Native Hawaiian Firm Honored

Fairfax, Virginia— When LGB & Associates, Inc. was named Small Business of the Year at the U.S. Treasury Department in 2004, founder Li Garcia-Ballard felt she'd reached a professional high point. The 8(a), HubZone Certified, native Hawaiian, woman-owned business had employed virtually

every tool the federal government has created to assist small businesses in order to provide its services to the U.S. Departments of Defense, Transportation, Agriculture, Justice, and Treasury for more than a decade.

LGB provides professional services to government and commercial customers, with particular expertise in strategic information technology planning, system and data security, business process definition and reengineering, application development, Internet/intranet-based systems development, network support services, telecommunications services, and hardware maintenance. LGB & Associates has offices in Fairfax, Virginia, as well as in Hilo and Honolulu, Hawaii.

Library Renovation At UCSDSan Diego, Calif. — McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. recently completed construction of the curtain wall for the expansion and renovation of the $16-million Biomedical Library at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), located near the corner of Gilman Dr. and Oster Lane on UCSD's La Jolla campus. McCarthy is serving as construction manager and general contractor for the project, which entails the addition of 39,000 square feet of space to the existing library, as well as renovation of the attached structure. Built in 1969 to serve 800 users, the existing library will nearly double in size so that services can be provided to more than 4,000 students, faculty and visitors.

Designed by Los Angeles-based architectural firm Pfeiffer Partners, Inc., the so-called "flying wing" pitched roof protrudes 11 feet from the building and slopes upward at a 20-degree angle, posing a number of unusual construction challenges for the McCarthy team. Construction is scheduled for completion this spring.