An hour with the director of Hoa Hiep Company

(Baonghean) -As scheduled, I arrived at the “headquarters” of Hoa Hiep Company Limited. After shaking hands, Director Pham Dinh Hanh pointed to the room and said, “Wait for me a moment.” After returning an hour later, his first words, instead of an apology, were: “Too much work, sir. Just now, there were several serious breakdowns at the workshop, and my colleagues couldn’t do it, so we had to step in.” After the explanation, he pulled me into the car and took me to each location where the company was working.

Mr. Pham Dinh Hanh (middle) directs the construction of the National Highway 1A upgrading project.

The first place we stopped by was the North Canal renovation site - a foreign-funded project, Hoa Hiep won the bid for nearly 1 km. On the site, cranes were working smoothly to transport materials for construction. In the hot early summer sun, workers were diligently assembling formwork to prepare for burning the culvert. Pointing to a 2-storey house located close to the canal bank, director Hanh said: When constructing at this point, I had to rent a hotel for this household to stay to ensure their safety. At some points of the project constructed by other contractors, houses have collapsed and cracked. To ensure safety, in addition to pressing diaphragm piles, driving sheet piles, etc., Hoa Hiep proposed changing the construction method, which is to install diversion culverts and construct 2 culvert segments at the same time. This change was praised by the supervising consultant as smart. This change allows to shorten the time to ensure safety for households on both banks of the canal.

Leaving the Bac Canal renovation site, Director Hanh took us to a project that had just been handed over and put into use. According to him, this is a "record-setting" project of the local bridge and road construction industry that deserves to be "recorded". That is the project to build a road to the high-tech park in Nam Giang. The 700m long road, paved with concrete, took less than 7 days to complete. The story is that every year on the 15th day of the first lunar month, Nghe An often organizes meetings with investors to seek opportunities. This year was the same, more than a week before the conference, the Chairman of the People's Committee and then the Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee went to inspect and select locations to introduce to investors. The Nam Giang high-tech park was one of the chosen locations. The industrial park had been formed but the problem was that there was no road to enter. How to complete the road within a week to lead visitors in, that was the concern of the provincial leaders.

On the 7th, the beginning of the Lunar New Year, Director Hanh received a call from Vice Chairman of the province Huynh Thanh Dien. Leaving his bowl of rice unfinished, Mr. Hanh went to meet and received the task: "Help the province urgently build the road to the high-tech zone and only Hoa Hiep can handle it" (Vice Chairman Huynh Thanh Dien's words). At noon on the 7th, he received the order, and in the afternoon of the 7th, he mobilized machinery to the construction site. The first problem was the water intake culvert for the pumping station right at the beginning of the route. The design was a box culvert with a span of 2.5m, and it took more than 7 days to cast and wait for the concrete to harden, while the time allowed was only 7 days for the road to be completed before the 15th of the first lunar month. After discussing and agreeing to change the design and construction plan, on the morning of the 8th, the truck carrying the culvert segments with a diameter of 2m and weighing dozens of tons, with a crane as escort, arrived at the construction site.

On the afternoon of the 8th, after the culverts were settled on the fresh concrete, the director gave the order, hundreds of vehicles entered the position: digging, leveling, filling... creating a flat surface for the roadbed. Three shifts, four crews, robots worked non-stop. The director closely followed the construction site, giving bonuses to each crew of machine operators. During the construction process, an excavator dug into a 227 kg bomb, still shining with steel. Luckily, the bomb did not explode - Director Hanh even showed us a picture of the bomb... On the afternoon of January 13, the last meters of hot asphalt concrete were laid down... the congratulatory applause of the provincial leaders and many guests resounded to witness a miracle of the Nghe An Bridge and Road Construction industry.

Late afternoon, the car circled back to the National Highway 1 renovation and upgrade project. Hoa Hiep received a construction contract with a total length of 7 km, the Quan Hanh - Quan Banh section, along with other projects along the Hoang Mai - Vinh City route. Dozens of Hoa Hiep motorbikes, divided into 5 teams, working day and night, are working hard to meet the schedule. "This is the latest construction contract on the entire route. According to the contract with the Ministry of Transport, the project will be handed over on October 30, 2014, but the Department proposed to shorten the time to September 30 and Hoa Hiep is determined to complete it on August 30" - Director Hanh told us. I was wondering if I had heard wrong, as if guessing my thoughts, Mr. Hanh said: “All of your calculations are well-founded, sir. With more than 200 modern motorbikes, along with a team of skilled workers and engineers, dedicated to the company, all materials are ready. I’m just afraid that God won’t support us. When it rains, the road workers will cry. If you don’t believe me, just ask the brothers at the construction site directly.” Director Hanh then pulled the car over to the side of the road, led me to the construction site command booth. “Handed over” me to engineer Le Thanh Hung, the construction site commander, and then Director Hanh drove off to inspect the route.

Hung is an engineer who used to work for a state agency, and has joined Hoa Hiep for more than 10 years. When I asked about progress, Hung pointed to the progress critical path with pre-established milestones for each day and hour, and the construction teams worked based on that progress. Then Hung steered our conversation in another direction: To ensure progress, the basic requirement is people. According to Hung, director Hanh is someone who knows how to use people, knows how to promote the potential strength in each person, and above all, that is the love for workers. Being present at the construction site every day, hearing the sound of the engine, you can know the quality of the operator's work. Unlike other directors, when seeing employees making mistakes, Mr. Hanh would warmly instruct them, even jump up to the cabin to show them off, and rarely yell at them. As an engineer specializing in bridges and roads, sometimes when the director gives advice, Hung is surprised by the accuracy.

Director Hanh hates lies the most, but is also willing to tolerate and protect those who repent. Currently, he is taking on a prisoner who has just been released from prison as his machine operator. The members of the company, whoever is in difficult circumstances, receive both material and spiritual encouragement from the director, everyone is assured to work and contribute to the company... The conversation between us is lively, a machine operator takes a break to drink water and joins in the conversation: "Last night, I just received a bonus of 100 thousand from the director. At nearly 11 o'clock at night, the director still went to the construction site and saw the brothers working hard and diligently, the director took out money to give them a bonus. After giving the bonus, the director only said one sentence to the brothers: "Try to do well, everyone does their job well so that the company can complete its tasks well, receive many projects so that the brothers can have more income". The story of machine operator Le Van Manh, who has been with the company for 5 years, has somewhat summarized the personality of the director of a thriving company in Nghe An.

Coming from a worker background, Director Pham Dinh Hanh always knows the value of labor and always considers workers as his relatives. That has helped him gather a team of skilled workers to create the Hoa Hiep brand, a strong enterprise in the field of construction of transportation works.

Mr. Tuan