Contractor wants to hire locals for debris removal

Branford, Florida-based Capstone Pacificas is on a mission to hire CNMI residents to clear typhoon debris and is willing to pay as much as $9 an hour excluding bonuses.

During a job fair yesterday at the Fiesta Resort & Spa Saipan, Capstone Pacificas’ Ray Land said that their current contract is primarily focused on ridding the CNMI of accumulated typhoon debris by incinerating it.

About 120 CNMI residents showed up and submitted applications yesterday.

Land is confident that local residents are able to take on the task and that is why they have decided to hire locally instead of flying in overseas workers.

“I believe there’s enough people here to do any amount of work. There’s a lot of people here that are capable, interested, and able to work and that’s what we’re looking to hire here today,” he said.

Capstone Pacificas is a company hired by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“Today’s event is primarily to gauge the number of people that are going to be interested in this and are available to work. We’re able to go communicate with FEMA and basically show them that this is our capability and one of the big question is do you have to fly everybody in or are there people here that are capable, available, and want to work,” Land added.

Land said that the base salary is $9 per hour with bonuses. The bonuses include a $3-per hour safety bonus and a $3-per-hour production bonus. All in all, it would be a $15-per-hour job and will be paid to the employee at the end of every day.

Land said that Capstone Pacificas will hire anyone who is legally allowed to work in the U.S.

“We’re an equal opportunity employer…so that means whether you’re a CW worker, whether you’re coming from the islands, whether you’re any color under the sun or any sort of differences, the only one primary point is that we have to do work,” he said

There is currently a limited amount of positions available and will only hire 20 individuals as a start.

“At this point we will be having limited office positions, and we’re going to have jobs out in the field doing debris, reconstruction work, and all those kinds of jobs… We have one contract now but we are going to get more,” he said.

Land said that it is Capstone Pacificas’ aims to move from debris clearing to long-term recovery like roofing.

“I hope that we can go from typhoon debris to roofing and put roofs on the houses on Saipan and Tinian because that’s a very inspiring task because there’s a lot of work there that has to be done,” he said.