Image Source: Mastec.com

When I started investing several years ago I decided to focus on specific areas that I thought would grow rather than take the broad based, generalist approach that many do. The areas I chose are agriculture, oil and gas, home building and healthcare.

Oil and gas pipelaying activities are the reason MasTec (NYSE:MTZ) joined my portfolio but as I learned more about the company I found it also plays an important, albeit hidden, “connectivity” role in my other chosen areas of agriculture, home building and healthcare. More detailed information can be found on the company’s Mastec.com. These activities are headed: Renewable Energy, Electric Power, Oil/Gas, Water/Sewer/Civil, Government, Technology, Communications.

The connectivity with my other investment areas – agriculture, home building and healthcare – are obvious as they all use the necessary basics such as power, water and sewerage but less obvious are those at the leading edge of technology in the rapidly expanding communications sector and that is the part of MasTec’s business that sets it apart from most, maybe all, other infrastructure companies.

For example, agriculture is becoming more automated with lighting and heating of undercover crops being remotely monitored and controlled as is indoor and outdoor irrigation. Farm machinery uses navigation and other aids that may soon render human drivers redundant.

Within home building many homes are being fitted with intelligent systems that we can control remotely from our smart phones.

In healthcare, robotic surgery can be conducted by a specialist physician who does not even have to be in the same country as the patient being operated on. Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ:ISRG) is the world leader in this technology that is barely 20 years old.

These are but a tiny sampling of the myriad developments in the way we live using communications systems that MasTec may have a role in connecting.

While there may be others, I know of no other company with such a broad range of expertise spanning many infrastructure necessities and that can also connect those very different infrastructures as technology develops in the future. And that includes the age old basic necessities such as water and sewerage, the supply and treatment of which is becoming ever more technically advanced.