Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operators Instructions).Your first question comes from the line of Bob Labick with CJS Securities.
Bob Labick - CJS Securities
Good morning.
Bill Dorey
Morning, Bob.
Bob Labick - CJS Securities
Morning. First question I wanted to ask. You appear to be winning a greater percentage of the Caltrans bids than you did a year ago at this point. And the awards are higher year-over-year as well. Is this by design or could you discuss your progress in Caltrans bids and where you think you may end up this year?
Jim Roberts
Bob, this is Jim Roberts. I'll be happy to answer that. I don't know if I have the answer relative to the percentage of Caltrans contracts higher. Certainly, we are bidding a lot more work in the West than we ever have through this time of the year. And as we increase our estimating staff and bid more work, we are obtaining more work as well. Relative to going forward with Caltrans, there is a healthy amount of work out to bid and we're pretty confident we will get our appropriate share of it. So, we're actually very, very happy with the amount of work out to bid today.
Bob Labick - CJS Securities
Great. And is this indicative of the rest of the West? I mean, for us it's reasonably easy to track the Caltrans stuff, but obviously we can't see the rest of the branches in the West. Is this indicative of where you stand in terms of bidding for the rest of your West division?
Jim Roberts
Yes, Bob, I think it is. This is Jim again. We're really making a very strong effort to increase our bidding efforts so that we can continue to build the backlog that we need. So, we're doing this in all of our western units.
Bob Labick - CJS Securities
And obviously you discussed, certain projects have a greater number of bidders on them. Can you give us a context for the margin? You've given us margin expectations for the full year. But how are current bids playing out now versus what you would have expected six months ago? And what do you expect going forward?
Bill Dorey
Bob, I wish I had the answer on that one. Every job is really different. And every one of our markets are different. So, I really can't define that, where we're headed or how we're doing on them, except for the fact it is a competitive environment and we are seeing more bidders than we have in the past. But there are certain locations that we have very high expectations for margins and other areas where we've lowered our expectations.
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