Northport construction company defies odds, and hiress

What little hiring is being done in the construction industry on Long Island is coming in part from a small East Northport-based company that took on about 25 workers this year. In a slumping business, that is considered a victory.

Jordan Panel Systems Corp., while not happy at the overall situation, is at least catching its breath in what its president, John A. Finamore Sr., says is the worst economy he has seen in his 30-year career.

"There's a high level of uncertainty," he said last week.

Jordan Panel is luckier, or better, than many. The company last year won an approximately $16-million Energy Department contract to install the metal roof and metal wall and glass systems at Brookhaven National Lab's National Synchrotron Light Source II, a massive X-ray machine that will be the world's brightest light, and will allow researchers to work with objects as small as one-billionth of a meter in fields such as medicine, environmental sciences, biology and physics.

Jordan Panel has about 50 employees, having taken on 25 for the BNL project, Finamore said. Jordan Panel has other work - installing exterior enclosures at New York City schools and hospitals, Finamore said. But on Long Island, jobs are exceptionally scarce.

"The Brookhaven National Lab job was a big shot in the arm," Finamore said. "If not for that, there wouldn't be much else on the Island."

Jordan Panel did similar work in the early 1980s on the NSLS I at BNL.

Finamore looks for a turnaround, but not until 2012.

Unemployment in the industry on the Island is now at about 15 percent to 20 percent, said Marc Herbst, executive director of the Long Island Contractors Association. Herbst said the 35 percent unemployment rate reported earlier this year dipped in June but with winter coming the rate is expected to go back to more than 30 percent.

Any available job, Finamore said, is seized upon by companies desperate for work. "It's like putting fresh meat down in the middle of the jungle," he said.