Case Studies

In 1948, Nick Thomarios started a small painting company to meet the needs of his neighbors as well as residents of nearby communities. His son Paul Thomarios would often join him, wielding brushes and rollers. Later on, as a political science undergraduate student at The University of Akron, the younger Thomarios would spend his summers […]

When Paul Peterson transitioned from chief engineer to data center facilities manager at JLL Work Dynamics, he faced a daunting task. For one thing, he was moving into a regional role and taking on a new location with low staff morale and challenges related to its being an older building. “To create a positive culture, […]

Pete Perea was used to seeing his framers arrive on the job site one at a time, each in their own car. But over the past couple of years, he started noticing a shift: The guys would show up crammed into one truck, six or seven per vehicle, with all their tools piled in the […]

Paige Butterfield is many things: a small-town girl-turned-city woman, a volunteer for causes like Athletes with Disabilities and—since 2018—assistant vice president and director of workplace environment for Iowa-based insurance company UFG Insurance. But perhaps her favorite role is that of mentor. A single mom who had to make her way in a male-dominated field, Butterfield […]

It’s a concept Phil Johnston reckons is catching on in Canadian retail and maybe elsewhere. Indeed, he assures, the early feedback has been positive from consumers at a new and condensed Best Buy location at the Sherwood Park Mall just outside the Alberta capital of Edmonton. “We could be trend-setters,” he tells Blueprint in November. […]

Known for its verdant forests, rocky coastline and picturesque lighthouses (and lobster, of course), Maine has long been a popular destination for tourists—despite its relatively sparse population. But after a two-decade-long decline, the state has enjoyed a recent surge of inhabitants.   In a state that was already experiencing an acute housing shortage, the need […]

In most school construction projects, the bulk of time is spent, well, building the school. At School District #62 (Sooke), however, a whole year was dedicated solely to blasting rock. That’s because its two new schools were built on the side of a cliff. “We usually aim to build on flat land, but we’re running […]

With floating polyethylene islands twice the size of Texas and beaches that have as much trash as sand, it’s no exaggeration to say the planet is drowning in plastic. While cleanup helps, the ultimate solution may lie with plastic alternatives, says Paul Callaghan. As the vice president and general manager of facilities and construction at […]

When it comes to building and maintaining a hospital, attention to detail is paramount—from the color of the paint to the quality of the air. After all, the hospital itself is like a living, breathing organism: The more seamlessly its parts work together, the healthier it is. This holds especially true for Pennsylvania’s Lancaster Medical […]

When Pete Muscio started at Rochester Community Schools in late 2015, he was surprised by how different schools looked. Not just floors and paint, but furniture and fixtures in each of the buildings varied greatly, with little consistency or standardization. Muscio, the director of capital projects and facilities, knew that making these features uniform would […]