Twenty-year construction veteran Jamie Awford has the uncanny ability to attract complex and challenging projects other builders generally shy away from.

This month, the 43-year-old vice president and general manager at Turner Construction-Co. in San Diego embarked on his most daring and largest project yet: A three-year, $471 million contract for a 470,000-square-foot expansion of Terminal 2 at the San Diego International Airport.

Turner and its sister company, PCL Construction Services Inc., will manage the construction.

Nearly half of Turner's local staff, 50 out of 104 employees, will work alongside the terminal development team, supporting 75 to 100 subcontractors to execute the following plan: A three-story, 10-gate expansion of Terminal 2, including ticket lobby, airline check-in, security screening and baggage handling. The project also involves adding 1.5 million square feet of apron, a secured part of the airport where aircraft are parked, unloaded or loaded, refueled, or boarded.

Awford's biggest concern: Maintaining normal airport operations.

But he's up to the challenge.

"We don't get the easy projects at Turner," Awford said. "We get the complex, challenging projects that have a level of complexity the average contractor wouldn't be able to achieve."