THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 3, 1994 TAG: 9410030231
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEKLY PAGE: 13 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY CHRISTOPHER DINSMORE, BUSINESS WEEKLY STAFF
LENGTH: Medium: 97 lines
Banks Dorgan Co. is to Navy ships what interior designers are to homes. Instead of homeowners, its clients are admirals and captains.
The Norfolk-based firm designs, builds and installs interiors for the cramped spaces aboard Navy ships.
But with the Navy shrinking from about 550 ships in the '80s to about 400 today, dozens of Hampton Roads contractors like Banks Dorgan are looking for new ways to keep up sales.
Banks Dorgan is trying to team with larger firms to get pieces of bigger contracts it couldn't win alone.
Banks Dorgan provides everything from rug and wall coverings to custom-built furniture.
Much of its work, renovation of old shipboard spaces, is awarded when a ship goes in for an overhaul.
``This is a highly specialized business,'' said Rita Banks, the firm's majority owner and secretary/treasurer. ``There's a lot of people who dabble in it, but they don't do it like we do.''
The company can claim one other distinction - one of the 10 largest federal contractors designated as woman-owned in Hampton Roads.
Nearly 60 companies used the designation in the 1993 federal fiscal year. Those companies won a combined $42.7 million of contracts in that year, or about 2 percent of all the contracts awarded, according to federal procurement data analyzed by Hampton Roads Business Weekly.
Even so, there are no federal contract set-asides for woman-owned companies.
``They don't have any set-asides for women,'' Banks said. ``I think they thought they would, but never got around to it.''
The lack of set-asides apparently has led some woman-owned companies to disregard rather than use the designation when bidding on federal work. One of them, Norfolk-based engineering firm Unidyne Corp., is the 20th-largest federal contractor in Hampton Roads.
``All that it gets is a star on the forehead of whoever awards you the contract,'' Banks cracked about the woman-owned designation.
Banks and business partner Robert E. Dorgan moved to the Norfolk area from Florida in 1979, buying a drapery and upholstery wholesaler. They refocused the company to supply fabrics that met military specifications.
Over the years the firm migrated into the renovation of shipboard spaces, said Dorgan, the company's president. Clients would ask if the firm could help install what it sold, and that led to more involved shipboard work.
The firm grew dramatically in the mid-1980s, but now the future's uncertain. The Navy is shrinking. Ships that could be up for renovation are being decommissioned instead.
The firm won $2.5 million of federal contracts in the federal fiscal year ended in September 1993, less than the $4.3 million it won the year before.
``Work's off now; it's very uncertain,'' Dorgan said. ``For instance, this thing over in Haiti will take away some of our work. There's only so many dollars in the budget, and with them being used for operations, the Navy won't have them for ship habitability.''
Banks Dorgan employed about 135 people two years ago when it was working on the aircraft carrier Constellation at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. That job involved renovating about 180 spaces aboard the ship, including officers' staterooms, berthing areas, offices, mess areas, recreation rooms and medical and dental spaces.
Now it employs about 50 people between various job sites and its shop in Norfolk, where it does all its fabric-cutting and furniture-making and repair.
Current jobs include work aboard the command ship LaSalle and the carrier John F. Kennedy, a contract it won in tandem with Hampton-based Information Technology Solutions Inc.
Banks Dorgan sees its future in teaming with other companies. ``More and more companies are looking to team with us because of our specialized skills,'' Dorgan said.
``We've had our crew here for quite some time,'' Banks added. ``They're very experienced.'' ILLUSTRATION: D. KEVIN ELLIOTT
Banks Dorgan Co. majority owner Rita Banks, left, and President
Robert E. Dorgan.
TOP 10 WOMAN-OWNED FEDERAL CONTRACTORS
STAFF
NOTE: This list measures contracts won by companies using the
woman-owned designation, but may not include all of a company's
contract or all woman-owned contractors.
[For a copy of the chart, see microfilm for this date.]
KEYWORDS: FEDERAL CONTRACTORS FEMALE FEMALE CONTRACTORS WOMAN
CONTRACTORS
[FOR RELATED STORIES, SEE PAGE 12 AND 13 OF THE BUSINESS WEEKLY FOR
THIS DATE.]
by CNB