Certified General Contractor CGC043449

Registered Professional Engineer 43374

His Mother is Chilean.  His Dad is American.
He grew up in Manhattan in the 60’s.
He came to Chile at the age of 15 in 1969 and stayed through his early thirty’s.
He has a Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering and a minor in Aeronautical Engineering.
In the mid 80’s he went to California, and started a company that is still active.
He moved to Santiago in 2005 where he has set up as his base of Operations.
He is a Defence Contractor who builds and exports high-end Electronics  -  Radar/Communications to South America.
He also works with Investments in Chile.
He is fluent  in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Greg has gone through the process of immigrating to Chile, setting up a business, and he has been highly successful.  He knows the country and the process we all need to go through.

He has been working with two legal firms in Chile discussing our  project with them.  He has one to do our title search.  They are in Puerto Montt.  He has another firm to do our corporation paperwork, which is very important in Chile.  This firm is located in Santiago.

Greg is a “gold mine” that I just happened to meet.  His wife called me about my Chile Ranch web site and later introduced me to Greg.  This web site is bringing us some outstanding people.

Hjalmar has a degree in Mechanical Engineering which he obtained in his home country of Venezuela.  
He worked in Galveston, Texas for an engineering company for two years.
He has worked for me here in Sarasota for 3 years.
He coordinates all of my communications with officials in Chile.
He speaks fairly good Spanish.
He is totally familiar with everything that we are doing
He has made some drawings of the project.
He will be moving to Chile on a full time basis as soon as we start the project.
He is highly qualified and totally able to run the project by himself.

On my second trip I made to Chile, I hired Gloria, who lives in Puerto Montt,  to translate for me.  But she turned out to be much more than a translator.  Gloria has more friends, relatives, and associates in governments offices than anyone I have ever met.  She also has a tremendous personality.

When we located our first property,  I asked Gloria how I could I get in contact with the proper government agencies to make sure this land was acceptable for our needs.  She said, “no problem” I will call them and set up your meetings.  She “set up” and carried me through 6 government agencies in one week, a task that normally takes 6 months.  I was shocked.

Every place we went the people we met gave Gloria a big hug and asked her how she was doing.  She knew all of these people.  She could make a call in the morning for an appointment in the afternoon and she always got it.

Gloria knows her way around the Chile Government and how it works.  She is a very valuable person to have on our side.

She even took me to a government official who was also an attorney.  He did a search of the property deed for us.  Unfortunately, the deed had a minor problem that could not be corrected.   So, after a week of visiting Government Officials, we started looking for another piece of property.  We found this 70,000 acre property that is 5 times as large as the other property and it has much more water access, so the defective title I was originally disappointed with turned out to be the best thing that happened to us.

Catherine is a “go getter” who just graduated from  High School.  She has made 2 trips with me to Chile and is totally familiar with the project.

Catherine will handle the processing of all  of our permits and Construction Drawings through the various Government Officials.

She will coordinate and assist with the Forest Rangers and other government officials who come to our site for any reason.

She will be our official “government contact.”

She will also work at Chile Ranch in various different functions.
She will teach Marshal Arts to our guest, especially those who come to the Dude Ranch.  This will be a part of the training they will receive.  They will all go back home much better prepared to “take care of themselves” than than they were before they arrived at Chile Ranch.

 

Marital Status: Divorced with two daughters and one son.
I have custody of the only remaining  minor, Catherine, age 17.  She will graduate this year from Pine View School in Sarasota, a school for the gifted, the top 1% of students.  She is also a year ahead of her age, she is graduating at the age of 17.
Rex (age 38) is a Medical Doctor in Connecticut.
Allison (age 21, also graduated from Pine View) and is Married to her high school sweetheart, a Marine now in North Carolina.

Education and Professional Licenses:

  University of Arkansas, (BS Engineering)
   Southern Methodist University (Masters in Business, 12 hrs. completed)
  University of Sarasota (Masters in Business, 6 hrs. completed)
  State of Florida General Contractors License 1988 (CGC 043449)
  Florida Professional Engineers License, 1990 (43374)
(The State of Florida keeps track of any complains filed against all Registered Professionals.
  Check the My Florida web site and you will see than no complaints have ever been filed
  against Norman Nixon’s  Contractors License or his  Engineers License.)
  

  Taught several Construction Management seminars
  Wrote and gave seminars on the subjects of "How to avoid Construction Law
   Suits"  "How to defend against a Law Suit"  and  "Running  Construction Jobs
  while avoiding Law Suits."
  
Work Experience:
1967 to 1974  Worked on several classified military programs for General Dynamics in Fort Worth, Texas and Texas Instruments in Dallas, Texas.  

1974   Fluor  Corporation, Los Angeles, California.  Stationed in Saudi Arabia.  Responsible for directing the work of 800 people building concrete block buildings, steel buildings, and installing heavy equipment.  The basic project was installation of several 75 megawatt generators.  They were driven by gas turbines utilizing gas from existing flares.

1975   Fluor Corporation.  Construction of a heavy oil conversion system in Toledo, Ohio.

1975 to 1977: Fluor Corporation.  Worked in Alaska on the construction of gas pumping stations, steel and concrete buildings, sewage treatment plants and a gas metering station on the Alaska Pipeline.  Started as Job Superintendent and was promoted to Manager over the entire project with responsibility for directing the work of more than 200 men.

1977 to 1979: Fluor Corporation.  Worked in Esfahan, Iran  on the construction of a $1 Billion oil refinery which covered 3 square miles.  We had 500 Koreans and 1,000 Iranians working and fighting until all foreigners were forced out of the country because of the revolution.  It was difficult getting our of the country. We got out just as the American Embassy employees in Tehran were taken hostage.

1979 to 1980: Fluor Corporation.  Worked in San Francisco directing the work of  about 100 people in the installation of a computer control system to upgrade an existing refinery.  Also installed a cracking unit to produce higher octane unleaded gas.  This work was done while keeping the refinery in operation so critical piping and electrical connections had to be run around the clock.  I worked and slept 24 hours a day at the refinery for the last 2 months.  I had to be there every minute to be sure everything was done right or we could blow up the refinery.

1980 to 1981: Fluor Corporation.  Worked in the United Arab Emirates building a village which consisted of a gas liquidfication plant, Homes and all associated facilities.  Supervising about 1,000 people.  The job site was on constant alert as two different war lords waged running battles over which one owned the land on which the work was taking place.  The job included numerous military confrontations.

1981 to 1982: Fluor Corporation.  Worked in Los Angeles, California directing the work of about 100 people in the installation of a Honeywell computer system in an existing refinery.  This computer controlled the operations of the entire refinery.  It involved critical shut downs of certain systems and turn-a-rounds that ran 24 hours per day to keep the refinery in operation while putting the new system on line.  This was critical, exacting, work that had to be perfectly executed to prevent a fire or explosion that could have killed the 100 workers from Fluor, as well as a few hundred Refinery workers.  The only alternative was to shut down the refinery which would have been extremely expensive.

1982 to 1984: Fluor Corporation.  Worked in Tsu, Japan on a billion dollar project building the world's largest ethylene plant.  It was built in the form of huge modules which were shipped to Saudi Arabia where they were assembled into the final product.  Monitored the work of about 1,000 Japanese employees of NKK at the NKK ship yard in Tsu, Japan. The  success of this job was also constantly threatened by a war.  Iran was at war with Iraq and Iran was sinking every vessel they could possible sink in the Arabian Gulf.  They sunk the worlds largest oil tanker on a day when it was very near one of our Fluor Module ships carrying the modules we constructed in Japan.  The strategy that finally got our modules safely through the Strait of Hormuz was to wait outside the strait until a USA Naval vessel started passing through.  Then our ships would run up very close to the back of the Navy vessel passing through the Strait.  This angered the Navy because we were running much too close to them, but it worked.  Our ships were so close to the Navy ships that the Iranians were afraid to fire on them for fear of receiving US Navy return fire.  I had 2.5  years of  learning about “World Trade” from the World’s most accomplished Professionals.  Our country should watch and learn something from the Japanese.

1984 to 1985: Fluor Corporation. Worked in Morristown, New Jersey building a gas pumping station for Algonquin Pipe Line Company.  The project consisted of building several concrete block buildings, setting numerous pieces of heavy equipment, fabricating and installing an extensive network of piping, and a computer control system.  Worked as Project Manager responsible for about 80 staff and supervisory personnel and 300 union craftsmen.

1986 and 1987         Fluor Corporation.  Project Manager on a $25 million sewage treatment plant in San Juan Capistrano, California which is one of the world's most modern facilities.  I Built the road into the plant as well as several steel buildings and all piping and control systems.  Responsible for about 100 staff and 600 craftsmen.

From 1988 to present: Self employed in Sarasota, Florida.  Owner and Manager of Engineering Solutions, Inc. and Aaccent Contractors, Inc.  After moving to Florida, I took and passed the 16 hour State Certified General Contractors License examination and the 16 hour State Certified Professional Engineers Examination.  I am one of only a few people in the State of Florida licensed as both a Certified General Contractor and a Professional Engineer.  I passed the Professional Engineering test in Civil, Sanitary, Electrical, and Structural.  My work has consisted of design, construction, repair, “forensic engineering,” and appearing as an “expert witness” in numerous depositions, and court room trials.  This includes work with lawsuits at Mariner North and Mariner South in Tampa, at Privateer North in Longboat key, Bay Plaza and Bays Bluff in Sarasota, Bellaire Key Condominiums in Bellaire Beach, Bay shore Boulevard in Tampa, The Double Tree Hotel in Miami, 888 Condominiums in Sarasota, and a few other hotel and condominium buildings.  I working for K-Mart concerning the collapse of a roof on their building in Venice, Florida.  This was a very long job.  K-Mart went through 3 legal firms, but I was their only Engineer, from the day the roof fell to the final settlements that were made 5 years later.  I directed the repairs and worked as their “expert witness” in their 5 year law suit, but we finally won it.

I have made trips to 12 other countries where I stayed a short period time while negotiating problems or solving some difficult Engineering and Construction situations.  I have extensive Overseas Experience.

My Strong Point:  Problem Solving  --  I have the Education, Certification, and Personal Experience that makes it possible for me to work successfully on a variety of projects.

My Physical Condition:  Excellent  --  I work out in the “LifeStyle” Gym for 1 hour a day, 6 days a week and run for one mile every day.


Norman L. Nixon

President, CEO, Engineering Solutions, Inc.  And  Aaccent Contractors, Inc.  --  PE 43347 --  CGC 043449  
January 2009