North Charleston firm wins national SBA minority business award

The co-owners of North Charleston-based International Public Works, a construction and engineering firm, have been named Minority Small Business Persons of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Earlier this year, co-owners Cyrus Sinor and Kai Yun-Yeh won the Minority Small Business Persons of the Year award for the Southeast region. On Friday, during the SBA’s National Minority Enterprise Development Week conference in Washington, D.C., the two were announced as national winners. They beat out nine other regional winners for the award.

The S.C. district office of the SBA nominated the two for the award. Winners were chosen based on a proven track record in business, sustained financial strength, level of adversity overcome and community work, a spokeswoman for the SBA said.

Since Sinor and Yun-Yeh founded International Public Works in 2002, it has grown into a $19.5 million engineering and construction firm that works primarily in South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia. The company has 22 employees.

International Public Works participates in SBA programs that help match minority- and veteran-owned businesses with contracting opportunities.

Sinor, an Army veteran, and Yun-Yeh, a Navy veteran, said their military service helps them compete effectively for work on military construction projects. They have made military construction a niche in their business.

“As veterans, we understand their language, their needs, their requirements and their mission,” Sinor said. “We understand what the end use will be.”

Yun-Yeh said his and Sinor’s being professional engineers also sets them apart from other contractors on construction projects, and he said it has contributed to the company’s growth.

Getting started, the company faced several challenges: Sinor worked overseas for several years, and Yeh worked from his kitchen without a paycheck for the first year.