is we’re trying to do. Move our people, educate our children, house our families.

Finally, there are conversations about issues that should always have been considered jointly. For too long our strategies about housing and transportation have been formulated by separate agencies headed by separate cabinet secretaries. This is both wrong headed and counterproductive; it is also not longer a sustainable model for governing.

Transit-Oriented Developments (TODs) are finally being seen as a logical response to our congested urban areas and suburban sprawl.

Reconnecting America is a national non-profit dedicated to using transit investments to spur a new wave of development that…revitalizes downtowns and urban and suburban neighborhoods and provides a connection between thoughtful and successful transit projects with equally forward thinking housing development.

This kind of simple, logical thinking about where we live, what we build and how we move is thankfully making a comeback.

This is just one portion of the issue that we now call infrastructure.

According to the group ‘Building America’s Future,’ in 2005 the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) graded the nations’s infrastructure. They provided both letter grades and detailed assessments. Overall our infrastructure received a ‘D,’ estimating that the total infrastructure funding needs over a five-year period approached $1.6 trillion. In short, there’s a lot to do. Roads and bridges, airports and seaports, transit and rail, drinking and waste water systems along with the building of new and the renovation of the existing buildings that are essential to all these services and activities, all need attention.

You matter, what you do matters…And congratulations for sticking around long enough for the rest of the country to notice.

You are at the right place at the right time.