Businessman Pham Dinh Hanh: Taking challenges as opportunities
(Baonghean)- In the price storm of 2008 - 2009, Hoa Hiep Company Limited, with Pham Dinh Hanh as Director, emerged as a bright spot in the traffic construction industry in the area, when it found its own way, taking difficulties and challenges as opportunities. With this approach, "Hoa Hiep" is increasingly becoming one of the prestigious private units in the province in constructing traffic and irrigation works.
(Baonghean)- In the price storm of 2008 - 2009, Hoa Hiep Company Limited, with Pham Dinh Hanh as Director, emerged as a bright spot in the traffic construction industry in the area, when it found its own way, taking difficulties and challenges as opportunities. With this approach, "Hoa Hiep" is increasingly becoming one of the prestigious private units in the province in constructing traffic and irrigation works.
In a writing about traffic construction units overcoming difficulties, sharing with the investor, the Department of Transport, Mr. Hoang Phu Hien (at that time Deputy Director of the Department's Traffic Project Management Board) introduced to me about Hoa Hiep Construction Company, a unit that the industry considered a "savior" to solve the consequences when contractors "abandoned their assets and ran away".
When a series of unfinished contracts affected the progress and had to ask for help from Hoa Hiep Company, director Pham Dinh Hanh stepped in without hesitation, with a very simple philosophy: They only ask for help if they need it. On the other hand, this brings jobs to workers, which is what every business wants.
So there were a series of bid packages that contractors "ran away": D11, 12, 14, 37 km of Lam River coastal road, the road connecting Quy Hop Town, Sang Le intersection, and other bid packages on Tay Nghe An road, Nam Cam - Cua Lo road with loans from the World Bank (WB)... Hoa Hiep Company took on all of them.
Director Pham Dinh Hanh (left) talks with reporters.Photo: VT
At that time, no contractor dared to take on such a "pile" of projects. But for Pham Dinh Hanh, he had his own way. Saving every drop of oil, every pound of asphalt, modern machinery that did not have to be rented helped him feel confident in his work.
Currently, Hoa Hiep has a fleet of machinery serving traffic works of up to 175 units, a number that even strong companies would envy. At the time of the price storm, another storm that contributed to the collapse of contractors was the storm of construction materials, especially stone. The province tightened mining, causing stone prices to skyrocket. Construction units had to "wait" in front of the mine every day to find trucks of stone for surface work. Overcoming the difficulties, Hoa Hiep built a stone crusher, went all the way to Hoang Mai to buy boulders to crush to serve its projects in the province. With this method, the cost of a block of stone decreased because it was fully utilized: large stones for paving, small stones for carpeting, even stone dust could be used for construction...
In those years, not to mention the packages that the unit won, the projects that Hoa Hiep received from other contractors alone amounted to hundreds of billions of VND. To ensure construction reputation, Hoa Hiep always takes quality as a measure. We can compare National Highway 48 from Yen Ly - Thai Hoa with the Sang Le - Quy Hop Town intersection route. Although the surface is 7cm, the two routes are now completely different.
According to Pham Dinh Hanh, to achieve today's success, Hoa Hiep relies on two factors: People and equipment. Regarding people, Hoa Hiep always educates cadres and workers to love their jobs and be proficient in their work. That must start with the Director - who grew up as a motorcycle mechanic in the army, joined the army in 1972, and was discharged in 1993. He has always been attached to the mechanical engineering profession. In the army, after graduating 6 years later, he achieved the rank of 7/7 worker. He won the prize twice in the army's excellent worker competition, which led to a 4-level increase in 3 years. Mechanical engineering has become his passion.
When he goes to the construction site, he knows the condition of the machine by listening to the sound of the machine to direct maintenance. For him, a worker must be able to do many things, an excavator operator must know how to use a bulldozer... To use a fleet of 175 machines, he only needs nearly 200 operators. This has helped the business save labor and reduce costs...
Besides people, equipment is a decisive factor in the success or failure of a business. Currently, Hoa Hiep is using the most modern hot asphalt concrete paving equipment in the Northern region. From mixing stations to paving machines, roller systems... Mr. Hiep directly goes to major companies in Korea, the US... to learn about equipment. When importing, he chooses details that cannot be made domestically. That equipment system has been operating until now without needing any additional equipment.
After the Year of the Dragon, during a "tea and wine" chat, I asked him about the things he enjoyed about the profession of constructing traffic and irrigation works. He immediately answered that it was overcoming difficulties. Then he gave an example: In 2010, Hoa Hiep was appointed as the contractor to build a culvert.
This is a difficult project with complex geology. The project is located on a dead-end river. The French had done it before but could not handle it so they had to abandon it. The complex project also requires a time schedule to overcome the early season floods. This is a project that the company must focus all its resources on to ensure progress. Before storm No. 3 last year, the unit was assigned the task of installing 3 sluice gates to prevent flood water from entering, each weighing 13 tons.
To install the 3 sluice gates, a 100-ton crane was needed, while the unit only had a 50-ton crane. With his experience, he used a 46-ton excavator as a counterweight to successfully install the 3 sluice gates in the right position. Struggling with the rain and wind, the work was completed at 12:00 a.m. on June 30. From the provincial and district leaders to the direct construction workers, they breathed a sigh of relief as if a heavy burden had been lifted. Not only the Nam Dan sluice, the company is currently undertaking other construction packages: National Highway 18 in Quang Ninh with a total length of 8 km, Nghi Yen landfill was assigned by the province to replace an incompetent contractor, and Tay Nghe An, Da Nang, Hue roads... will soon participate in bidding in Ho Chi Minh City.
Drain
With the motto of taking challenges and difficulties as opportunities, from a construction machinery repair and trading workshop in 1994 with 10 people, Hoa Hiep has now become a powerful traffic construction company with 175 vehicles, dozens of engineers, hundreds of skilled workers, and can handle many difficult and complicated projects.
