Every morning, a spreadsheet is faxed from Baghdad to Ronco Consulting Corp.'s office in Clearwater, showing Peter Owen where each of the company's 80 expatriate workers will be clearing land mines that day. Across Tampa Bay in Valrico, Jesse L. Johnson, who runs a company with about 225 security guards in Iraq, keeps a similar tally in his head. "I know what roads every one of my workers is on today and what they'll be doing tomorrow," said Johnson, 65, president of Cochise Consultancy Inc. "I know immediately if something's happened. It's stressful for me, but it's more stressful for the guys over there." Blasted by war and decades of dictatorship, Iraq needs everything from lights and sewage treatment plants to mine-free borders. Congress has set aside $21-billion for the reconstruction, and most of it is being funneled to private contractors who supplement and support the military's efforts. That means it's not just families of the enlisted being affected by conflict in Iraq. The heightened violence has unprecedented immediacy for a growing number of companies, including several in the Tampa Bay area, which have not only lives but also livelihoods on the line. And while giant corporations such as Halliburton and Bechtel Group have grabbed headlines with megacontracts of $4.7-billion and $2.9-billion respectively, there are many smaller, less prominent companies down the contracting food chain. Civilian contracting has been so extensive, in fact, no one knows exactly how many private entities are working in Iraq or how many contractors are on the job. Cochise's Johnson estimates there are about 20,000 contractors just providing security in Iraq. Unfortunately, the first publicity of a company's work often comes when its employees appear on the contractor casualty list, which numbers more than 100. (More than 850 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq.) That was the case with Cochise, which lost three workers in an explosion outside Tikrit in late April. It was also true of Granite Services in Tampa. The subsidiary of GE Energy has been recruiting engineers and technicians to work on GE's $600-million contract to rebuild power stations in Iraq. Granite's involvement came to light when three of its contractors, none from the Tampa Bay area, were killed by a car bomb in Baghdad in mid June. Using e-mail and satellite phones, contractors have found their Middle East projects can be managed from the unlikeliest of places. Several happen to be in the Tampa Bay area _ though their employees come from all over _ because their executives are ex-military previously with U.S. Central Command in Tampa. Others simply like the area and find it easily accessible for international travel. Consider Timothy Travis, a Navy veteran, who is director of special projects for Gaffney Kroese Supply Corp., a New Jersey provider of airport and power system equipment. From his home office in northeast St. Petersburg, Travis orchestrated about $10-million worth of work in Iraq, including building three U.S. military base camps and assisting in the reconstruction of power and hydropower stations. "Certainly Iraq can be termed a fairly hostile environment, but the Army needed a lot of things done and we were pleased to do them," said Travis, who has sent men and supplies to Iraq, but has gone no farther than the Jordan-Iraq border himself. "I'd say contracting has worked very well there; it's supplied the needs." While the massive expense and heightened danger of having civilians in a war zone have raised concerns, Travis and other contractors defend the practice. They say the military has been so streamlined it has neither the talent nor the manpower to do jobs as diverse as housekeeping and road building. Advocates say hiring civilians for such work is cheaper then using soldiers, and allows military personnel to focus on the military mission. John Adams is vice president of USA Environmental Inc. in Tampa, which has about 130 employees disposing of enemy ammunition in Iraq. Though USA Environmental's workers make about three times as much in Iraq as they would on domestic jobs, earning $170,000 to $250,000 a year overseas, Adams said it still represents a savings for the military. "When you consider the cost of the military maintaining this (ordnance disposal) resource during 10 years of peace, using contractors is very cost efficient," he said. "The military alone can't do this. And this country is lucky there are people in the civilian community willing to step up to the plate." Adams also said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which has funded his company's work in Iraq, has done a good job of encouraging competition in the bidding, and then encouraging cooperation among contractors in the field. About a half-dozen companies are doing ordnance disposal work in Iraq, and Adams said their level of cooperation is unusual. "I can't imagine we could have made the progress we've made without it," he said. "It helps when the government agency leads." But critics say such coordination is the exception. They say it's impossible to determine the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of a contracting system that has ballooned so far out of control there is no accountability. As proof they point to a military report that implies at least one interrogator in the prison abuses of Abu Ghraib was a civilian. Dan Guttman of Washington, D.C., has been tracking the growing use of contractors in government since he co-wrote The Shadow Government in 1976. "The problem is, the contractor work force is invisible: We don't know how many there are, who they work for, and how they're paid," he said. "Until we know those things, they can't be managed." Guttman doubts private contractors are cheaper. "You've got to be big to even get in the game," he said. "More and more the government is giving out one big contract and saying, "You figure out who to give it to and evaluate their work.' And these are large amounts of money." Tampa Bay area gets its share of contracts Millions of those dollars have found their way to the Tampa Bay area. Staffers at giant engineering firm Parsons Water and Infrastructure in Tampa are supporting their parent company's $28.5-million contracts for a water system project in Iraq. TECO Ocean Shipping, a subsidiary of Tampa's TECO Energy, won a $7.2-million contract from the U.S. Agency for International Development to carry grain to Iraq. USA Environmental, which has nearly completed a $66.9-million contract in Iraq, was just named one of 10 companies eligible for up to $1.5-billion more. "This is absolutely the largest ammunition recovery project in history," said Adams, who specialized in ordnance disposal during 23 years in the Army. "Saddam (Hussein) had unbelievable stockpiles of ammunition. Our job is to pick it up, destroy it and stop it from proliferating to other countries." Despite the lure of money, Adams conceded that the recent horrific killings of U.S. contractors have made recruiting more difficult. "It was probably easier a year ago for a guy to go in to his wife and say, "Honey, I'm going to Iraq,' " Adams said. "Though even today, the chances of decapitation are not extremely high." The Clearwater office of Ronco Consulting of Washington, D.C., got involved in Iraq soon after Baghdad was seized. Ronco, which has cleared land mines in more than 30 countries since 1989, had an emergency response team with two expatriate advisers, eight dogs and 48 Mozambican deminers ready to go into the city in April 2003. Their first order, under a State Department contract, was to clear a portion of the grounds at one of Hussein's palaces and power line rights of way. Owen, Ronco's assistant vice president of operations, had been sitting with his crew in Kuwait waiting for the war to end. "We were pleasantly surprised that Saddam had not surrounded his palace with mines," he said, adding that most explosives his team found were dropped by U.S. planes. "On the other hand, we were disappointed by the amount of U.S. ordnance that did not go off. The dud rate was high." In July 2003, Ronco received another U.S. contract, this one for $39-million. Its tasks involve everything from recruiting and training an Iraqi demining force to advising the Iraqi National Mine Authority to running the former U.N. demining program in the north. Owen said Ronco has 25 expatriates running the northern Iraq program, which had previously been funded through the U.N. Oil for Food program; the U.N. had a staff of 128. "Iraq kind of fell in our laps and it's been a heck of a learning curve," he said. "When we started here, we were working with the U.N., the U.S. military, there was no government, there was no U.S. Embassy. There have been some real bumps in the road." When Ronco arrived in Iraq, its workers were not armed since, the biggest threat seemed to be kids throwing stones. Now, of its 80 contractors, about 20 provide security. They are assisted by almost 200 Iraqi security guards. "I was in the military for 20 years and never had a shot fired at me until I became a contractor," said Owen, an Army retiree who previously ran demining programs for CentCom. "Now we carry arms." Ronco's injuries have been limited to one technician who received leg wounds from unexploded ordnance. He is recovering. While Ronco's work continues in northern Iraq and Basra in the south, Owen said the 150-member mine clearance team in Baghdad has been limited to training rather than field work since early April because of security concerns. From November to April, the team cleared 1.5-million square meters around Baghdad and destroyed 75,000 mines and unexploded ordnance. Despite the delays, Ronco is still hiring contractors, including technicians and medics. Base pay averages $300 a day for a six-day week, but with bonuses and expenses, pay quickly rises to $500 a day. Workers, U.S. and Iraqi, are insured through the Defense Base Act, providing medical treatment and death and disability benefits. Owen said insurance costs average about 4.5 percent of a worker's base pay, though it is higher for security workers. While Ronco has been expanding in Iraq over the past few months, Owen expects that to change as locals are trained to do the work. "I anticipate we'll have 20 to 30 percent fewer people there a year from now," he said. "But the Iraqis we've trained will be dealing with mine problems for the next 10 years." Work is there, but finding top-quality workers hard While Ronco expects its work in Iraq to decline over time, Johnson of Cochise Consultancy sees nothing but growth. He said he turns down four or five job offers a week because he can't find top-quality security personnel. "I don't want to overextend myself," said Johnson, a retired Army colonel who was commander of U.S. Special Operations Forces during the Persian Gulf War. "I want quality professionals without lowering the bar. We're not mercenaries. We're not cowboys. We're a professional, armed security company providing defensive security." Johnson, who retired from the military in 1993, had been training Saudi military special forces and assessing airport security in spring 2003. When the Iraq war ended, he quickly understood that private contractors would need protection. His first client was Tampa's USA Environmental, which sought him out. More recently, Cochise has provided security for Ronco's mine clearing teams. Johnson spends about one-third of his time in Iraq and has offices in Baghdad and Kuwait. When he's in Valrico, he operates out of a home office crowded with Desert Storm memorabilia and pictures of himself with Colin Powell, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf and former President George Bush. Johnson's wife, Judith, and three daughters pitch in on administrative work. Of Cochise's 225 workers in Iraq, 112 are Americans, with the rest mainly Jordanians and Iraqis. Most of his U.S. recruits are former military; often they served under Johnson or he knows their former commander. "It's not a lot different from being a soldier," Johnson said. "Pay's better, but nobody will go strictly for the money. They're there for the camaraderie and the feeling they're able to make a contribution." According to the father of a former Cochise employee, workers' base pay is about $12,000 a month and can go as high as $17,000 with overtime. The work week is typically six days, 72 hours, though it often runs longer. Contracts are for six months, with a two-week home leave after three months. Johnson keeps a house in Kuwait for workers transitioning in and out of leave. He said their first request is always for pizza. Johnson said he rides with his guys when he visits Iraq, always looking for ways to make their jobs safer. But there's little he could have done to prevent the explosion outside Tikrit on April 25, which killed three of his employees. Johnson, who was in Kuwait, got a call within an hour that a bomb had been remotely detonated under the last truck in a convoy of USA Environmental workers and guards. Within two hours, he learned it had killed Thomas Carter, 49, a long-time friend and Cochise supervisor from Portland, Ore., and mortally wounded Vincent Foster, 31, of Port Orchard, Wash. Michael Price, 33, of Concord, Calif., died from his injuries a few days later. No USA Environmental workers were injured. Foster's stepdad, Sandy Ress of Jackson, Wyo., said Johnson and his staff were extremely helpful in arranging the quick return of his stepson's body and personal effects. Though he describes himself as "a liberal Democrat who distrusts Bush," Ress said he was impressed by Cochise and its employees. "When I use a word like loyalty, trust or friendship, it pales in terms of what it means for them," he said. "It means they'd die for their friends." Vernon Price, whose son died from brain injuries received in the explosion, agrees that Cochise helped with details after the accident. But he's angry the company didn't insist workers wear helmets. "A surgeon told me that, based on Mike's injuries, he would have been alive today if he'd worn his helmet," said Price, who lives in Pomona, Calif. "It's the company's responsibility to force them to wear it, though Mike may not have done it anyway." Cochise's Johnson, who attended a memorial service for his workers in Iraq, said he had a few people leave after the incident. "And yes, I thought about quitting," he said. "But as one of the guys said, if we quit, they win." _ Times staff writer Susan Taylor Martin and Times researcher Kitty Bennett contributed to this report. Kris Hundley can be reached at hundleysptimes.com or (727) 892-2996.