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Oviedo resident Gordon Sinclair's death 11 days ago reflects the imminent danger thousands of civilian contract workers face in postwar Iraq.

Military downsizing, an increasing number of missions around the world and more-sophisticated weaponry have forced the U.S. government to depend on civilians to do many of the jobs once performed by troops. These employees do everything from sorting the mail and doing the laundry to gathering intelligence and maintaining weapons, much of it side-by-side with troops on the front lines.

Companies take huge risks to support U.S. efforts toward rebuilding the war-torn country because the monetary payoff can be great. The United States has awarded billions of dollars in contracts to dozens of corporations working in Iraq. Some of those companies, such as Sinclair's Titan Corp., see government contracts as their chief source of revenue.

So even though Titan has lost 13 employees in Iraq the past five months, the company and others there are not expected to pull back, experts say.

"You name it, they're doing it," said Peter W. Singer, a national-security fellow at the Brookings Institution, an independent think tank that studies public policy on economics, foreign matters and governance.

"It's the entire apparatus. In intel, we've outsourced much of our aerial surveillance and satellite surveillance. We're using commercial products. We're communicating across commercial lines, and commercial personnel are helping to digest and translate that info."

"We're talking about a global industry," said Singer, author of Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Private Military Industry. "You could hire everything from a battalion of commandos to leasing out an air force to handing over your supply chain."

Sinclair was in charge of linguists serving the Army.

While the mounting number of military fatalities is prominently reported almost daily, the death of Sinclair and co-worker Todd Drobnick almost went unnoticed to the general public. Attempts to pin down the number of civilian deaths are difficult.

At least 22 contractors have been killed and 33 wounded in Iraq this year, according to media accounts and Sentinel research. They include the 13 from Titan, four from U.S. defense contractor Kellogg, Brown & Root and two South Korean electric-company engineers. At least seven of the dead were Americans.

State Department officials said they are aware of 17 civilians killed.

Titan had not lost any workers in Iraq until July, said Ralph "Wil" Williams, the company's vice president for corporate communications. Of the 13 killed, four were Americans and nine were Iraqis.

Not all deaths are combat-related. Sinclair, 55, and Drobnick, 35, of Everett, Wash., along with Army Chief Warrant Officer Christopher G. Nason, 39, of Los Angeles, were killed when their vehicle collided head-on with a petroleum truck between Mosul and Dihok.

Of the four American civilians killed working for Titan, one died in hostile fire, Williams said.

Despite the dangers, civilians such a Sinclair readily volunteer for assignments in a country where no one is safe anywhere. Those jobs don't just come with risks; they often come with lucrative salaries.

"You'll find that most of them, well over 95 percent, are ex-military," said Scott Hyatt, director of training development for Titan. "They understand the hazards. They've been doing it all of their life. It's hard to get out of the habit."

Titan employees may be more vulnerable than other civilian contractors in Iraq because of their roles as translators, Hyatt said. "They're right out there embedded with the commanders," he said.

After Sinclair retired from the Army as a lieutenant colonel, he was in charge of an Army Special Operations battle-simulator center at Fort Bragg, N.C. When that contract ran out, Sinclair went to work in business development at Titan's simulation office near the University of Central Florida.

When the position in Iraq opened up, Hyatt said, Sinclair "volunteered for it."

Retired Miami police Lt. Rick Colpitts was working as a contract bailiff at Orlando's federal courthouse in 1997 when he heard that former police officers were being recruited to help in the rebuilding of war-torn Bosnia and Croatia.

During the next six years, he helped monitor and train local police on investigations and community relations, supervised command centers and coordinated operations at training academies.

"This was an opportunity with my background and special training where I could help out," said Colpitts, 59, who now lives in Leesburg. "It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

One incentive for contract employees is the tax-free pay and per diem they receive because they work outside the United States. Colpitts said contractors could make $60,000 to $70,000 a year.

American contractors are vying for billions of dollars in work to rebuild and protect Iraq. From the $87.5 billion supplemental budget approved by Congress in November, at least $21 billion is earmarked for nonmilitary security and reconstruction operations -- $12 billion to $15 billion is expected to be awarded to contractors.

"Working for the government is always more lucrative than working for the private sector," said Christopher Hellman, an analyst with the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, a Washington, D.C., research group. "Why? It's less competitive. I don't know of a single company that has turned around and said, 'I don't want to do business on the government side anymore.' "

A recent study by the Center for Public Integrity shows more than 70 American companies have won contracts worth up to $8 billion in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan in the past two years.

Work ranges from rebuilding electrical and water plants and bridges, to providing security or servicing helicopters and other aircraft.

Most of the government contracts are "cost-plus," meaning companies get paid the cost of doing the work plus a profit margin of up to 3 percent with incentives or bonuses which can reach 8 percent to 10 percent, said Doug Brooks, president of the nonprofit International Peace Operations Association, which represents contractors involved in military and humanitarian missions.

Singer called Iraq "the largest use of private military personnel that we've seen in recent history."

"We don't know the exact number of personnel," he said. "We only have estimates, and the rough estimate is about 1 in 10. One contractor for every 10 soldiers." There are about 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

Cynthia Ingols, a management professor at the Simmons School of Management in Boston and a specialist in organizational design who studied military contracting in Bosnia, said risks are greater in Iraq compared with previous assignments around the world.

"In Iraq, they are being targeted now," she said. "They're not drawing a line. They're targeting everyone."

Greg Groeller of the Sentinel staff contributed to this report. Gary Taylor can be reached at gtaylor@orlandosentinel.com or 407-324-7293. Jim Leusner can be reached at jleusner@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5411. Matthew Hay Brown can be reached at mbrown@orlandosentinel.com.