Case Studies Region: Midwest

Not long after Matthew Johnston joined TI Fluid Systems in 2010, the company’s CEO Bill Kozyra embarked upon a project to dramatically improve its workplace, believing a new corporate office would have a powerful and positive effect on employees. The goal was to create a corporate setting in Auburn Hills, Michigan, that would inspire employees […]

Wouldn’t it be cool to work at a vehicle test track? One where automated vehicles negotiate realistic highways, traffic lights, high-speed intersections and an 80-acre city? Andrew Mathers, director of facilities for Transportation Research Center Inc., doesn’t just work there. He’s helping build it. In its latest innovation, Transportation Research Center, an independent vehicle testing […]

Imagine a 93-year-old dorm—which has seen everything from parties to panty raids—that’s succumbed to waves of incoming freshmen over the decades. Warren Whitesell of DePauw University knows firsthand what effect college-age students can have on a dormitory—after all, he’s the father of five children himself. Ah, youth. That’s one of the reasons why Whitesell—as the […]

An arborist at heart and a campus facilities director by profession, Andrew Freeman finds the two endeavors complementary in his role at Ohio University Zanesville and Zane State College. “Trees enhance the campus environment,” he emphasizes during a December interview with Blueprint. “Sometimes, however, they have to be relocated, and that has been an ongoing […]

Years ago, if David Timm’s pager went off at 1 a.m. with news that water was inundating the basement of St. Mary Mercy Hospital, he might’ve lost his mind. Therein lies the beauty of being a director of facilities for more than three decades: If you’ve seen it once, you’ve seen it a thousand times […]

Movin’ on up in the South Side is proving a tough job for the University of Chicago Medicine system. The demand for new and expanded services is there, but the land is not. When the system does find new spaces to buy or lease, Director of Architectural Services Deb Antes leads the buildout process. She […]

It was only his second day on the job as vice president of facilities for Saint John’s On The Lake, Wisconsin’s oldest nursing home, when Michael Lingle was told he might want to sit in on a planning meeting for an upcoming build. He didn’t know it would be the largest project of his life. […]

“Cheap work isn’t good and good work isn’t cheap,” is a straight-up observation from Matthew Gum. That being said, Gum, the president of Kroeschell Rocky Mountain says while contracting services at the Colorado-based firm may not always be the cheapest, the relationship built with a satisfied customer is sufficient reward. That’s what means the most […]

Admittedly, the project at the Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital in Hines, Illinois, was not your standard chiller replacement and proved to be very challenging in many respects. Trenches in the dirt filling up with groundwater within the existing central plant gave a whole new meaning to cold, wet and muddy, according to Scott Rychel, […]

It would take more than 86 football fields—at 57,600 square feet each—to cover the 5 million square feet of space Vance Vinson and his team are responsible for at Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton, Ohio. And yet, the organization’s director of facilities believes that even the smallest changes can make a major impact—particularly when it […]