LITTLE ROCK — VCC founder leaves LR construction firm
Gus Vratsinas, 66, co-founder and chairman of Little Rock construction company VCC, has retired after 24 years with the company, the firm said Tuesday.
Vratsinas’ transition has been in process for several years and will not affect the current management structure or day-to-day operations of the company, the firm said.
Vratsinas said he told his employees a couple of years ago he anticipated retiring in about two years. “It’s just time to move on,” he said.
VCC’s revenue is about $400 million a year. It has built retail, educational, government and healthcare projects. Some of its projects in central Arkansas include Verizon Arena and expansion projects at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, Conway Regional Hospital, Arkansas Heart Hospital and St. Vincent Infirmary. VCC has offices in Atlanta; Dallas; Phoenix; Irvine, Calif.; and McAllen, Texas.
Gas firms to pay fine for harm to mussels
Houston-based Petrohawk Energy Corp. and subsidiary Hawk Field Services LLC have agreed to pay a fine related to three federal misdemeanor charges stating that it violated the Endangered Species Act of 1973 by harming several speckled pocketbook mussels, found only in the Little Red River watershed in Van Buren County.
Hawk Field Services operated property in the Fayetteville Shale for Petrohawk, which was the fourth-largest natural-gas producer in the shale before Petrohawk’s assets in the formation were bought by Exxon Mobil Corp. in January.
A filing Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas charged Hawk Field Services with three misdemeanor counts of “knowingly and unlawfully [taking] at least one speckled pocketbook mussel, an endangered species.”
Joan Dunlap, a spokesman for Petrohawk, said in an e-mail that the accusations relate to pipeline construction and that the company has agreed to pay approximately$500,000.
State index up 2.29,
hits 52-week high
The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, gained 2.29 to 221.37 Tuesday, hitting a 52-week high of 222.14 during the day.
“Stocks meandered through another trading day, as investors look for a catalyst to buy or sell,” said Chris Harkins, senior vice president and managing director of Delta Trust Investments Inc. in Little Rock. “It was another split day for stocks in the Arkansas Index.”
The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.
Business, Pages 27 on 04/06/2011