For some time now, all we’ve been hearing in the news is about the recession. In fact, Architectural Record devoted its entire last issue to surviving the recession. For those of us living and working in San Antonio though, we really haven’t felt the strain too bad yet. This is especially true for the types of projects my firm does, which includes government, healthcare and education. While we’re not feeling the hard times as much as the rest of the nation, this recession still means one thing for us – COMPETITION.

Now, instead of going up against ten firms for a job we may be going up against 30 since most of the nation is looking to Texas for projects. Of course we’ll always have the local factor in our pocket that is helpful, but it can be really difficult to compete against some of these huge national firms. In some cases this means teaming up with one of those firms and being their local representative. For these few areas of the country, like San Antonio, that haven’t been hit with the hard economic times yet, its important to note that we are still affected by this recession and must be willing to change and adapt to stay successful.