Case Studies September 2019

Upstate New York likes to “live mas,” and the Hospitality Restaurant Group is meeting the craving for Mexican-style food as it adds Taco Bell restaurants from Albany to Buffalo. “We are right in the middle of our busy season; we have 12 projects in the hopper right now,” says Mike McCracken, Hospitality’s Director of Asset […]

His company noted for powering infrastructure at Chicago’s two international airports, John Hartmann recently turned down a request to send a crew well outside the Windy City. Thanks, but no thanks, the 33-year-old vice president of third-generation Hartmann Electric Co. Inc. politely told a would-be customer who sought expertise on a baggage handling project at […]

Living in a developing country like the Dominican Republic will change you, Chris Brey says. He’ll never forget how people got by with so little, and how much waste he saw being created back in the United States. Two years in the Peace Corps left a lasting impression on him, making him want to have […]

They continue to beat the odds that have consumed so many small and medium-sized companies in California’s very competitive homebuilding industry, since the last downturn. The way things are going for Crowne Development Inc., brothers Kal and Kam Takhar could be well on their way to having yet another success story from which to leverage […]

In the summer of 2016, while many of her friends were enjoying week-long vacations on the beach, Cindee Burns spent her days walking the aisles of nearly a dozen Colony Hardware stores—and loving every second of it. Who needs sunscreen when you have a 60,000-square-foot roof over your head? Only, the massive home-improvement project she […]

Brain Corp’s original offices fell within the institutional cliché: plain walls and floors, rows of cubicles, basic and limited lunch and break areas. No design flourishes, no plants, no inspiring artwork—a place to come to work, and that’s it. In other words, “a very sterile, non-creative environment,” says Brain Corp Facilities Director Tim Fritcher. Now, […]

He was there when the Today Show studio needed a makeover. He regularly rubbed elbows with the cast of Saturday Night Live. When NBC News anchor Brian Williams implored someone—anyone—to stop the rogue fire alarm interrupting a now-infamous 2012 broadcast, it was he who finally shut it off. (You can find the video on YouTube.) […]

In any other company he might be referred to as facilities manager, but Dale Lechelt emphasizes that ATB Financial places a higher priority on the people who work in the facilities he manages throughout the Western Canadian province of Alberta. Hence his title: Vice President, People Places & Spaces and Procurement at Edmonton-based ATB Financial. […]

If you’re in Minnesota and you want an alternative energy source—but don’t have the means or interest to invest in solar panels for your home or small business—you have the novel option to buy into a “community solar garden.” Here’s how it works: Groups of customers purchase subscriptions at a central solar facility and receive […]

It has the potential to cut costs and accelerate the timeline, but the design/build process is not necessarily the obvious choice in hospital construction. For many in this detail-oriented and highly regulated industry, the risk seems too high to entrust one contractor to directly manage the design team, without the usual checks and balances of […]