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sci <br />SOUTHERN COATI NGSINC <br />ROOFING <br />"They check you all out and are pretty serious about needing to get you clear," Bieder- <br />man said. "And you have to bring everything with you, and more, in case something <br />gets damaged. You can't go run to Home Depot down there." <br />Despite the company's history of work in the Caribbean, it was the type of job that <br />frankly hadn't crossed Biederman's mind largely because Cuban territory was seeming- <br />ly off limits to American businesses since communists seized control in the 1950's. That <br />began to change in 2014 when members of former President Barack,Obama's admin- <br />istration started meeting in secret with Cuban dignitaries to negotiate terms of a possi- <br />ble warming of diplomatic relations that remained icy since the beginning of the Cold <br />War. <br />The result was a formal normalization agreement between the two countries, and re- <br />moval of Cuba from the U.S.'s State Sponsors of Terrorism list in 2015. <br />Being somewhere that you weren't exactly welcome for nearly half -a -century present- <br />ed some interesting tests for the company and its cr`ewmembers, Biederman said. That <br />and the timely thawing of relations with Cuba made the project more special. <br />"I was really excited about it because it's a unique job, <br />and given the timing of it all," he said. <br />Going Higher and Harder <br />Working in unpredictable and stressful settings is noth- <br />ing new to the SCI team. They were reroofing the <br />Broward County Jail in fall of 2005 when — on the heels <br />of Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Wilma struck and clob- <br />M <br />bered south Florida with 125 mph winds and torrential rain. The storm killed 25 people <br />and cut power to a then -record 3.2 million residents in a 150 -mile span across the state <br />for weeks. <br />Wilma destroyed much of the jail roof and cut off fuel, running water and electricity. As <br />sewage backups and other unsanitary conditions persisted, unrest spread among the <br />inmates within the facility and they started to challenge their jailers. <br />Confidential and Proprietary Information Of Southern Coatings, Inc. <br />