Case Studies College and University

In 2001, when Angelo Pellegrini became the lead electrician at the San Diego Community College District, it had just 10 locations spread across 1.6 million square feet. After several recent projects, today, the district has expanded to 4.7 million square feet, including 54 multi-story buildings. Pellegrini has been with the district throughout the changes, becoming […]

Seeing Duke University’s two coal-fired power plants is one of Russell Thompson’s indelible memories from touring the campus before he was hired as director of utilities and engineering in 2007. Then, one of the first initiatives he led was replacing coal-powered plant boilers with ones powered by natural gas—the last chunk of coal was burned […]

From launching an automatic orbital welding program for installing high-purity stainless steel piping in pharmaceutical pilot plants to working as a sheet metal supervisor, Steve Eckert has accomplished a lot in his three-plus decades as a project engineer and in facilities management. He started his career in October 1990 as a project engineer at Summa […]

Every spring, it’s common for college athletic coaches and their assistants to hit the road in search of athletes to recruit. Dr. Farzad Shahbodaghlou, a professor and the founding director of the construction management program at California State University, East Bay, took a recruiting trip in April, too. Only he went to India to recruit […]

It may be a school that adheres to conservative values and for that Liberty University makes no apologies. But it needn’t cling to some old and very inefficient ways of campus and facilities upkeep. So, Michael S. Terrell emphasized two years ago when returning to where he had lived, the idyllic locale of Lynchburg, Virginia, […]

It’ s not always easy for a hospital system to be sustainable. The lights are always on, machines like respirators run steady throughout the night and refrigerators must be kept cold to preserve medicines and specimens. These are but a few of the challenges Mike McKay encounters at UW Health as he works with his […]

A rectangular brown and beige, two-story concrete structure that once housed the Star Press in Muncie, Indiana, the building really was yesterday’s news. It had stood vacant since 2000, save for break-ins. Years later when the newspaper’s owners donated it to Ivy Tech Community College, it was one very distressed property. “Just a rundown eyesore […]

Education is multifaceted. For instance, one can learn how to install an irrigation system by working on a farm or by sitting behind a college desk. Marcos Rodriguez did both. Between 1996 and 2004, he worked as an irrigation manager for Wonderful Orchards, a pistachio, almond and pomegranate farm covering 22,000 acres. In 1999, he […]

It takes some doing to earn the designation of Canadian Certified Healthcare Facility Manager. Bryan Wakefield reckons that everybody who has the certification, along with his experience, would fill a modest room with seats to spare. He garnered that certificate in 2019 while finishing a 14-year stretch at Ontario’s London Health Sciences Centre in facilities […]

Growing up in Houston, Allysia Kizzee recalls seeing the grandeur of Rice University while passing by—the quads with vibrant green lawns bordered by brick buildings, many connected by covered walkways with majestic arches.   “Looking at it from the outside, it may seem simple,” she says. “When you come inside the hedges, we have a complex, […]