THE NEWS
WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU? It’s common, even easy, to come to the conclusion that our “large company”, CHA, is an enterprise that will take care of us. Problem is—the reverse is the truth. CHA is a brand, a legal filing, a bunch of furniture and computers. We are the company. Each and all of us. It is our responsibility to take care of the company, not the other way around. How well we do is how well the firm does. It would be easier to believe that, you say, if we owned the company. Well, that’s what I’m working toward. What we all should be working toward. I want CHA to be an ESOP, a company where the employees own stock. It answers the question posed above—what’s in it for you is that the value of the stock increases as the value of the firm increases. It’s worth more as the amount of work taken in and completed successfully increases, as more sales are made, as more clients are happy, as the bottom line gets larger. Think of Apple. Ten years ago, their stock was measured in the tens of dollars. Today, it’s measured in the hundreds. If you bought it in 1994, you’d be pretty happy today. There’s little difference between Apple’s history and what can happen here.
IN THIS ISSUE: PROJECTS
There is one hurdle though. To make this happen, we must have a strong 2014. And, once again, the answer is not that the company can make us strong. It is us who can make the company strong. The projections for this year call for our revenues to be flat or down a little. If they are, we won’t get to achieving employee stock ownership. If they are strong, we will. As it’s always been, it’s up to you.
It’s up to us.
Office of General Services Building Renovation Alyeska GIS Project Power & Energy’s $18 Million Project Terre Haute, Indiana Project Egypt’s Al-Azhar University
INSIDE CHA CHA’s Newly Certified Awards & Recognition Staff Retirements Office Spotlight Office Events
CORPORATE INITIATIVES Raymond L. Rudolph, Jr. PE Chief Executive Officer
Key Performer Program (KP2) Red Vector COO Update
COMMUNITY OUTREACH 2013 Year in Review Student Outreach Efforts
Volume 3 // January 2014
PROJECTS NEW YORK STATE’S OFFICE OF GENERAL SERVICES BUILDING RENOVATION - BUSINESS SERVICES CENTER By Richard LaRose, AIA (V/H Market, Albany, NY)
As part of the 2012-13 Executive Budget, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo called for the establishment of the Business Services Center (BSC), as part of his plan to re-imagine state government. The BSC will consolidate HR and finance services common across 22 NY state agencies. In August 2013, the Governor approved the renovation of Building 5 to accommodate BSC. The building was constructed in the early 60’s and is a 7-story, 237,000 square foot office facility located at the Harriman State Campus in Albany, NY. The project offers some unique challenges for the CHA design team, one of which was developing a space planning program without having an end user (BSC) in place. At the start last April, BSC existed only on paper and currently is in the process of consolidating its leaders and staff. CHA assisted Office of General Services with formulating a program that was flexible enough to best anticipate BSC needs.
Business Services Center – Harriman State Campus, Albany, New York
The project’s construction budget is $40 million. Based on the approved program, the initial conceptual estimate came in over budget by $6 million. In response, CHA worked closely with Office of General Services throughout the design process to scale back scope, resulting in the final construction document estimate coming in at $38.5 million or $1.5 million under budget.
With the Governor’s office rigorously pressing Office of General Services to ensure this project is completed by April 2015, Building 5 became the Office of General Services’ top priority project and incidently was Campus & Institutional Market’s largest single project in 2013. Given the agressive schedule, Schematic Design, Design Development, and Construction Documents phases were all compressed within a four month period. Over 370 drawings and four volumes of specifications were delivered on time. A key factor that allowed the team to expedite Office of General Services scope revisions throughout the design process was that CHA HVAC design utilized Revit. Office of General Services even did the unthinkable—they waived their standard review periods and wove these in while design continued. The overall scope of the project includes abating all asbestos spray-on fire proofing throughout the building, replacing all MEP building systems, interior architectural components and finishes, adding new passenger elevators, replacing single pane windows with an energy efficient curtain wall system on the entire building, re-cladding the penthouse and replacing the roofing system. The design accommodates 1,600 BSC employees and provides spaces such as large open office areas, adjoining training conference rooms, enclave meeting rooms, secured high density storage areas and ADA compliant toilet rooms. In addition to CHA providing HVAC, Haz Mat, Structural and Site/Civil engineering services, we are also providing overall Project Management services to assist Office of General Services with managing and coordinating other Office of General Services primes and sub-consultants. Kudos to the entire team, for successfully meeting each challenge head-on, and for continuing to build trust and strengthen our long term relationship with Office of General Services!
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PROJECTS
ALYESKA GIS PROJECT:
By Richard Clement (Alyeska Pipeline Service Co.) and Charles Barnwell (Geospatial Market, Anchorage, AK) In 2013, the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company (APSC) initiated a project to develop a GIS incorporating APSC’s engineering and surveying data. When fully implemented, this system can reference and access engineering data as well as other Alyeska data. Alyeska manages one of the nation’s largest pipelines—the 800-mile Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) crossing the state of Alaska. Our Geospatial team is contracted to provide GIS consulting services. A main goal is to integrate APSC’s engineering and survey data using C&C’s Intrepid© GIS. Intrepid provides the tools to take Alyeska data and tie it accurately to Alyeska survey locations. The Intrepid system also provides Alyeska with a Pipeline Open Data (PODS) database; PODS is a standard used throughout the world by major oil and gas companies. The new GIS will provide a “backbone” on which data can be tied to location. Referencing the data to survey locations provides a quality check on the data and makes a wide range of data searchable and accessible. The Alyeska GIS will also incorporate Inline Inspection data about the TAPS. Inline Inspection (ILI) data provides information about the condition of the pipeline and is valuable for analysis of the pipeline. Using this data in the GIS is another way to provide checks on data quality while providing more analytical capability. Finally, a web GIS viewer will be implemented to allow authorized Alyeska personnel access to the GIS.
HAVE A QUESTION about a company policy or procedure? Submit your question to: NewsletterQuestions@ chacompanies.com The names of those submitting will remain confidential. We will include some Q & A’s we receive in the next issue of the newsletter.
POWER & ENERGY COMPLETES $18 MILLION PROJECT: By Janine Ferris (Power & Energy Market, Albany, NY)
Cogen Power Technologies congratulated the CHA Power & Energy project team on the completion of the $18 million 1 MW Biomass Cogeneration Plant in September 2013. The preliminary engineering for the project was to assess the technical feasibility and cost for a combined heat and power (CHP) plant addition based on using syngas from wood fueled gasifiers and exhaust gas from a 5 MW gas turbine generator for steam generation. High pressure steam would be expanded in a back pressure steam turbine generator for power production and steam supply to the business park steam distribution system. Once the project configuration (based on a 40,000 lb./hr. biomass boiler and a back pressure steam turbine generator) was selected by the owner, project-definition level engineering was carried out to define the scope, technical requirements, and cost for the project. Congratulations to the entire team on a job well done!
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Biomass Cogeneration Plant
PROJECTS
TERRE HAUTE, INDIANA: A PARTNERSHIP IN THE MAKING
By Andrew Scales, PE (Environmental, Indianapolis, IN)
The City of Terre Haute, located on the western edge of Indiana, faces the challenge of addressing Combined Sewage Overflow (CSO) issues. Terre Haute has long had a problem with combined sewage running into the Wabash River. When it rains, storm water floods the pipes that make up the combined sewer system, mixing with sanitary sewage. As little as a quarter inch of rain can cause that water to overflow into the river through Terre Haute’s ten combined sewer overflow discharge locations. In 2012, the City received approval of the CSO Long Term Control Plan (LTCP). For the past 18 months, CHA has been an integral part of the City’s LTCP Phase I implementation team. CHA has been awarded contracts to complete construction inspection services for the waste water treatment plant (WWTP) expansion as well as design and construction administration services for a floatables control structure, at a major CSO outfall. In August of 2012, CHA began work on the Spruce Street CSO Floatables Control Structure project. CHA’s Midwest wastewater staff completed an investigation to evaluate available technologies and strategies to prevent solids within the combined sewage waste stream from entering the overflow stream and discharging into the Wabash River. The outcome of this initial investigation was recommendation of a screening technology that would be the first of its kind in the United States. While this technology has been utilized for over 20 years in Europe, only two installations have been completed in North America, both of which are in Canada. Construction documents were completed in June 2013 and the selected Contract mobilized onsite in October with substantial completion anticipated in November 2014.
Clarifier overview (top), grout being placed on upper roof (middle), and concrete for first slap section (bottom)
In addition to the floatables control structure project, CHA has had three construction inspectors onsite since December 2012 at the City’s $115 million waste water treatment plant expansion. This project is the largest public works project in the City’s history and includes the construction of:
four new anoxic tanks, internal anoxic recycle structure, and internal anoxic recycle pump station;
four new aeration tanks with influent and effluent division structures;
two new secondary clarifiers and upgrades to the four existing secondary clarifiers;
four new aeration waste activated sludge holding tanks and two new sludge processing buildings; and
new laboratory/administration, blower, UV disinfection and large vehicle maintenance buildings.
These improvements will increase the plant’s capacity by roughly 40%. This additional plant capacity is needed to treat combined sewage flow that will be captured and processed by the WWTP rather than discharged straight to the Wabash River. The project is anticipated to be complete in March of 2016. With a CSO program estimated to spend an additional $100 million over the next fifteen years, the City of Terre Haute is a great opportunity for CHA. Through hard work and continuous communications, CHA has brought great value to the City of Terre Haute. We continue to build a strong foundation with the excellence we have delivered on our first two projects, which will sustain Terre Haute as a long term client as we strive to be their “go-to” CSO LTCP Consultant.
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PROJECTS
WORK ON EGYPT’S AL-AZHAR UNIVERSITY PROJECTS UNDERWAY: By Annemarie Frassen (Abu Dhabi, UAE)
RW Armstrong, a wholly-owned subsidiary of CHA, currently performs work in the GCC region, specifically the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, and Libya. Recently, RW Armstrong has been providing project management and construction management services for various projects located at Al-Azhar University, an important center of Islamic learning in Cairo, Egypt, and one of the oldest universities in the world. These projects are funded by the UAE Ministry of Presidential Affairs who signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Al-Azhar to provide $42.5 million in funds to support the University’s educational and cultural projects serving Islam. RW Armstrong’s work includes overseeing the construction of 4 typical Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt 1 basement, plus ground floor, plus 5 stories (1B+G+5) student hostels inside Al-Azhar University campus at Nasr City, Cairo. These buildings are comprised of dining halls, storage rooms, admin offices and a total of 324 rooms per building with a total capacity of accommodating 1,944 students. The project duration is 18 months and is expected to be completed by March 3, 2015. Another initiative that RW Armstrong is working on is the new building for Al-Azhar library; a high-tech 2 basement floors, plus ground floor, plus 3 stories (2B+G+3) library based on international standards located on a plot size of 67,000 square feet. The new library will house some 50,000 precious manuscripts and publications secured by stateof-the-art electronic control and security systems. It comprises the latest technologies, research center, manuscript and heritage center in addition to a restoration center and 300-seater conference hall. The library is expected to serve around 600 visitors per day. The designer selection was held through a competition between 13 local and international consulting firms. Project duration is 20 months and expected to be completed by June 2016.
Egypt
GOT NEWS?
RW Armstrong’s team also started with a general survey for the maintenance and renovation of the existing Al-Azhar library which was upgraded with security and safety systems for the restoration labs. In these labs the restoration process will begin for more than 100,000 archaeological manuscripts that will be displayed in dedicated areas in the new library.
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We’d love to hear from you! If you have team, project, or individual news or successes you’d like to share with the entire company in a future newsletter issue, please let us know! Send your ideas to Lauren Cataldo (Human Resources, Albany, NY) at 518.453.2816 or LCataldo@chacompanies.com, or Jennifer Voreis (Human Resources, Indianapolis, IN) at 317.780.7224 or JVoreis@ chacompanies.com.
Lauren Cataldo
Jennifer Voreis
INSIDE CHA THE INCREASINGLY QUALIFIED:
1
Danielle Benati (Environmental Science, Health & Safety, Syracuse, NY) – PE
2
Caitlin Dillon (Aviation Services, Nashville, TN) – PE
3
Gary Edmerson (Mechanical, Parsippany, NJ) – PE
4
Saqib Khattak (High Voltage Electrical, St. Catharines, ON) – P. Eng
5
Bill McReavy (General Structures, Albany, NY) – PE
6
Kelly Owens (Geotechnical, Hartford, CT) – PE
7
Adam Peaper (Planning, Indianapolis, IN) – AICP
8
Kate Plummer (Traffic, Indianapolis, IN) – PE
9
Dan Spielvogel (Geotechnical, Albany, NY) – PE
Congratulations to the following employees on their accomplishments!
PROFESSIONAL LICENSURES
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6
2
7
3
4
8
OTHER CERTIFICATIONS
10
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13
5
9
WAY TO GO!
CLIENT FEEDBACK FOR ANDERS: Anders Nelson, PE (Geospatial Market, San Ramon, CA) received accolades for his excellent client support. Vijai Misra, IT Project Manager, Gas Distribution Technology at PG&E spoke highly of Anders saying, “During the past few months, I have had the pleasure of working with Anders Nelson from C&C here at PG&E. Anders has been a fantastic resource, and is definitely an asset to our team. His technical knowhow has been crucial to our project’s overall success. We really appreciate his work ethics, candid feedback and on-time delivery to tasks at hand. I wanted to thank [CHA] for providing the intellect of Anders for both the eGIS & NGLR projects here at PG&E. We are really pleased with his work!” Way to go, Anders!
10 Greg Broz (Construction Engineering, Indianapolis, IN) – Utility Coordinator Certification 11 Mitch Dewein (Mechanical, Albany, NY) – CEM 12 Jay Hall* (Environmental Science, Health & Safety, Norwell, MA) – CPESC 13 George Smith, Jr. (Construction Engineering, Albany, NY) – NICET III Certification 14 Justin Stallman* (Construction Engineering, Albany, NY) – NICET III Certification *Photo unavailable
OUTSTANDING SECTION & BRANCH WEB AWARD: The Mohawk-Hudson Section of The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) was established in 1938 and the Mid-Hudson Branch was established in 1976. It serves ASCE members and their communities within 23 New York State Counties. Recently, the Mohawk-Hudson Section was awarded the 2013 Outstanding Section & Branch Web Award from ASCE National for its website. The new website was awarded the 2013 Outstanding Section & Branch Web Award from ASCE National. The new website was launched in September after retiring the 2008 version of the website which served the section for five years. The previous website version was awarded this same award in 2009. The section is extremely proud of the new website design and look forward to it serving the needs of the Section for years to come. Andrew Jensen (Geotechnical Group, Albany, NY) has been the webmaster and designer for the Section since 2008 and has seen to the success of each version of the website. He is also the Geotechnical Chair and has worked on the Annual Geotechnical Symposium and has organized the section’s geotechnical engineers for various events and meetings throughout the year. His dedication to the Section has undoubtedly helped the Section succeed with its outreach efforts. Check out the new website at www.ascemohawkhudson.org. 6 | JANUARY 2014
INSIDE CHA
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE! CHA RECOGNIZES STAFF RETIREMENTS:
Dick Bovee 43 Years
At CHA, we place a large importance on the development and promotion of our staff. Our employees are our foundation and it is bittersweet when the time comes for a long-term employee to retire. Retirement is a time for commemoration as we celebrate the numerous contributions that these employees have made to our organization throughout their tenures. In 2014, two employees who have been with CHA for over 40+ years are retiring, and we want to recognize their efforts:
Dick Bovee and Bob Lockwood Each with 43 Years of Service to CHA. Shortly after graduating from college, both Dick Bovee and Bob Lockwood applied for jobs with our firm, which was then known as Clarkeson and Clough Associates. Over the next 43 years, they led many large projects, mentored many co-workers, and provided invaluable knowledge and guidance on countless efforts made by the firm.
Dick and Bob have both worked with distinction throughout their careers and seen many changes and much growth in the firm which is now known as CHA Consulting. Now as they retire, please join us in extending the warmest thanks for their years of service to CHA and their contributions to our teams, our clients, and our company.
Bob Lockwood 43 Years
We also want to recognize the following additional staff on their recent retirements as well: Steve Ellis Project Manager, Geospatial Market (Houston, TX), Carla Petty Payroll Coordinator, Finance (Indianapolis, IN), Ruthie Jett Project Technician, Finance (Indianapolis, IN), and Cathy Diana* Office Administrator (Hartford, CT).
Steve Ellis
Carla Petty
Ruthie Jett *Photo unavailable
CONGRATS, NIKHIL!: Nikhil Bodhankar (Electrical, Albany, NY) has been elevated to the grade of Senior Member of the IEEE this year. Senior Member is the highest professional grade of the IEEE for which a member may apply. It requires experience, and reflects professional accomplishment and maturity. Only 8% of IEEE’s 419,900 members have achieved this level. CHA is proud of Nikhil’s professional achievements that led to this elite recognition. 7 | JANUARY 2014
REWARDS & RECOGNITION WINNERS – Q4 2013: CHA’s Rewards & Recognition Program provides employees and managers the opportunity to acknowledge the extraordinary efforts of our staff. There are three types of awards available: WOW Awards, Team CHA-llenge Awards, and CHA-racter Awards. You can see a summary of each award on the CHA Intranet. The employees below are our award winners from the last quarter of 2013. Congratulations to the following: WOW Award Winners: Nicholas Bennett (Albany, NY) Suzanne Christopher (Albany, NY) Chad Costa (Indianapolis, IN) Simon Davies (Indianapolis, IN) Dan DeGennaro (Albany, NY) Ryan Dinneen (Syracuse, NY) Jennifer Everleth (Albany, NY) Paul Gallo (Albany, NY) Samantha Gilbert (Syracuse, NY) Melanie Hilt (Albany, NY) Nick Huff (Albany, NY) Angela Kattman (Indianapolis, IN) James Kinley (Albany, NY) Karla Kurzweil (Indianapolis, IN) Britney Lukowski (Chantilly, VA) Olin Mather (Albany, NY) Katie Merrick (Syracuse, NY) Anders Nelson (San Ramon, CA) Summer O’Brien (Indianapolis, IN) William Pierce (Albany, NY) Heather Pietrasz (Albany, NY) Jason Pollard (Albany, NY) Tina Shea (Albany, NY) Daniel Spielvogel (Albany, NY) Chris Wacker (Boston, MA) Bradford Watson (Nashville, TN) Trevor Wieseke (Indianapolis, IN) Heather Wyld (Albany, NY) Team CHA*llenge Award Winners: Tyler Bicknell (Cleveland, OH) Jeff Brown (Indianapolis, IN) Rose Hornbeck (Cleveland, OH) Dan Johnston (Indianapolis, IN) Chris Mabus (Indianapolis, IN) Bruce Nicholson (Indianapolis, IN) Ricky Perkins (Indianapolis, IN) Kathleen Rector (Indianapolis, IN) Matt Renner (Indianapolis, IN) Chris Sweet (Indianapolis, IN) Michael Watts (Indianapolis, IN) CHA*racter Award Winner: Aaron Bolhous (St. Catharines, ON)
INSIDE CHA
HALLOWEEN AROUND OUR OFFICES:
CHA OFFICE SPOTLIGHT: Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates By Annemarie Frassen (Abu Dhabi, UAE)
CHA’s international offices in the GCC region operate under the RW Armstrong brand name. The office in Abu Dhabi serves as the international headquarters, and as such is responsible for managing all the regional branch offices in Dubai, Libya, and Egypt. The Abu Dhabi office was established in December 2005 with only five staff employed. Fast forward eight years later, the office employs 75 people with a total of 30 different nationalities. With so many different nationalities, cultures, languages and religions, the office can be called a true vibrant melting pot. As the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is home Abu Dhabi’s highlighted projects include: to one of the world’s largest mosques Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (top) (Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque), the world’s and the Presidential Palace (bottom) fastest roller coaster (Ferrari World) and world’s tallest building (Burj Khalifa), it is no surprise that RW Armstrong has achieved some outstanding results as well. In 2012, RW Armstrong received the appreciation award at the Sheikh Khalifa Excellence award, being the only international firm and the only architectural engineering firm, which acknowledged the highest quality standards for its services. The firm also picked up many awards for the work on the highly praised Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, situated in an emerging global clean-technology cluster that aims to be one of the world’s most sustainable urban developments powered by renewable energy. Another milestone for the office is the UAE Presidential Palace project where RW Armstrong provides project management and construction supervision services. The palace will house the offices of H.H. the president H.H. the Crown Prince, as well as ministers. It is set on a 150-hectare site in Abu Dhabi with a 160,000m² palace as its centerpiece and is currently the most prestigious building under construction in the UAE.
THE 2020 WORLD EXPO – DUBAI, UAE:
From top to bottom: St. Catharines’ Halloween hat day, Columbus, Albany, Indianapolis, and Norwell showing their Red Sox pride 8 | JANUARY 2014
Dubai, home to one of CHA’s international offices, has won the right to host the 2020 World Expo. The World Expo, held every five years for six months, is a trade exhibition that attracts millions of visitors to the host country. The UAE made it clear early in its campaign that it was determined to host the event. The bid for Expo 2020 is in line with Dubai’s ambitions for the future. It sends out a strong message to the rest of the world with this unprecedented win, the first for a Middle Eastern country. An estimated 25 million visitors are set to arrive in the country as a result of a successful bid, thus influencing tourism, trade, infrastructure and investment. Innumerable opportunities will be created boosting the growth of tourism and logistics in the UAE and Middle East between 2013-2021; over 277,000 jobs will also be conceived to cater to an expanded economy.
INSIDE CHA
TAKE YOUR KIDS TO WORK DAY:
By Dianne Franic (Power & Energy, St. Catharines, ON)
HOLIDAY HAPPENINGS:
This annual event in Canada and throughout communities is the Learning Partnership’s signature program, now in its 19th year. It provides grade nine students with the opportunity to experience and learn about the world of work as they begin to explore possible career paths. More than 250,000 grade nine students and at least 75,000 businesses and organizations Mike and Calean (left) and Jeremy and Adam (right) nationwide participate in Take Our Kids to Work day annually. The Learning Partnership began running this program in 1994 in Ontario and it has since grown into a national program that reaches students in all provinces and territories across the country. The St. Catharines office had two students join us this year— Calean Steadman and Jeremy Bolhous, sons of Mike Steadman (General Structures, St. Catherine’s, ON) and Adam Bolhous (IT, St. Catherine’s, ON). The students had a great experience learning about their dad’s and other employee’s roles at Gryphon.
SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS VISIT CHA’S ALBANY OFFICE: This year’s Syracuse University (SU) student visit to CHA’s Albany office was a success. Rick Loewenstein (Executive Office – Sr. Vice President of Project Delivery, Albany, NY) was instrumental in helping organize the visit. As seen from the notes from SU faculty, they, along with their students appreciated CHA’s commitment to the learning experience. “Once again, I thank you all for the wonderful job you have done to make last weekend’s field trip possible and enjoyable for our students. I know this was a very time consuming process, and it was just incredible that all of you were so willing to help with the planning and logistic aspects of the trip! [We] are extremely grateful for all you have done for us... I hope we will do it again next year!” Another SU staff member added, “I have had many seniors tell me that this trip was one of the highlights of their educational experience at SU—so we cannot thank you enough for your unselfish efforts in helping to educate our young engineers! Thank you!”
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From top to bottom: Rochester’s holiday happy hour, Savannah’s family-style lunch (they couldn’t get the drumstick away from Scott Hunter to get him to smile), Indianapolis’ ugly sweaters, St. Catharines’ pot luck lunch, and Albany’s gift wrap station (with Rod Bascom hard at work)
CORPORATE INITIATIVES KEY PERFORMER PROGRAM (KP2): The overall objective of the Key Performer Program (KP2) is to identify and develop proven performers to enhance the company’s growth, technical proficiency, and profitability. The program is fast-tracked career development, and will include a mentoring component, goal development, and leadership training. It will also provide exposure to the executives of our firm and experiences that will enhance your skills. Employees from all levels of our organization are eligible for this program, and will ultimately be nominated and approved by Ray Rudolph and Rod Bascom. We are looking for staff members who exhibit an entrepreneurial spirit, leadership skills, technical proficiency, relationship-building abilities, commitment to CHA and involvement in our communities. We are excited to begin rolling this out company-wide during 2014. As we finalize and formalize the development of this program, you will receive additional communications outlining these details.
RED VECTOR TRAINING SITE: Beginning in 2014, RedVector is our preferred approach for online training and PDH credit tool for licensed and certified mployees. This cost-effective and easy to use system helps you track your licensure, attain the needed CE/PDH for recertification, and ensure you are in compliance with laws and rule changes that may affect your licensure. The 1,100-course RedVector library allows for self-paced learning that is available 24/7 to employees worldwide. Additionally, RedVector offers live webinars and is approved in all 50 states. Our plan is to move all registration and online classes to RedVector by the 2nd quarter of this year. We look forward to sending you more information on this full company solution for training and development.
EXCITING NEW PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOLS: Over the past several weeks, the Information Solutions team has worked closely with Operations to introduce some new on-line data tools to provide better accessibility to essential project information. In early January, the ‘Project Charges’ application was released. This application allows Operation Managers, Project Managers, and Project Technicians to easily see who is charging his/her projects on a weekly, monthly, annual, and project-to-date basis. It was welcomed with rave reviews from the Operations and Project Managers! In the near future, another on-line report will be released which will allow Operations to better track FTEs (full-time equivalents) at a project, market, service line, and technical group levels. A huge thank you to Michael Furgang, Bob Vannier, and Paul Gallo for making these new on-line tools a reality!
PROJECT PLAN UPDATE: A new CHA Project Plan template has been developed to guide the performance of significant projects typically with a fee in excess of about $50,000. The short form project plan which had typically been used by CHA in the past has also been redesigned to better communicate project intent and the goals of smaller engagements. The new templates were created by a senior group of staff led by Pete Lilholt and also included Jeremy Kosegi, Steve Lawrence, Shawn Veltman, John Hickok and Gabe Crocker. The team collaborated to prepare both the long form report style plan and short form document which took into consideration the prior practices of the legacy CHA, RWA and C and C entities. The long form Plan is broken down into various subsections to not only address scope, schedule, budget and resource requirements but also quality control, communication, health and safety, project closeout and risk management. The Project Management technical group was used as a sounding board to review the contents of the document and pilot its use on selective projects. Both documents are in the final stage of review and will be rolled out in the coming months. It is anticipated that the plan templates will automatically be populated into project folders.
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COMMUNITY OUTREACH 2013 IN REVIEW: CHA’S CHARITABLE GIVING AND COMMUNITY OUTREACH: By Lauren Cataldo (Corporate Donations Committee, Albany, NY )
CHA employees made a huge impact in 2013 by donating time, effort, materials, and money (as pictured in the side bar) to help dozens of organizations throughout the year. Many of our offices coordinated their own volunteer efforts and various drives to support our overall charitable giving theme of Urban Youth. Combined with our company-wide initiatives, we made an impressive impact in our local communities, which is summarized below:
CHA donated $30,000 in Corporate Charitable Giving by officially rolling out our giving program in July 2013. Over a dozen offices submitted requests for charitable donation requests in just 6 months, and over 30 organizations that support Urban Youth benefitted from our donations!
Employees donated $30,000 worth of UTO hours to both employees in need and to the American Red Cross for Disaster Relief:
Employees donated $6,000 worth of volunteer hours to help their local communities on a variety of projects;
Employees company-wide pledged $20,000 in contributions to the United Way;
Our offices participated in the Movember Movement and raised over $3,500 to help generate awareness for men’s health issues;
CHA’s Albany CANstruction team raised nearly $6,000 for The Food Pantries of the Capital District, and all of the participating teams together collected over 51,000 cans total;
Over 500 pounds of food was collected through food drives in our offices for local food banks or pantries;
Employees collected over 500 toys for the Toys for Tots program and other local toy drives.
All of this together totals almost $100,000 collected throughout 2013! Our offices also adopted families for the holidays, rang bells for the Salvation Army, volunteered to wrap holiday gifts, and collected supplies for our troops overseas. Our employees helped build houses with Habitat for Humanity, and volunteered at soup kitchens and rescue missions. All of the time, money, and sincere efforts to improve the lives of others did not go unnoticed, and will help serve the communities in which we all live, work, and raise our families. Efforts like these help show how giving and compassionate our employees truly are. Thank you all so much and we look forward to doing even more in 2014!
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COMMUNITY OUTREACH
CHA SUPPORTS THE CAPITAL DISTRICT FUTURE CITY COMPETITION:
By Christina Doughney, PE, PTOE (Transportation, Albany, NY)
hands-on experience CHA presents the “Best Essay” award to the Academy of the Holy Names
for your future
Supporter of the Future City Competition
Heather Wyld (Civil, Albany, NY) acts as a judge for the Future Cities Competition
Lisa Westrick (Transportation, Albany, NY) was a school mentor for Koda Middle School, which is part of the Shenendehowa School District in Clifton Park, NY.
The Future City Competition is a national program sponsored by the National Engineers Week. The mission of the Future City Competition is to provide a fun and exciting educational engineering program for 6th, 7th and 8th school grade students that combines a stimulating engineering challenge with a “hands-on” application to present their vision of a city of the future. This year marks the 21st year for the National Future City Competition with 37 regions participating, effecting over 40,000 students from 1,350 middle schools. The Albany, New York regional competition was held on Saturday, January 11th at Proctor’s Theater in Schenectady, NY and included 18 area middle schools, with 200 students in attendance. The winning team (Richard H. O’Rourke Middle School, Burnt Hills, NY) is going on to compete in Washington, DC as part of National Engineers Week. For more information on the program, visit http://futurecity.org/. Through CHA’s monetary donation, as well as our in-kind donations of meeting space, setting up a computer tutorial session for the schools, printings and mailings and a huge volunteer effort of CHA staff, CHA was recognized as a Gold sponsor and presented the “Best Essay” award at the event.
CHA staff who volunteered or assisted in-house are: School and Mentor Recruitment: Chair: Christina L. Doughney Michael Crandall, Jr. Sarah Bowman Lisa Westrick Fundraising and Finance Committee: Finance: Morgan Moldoff School Mentors: Nikhil Bodhankar Lisa Westrick Judges: Sarah Bowman Caitlynn Coppinger Heather Wyld Event Volunteer: Danielle Bargovic In-house Support: Lauren Cataldo Cliff Beardslee Neil Ochal This program wouldn’t be possible without the support of our volunteers and corporate sponsors. Thank you all for your amazing efforts!