Nobody Needs a Super Hero
I work in the field of construction and I am a site supervisor with Furbish Company (a small but rapidly growing sub-contractor installing Green Roofs and Living Wall systems). One habit I have adopted and developed is the state of being the “go to” guy to get something done. At face value, that title appears great, but, that title was achieved through impatience and pride. I realized there is nothing great about being the one person who everyone can trust in getting the job done well. Greatness only comes from how well the people we serve are operating, and wellness is only present with the right knowledge, the right understanding and the right action. If I am the one who is doing all the technical and skilled work, what happens when I am pulled away on a phone call or by a site visit from the General Contractor? Our operational system is paralyzed because I held onto vital information that needed to be expressed to my team and I withheld the time needed to properly train my team members. We are floored by the “dis-ease” of confusion, misunderstanding and non action. I have heard the saying “many hands make light work.” Well, I am saying “many well informed and trained hands make easy work.”
I felt rich inside because of the aptitude, comprehension, skills and abilities I have achieved. Now, I feel poor inside because of the empowering gifts I have held and not given. I put budget and schedule pressures, and my own self image before my team’s well being in the field.
Wisdom has taught me that as a leader I must consider: (numerically prioritized)
1. The safety of my team and others around me.
2. The well being of my team (Are they well informed? Are they properly trained? Do they understand what I’m communicating?)
3. THE JOB (being effective, efficient, focused, and respectful; staying on budget and schedule)
4. Responsibility/answering to my boss. Achieving their desires in the business.
5. My desires about work (achievement, self image, goals).
Too often in the past numbers 3, 4, 5 have become numbers 1’s and 2’s creating a work site filled with dangers, mistakes, inefficiencies, poor workmanship, and unnecessary pressure. I am now facing the mistakes I have created, and I am climbing out of the hole I have dug for myself over the past year and a half. I am facing a need to change before my eyes and embracing it with the continual pressures of budget, schedule, and image. My lesson is simple. Give to my team what I see, what I am looking for, what I am thinking about, and what I know (and use time to be sure each person understands); using the time wisely to teach, train, and develop my team to do what I can do.
The National Institute of Health Green Roof 11/08-Present Site Supervisor
The green roof at the National Institute of Health has been a rather intense roof for us. For starters, we need to walk through metal detectors, give our ID’s and get badged. Then our vehicles are swabbed for bomb residue and sniffed by dogs everyday just to get on campus. Parking is a hassle as we try to find a place where the NIH police won’t ticket us. We have time restrictions, access restrictions, and multiple contractors working over us, giving us different and conflicting commands.
The first part of this job was the deconstruction and demolition of the original paver deck roof. (this was a first time for me and for the company.) At the time of deconstruction we were pressured by schedule constraints and we needed to fit this part of the project into three days (thirteen men and 40 work hours in 3 days). We completed our task by removing:
- 1,500 2′ x2′ pavers
- A layer of 2″x8′x2′ water logged Styrofoam boards. The Styrofoam was so heavy that one man could
only pick up one sheet at a time. - Demolishing two 4′x4′x4′ solid concrete umbrella bases.
We relocated all the materials and garbage to a storage area a quarter mile away to be discarded and stored for reuse on the future green roof and other projects at NIH.
The second part of this green roof was the reinstalling of the insulation board and the construction of the curvilinear paver deck. This was my first time creating a curvilinear hard scape with a Makita Chop Saw. I didn’t know how we were to do this work when I first saw the plans. Fortunately for us we hired on Patrick Dameron - a man with 20 years of landscape and hard scape experience. He taught us the “plunge”, “score”, and “snap” method:
- At each end of the curved line; plunge the saw through the entire paver in a straight line as far as you can before the curve becomes too intense.
- Connect the two plunged areas with a straight score line connecting the two end points; cut the score about halfway through the material.
- Move the paver to the edge of the cutting table and pivot it on the edge in order to take pressure off the cut area; then hit the discarded part of the paver with a dead blow and snap - the paver will crack right along the cuts.
- Use the chop saw to carve the little bit of material that is left along the curved line; this is accomplished through many cuts with the chop saw positioned at angle towards the cut and following the scribed line.
- The cut is completed by trimming with the saw and chipping away material with a brick hammer until the line is clean and curved.)
This project is still operational, and I will be writing another blog about the installation of the Jacob’s Trellis this week - A stainless steel cable system to train vines to grow up the face of exterior walls.
The all pictures that are shown in this post are the way it looked before we began to reinstall the green roof. Future postings and pictures will be added and updated showing the progress of this project.
Capital One Green Roof-Site Supervisor 10/08
The Capital One Green Roof, aka “the bullet roof,” was a straight forward green roof. It had a simple layout, straight forward application and a low number of pieces. The only issues we needed to be conscious of were the roof load capacity and water drainage (this roof could only hold a certain amount of weight per square foot, and we needed to be careful about soil and ballast depths). A few areas of the roof held water and we needed to add extra drainage material to ensure survival of the green roof plants.
There were two aspects of this roof that were new to us. The first was the thick plastic root barrier we set down needed to be heat welded using Liester Guns. This was a simple process to learn. The action only took a little time to get a feel for, and I developed a system of operating it effectively and efficiently. I needed to quickly calculate how much time we needed to heat weld the 1,500 linear feet of root barrier because the whole schedule depended on the setting and sealing of the root barrier first. We ended up needing to purchase an additional Liester gun in order to keep ahead of other materials in the building process being set on the roof.
The Capital One Green Roof was the first “instant green roof” we installed, and that was accomplished through the use of xeraflor pre-grown sedum mats. The sedum mats created a quick and impressive aesthetic result on the roof, a seamless install process and a way to install a low weight roof (less dirt was needed on the roof because of the mats). The only problems I had with the xeraflor mats were their weight, size, and difficulty to cut. Their weight and size made them difficult to manage from the pallets to their final resting place. xeraflor’s mats are so well made and grown out that a single razor blade is needed to cut the mat to fit around roof features (good and bad from an install stand point). xeraflor also set off the safety alarms on our job site with the pallets they chose to deliver their sedum mats on. The pallets were falling apart as the crane was lifting them from the ground to the roof, which is a major problem in my eyes, and I hope they remedy that accident waiting to happen in the near future.
I give major props to my team Kevin Crest, Kai Saffron, John Scheff, and Chris Raybourne for enduring the major storms and days with 40 - 50 mph winds. Capital One was the roof where the sport ‘root barrier surfing” was first witnessed and where we made sure “no sedum was left behind.”
The Seale Residence Retaining Wall-Site Supervisor 1/11/09-2/25/09
“What a Project!”
The Seale Residence Retaining Wall was 200 feet long, 8 feet high, and constructed with “Hercules” modular cement blocks of weights ranging from 210 lbs. - 65 lbs. The retaining wall was a water front construction on a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay, and because of the environmental contingencies involved with water front construction we were forced to build it like way Ancient Egypt did. We dug the entire 200 ft.(L) x 4 ft. (W) x 3 ft. (D) trench by hand, and we set 1,200 blocks through the work of our backs.
My team and I were exhausted at the end of each day because of the physical nature of this job. I really 
made a conscious effort to keep morale up. Any negative attitude on the site quickly became cancerous and spread to all our moving parts. I kept our spirits high by allowing loud music on the radio, extra colorful conversations, lots of jokes, and 5-10 minute rest periods every couple of hours. I was able to create a fun atmosphere in spite of the physically demanding work and frigid temperatures.
Our materials were brought onto the site by barge and were unloaded onto the pier at the beginning of the wall. Transport of the materials was simple; we used dollies to transport the Hercules blocks and wheel barrows to transport the stone. We made ramps, road ways, bridges, and slides with wood to ease the transport of our materials. The successful completion of the Seale Residence Retaining Wall was achieved through creative thinking, collaboration, and group support. I asked for, received, and utilized the ingenuity and insight of everyman on the team. I am grateful to have had the dedicated efforts of Patrick Dameron, John Constable and Chris Raybourne at my side.
Alanis for Earth Hour 2009
Heathcote Community Strawbale Project
Heathcote Community Strawbale project Spring 2006 - Summer 2007
The Heathcote Community straw bale project was an exciting and challenging job for me. I was hired into the project with no experience or building skills, yet I had a tremendous amount of eagerness to learn. I started by assisting the two lead carpenters with trimming straw bales, framing the interior walls, painting and installing the outside trim, and installing the metal roof. Both of the lead carpenters were great teachers and very patient with me. I appreciate the knowledge they imparted to me.
Next came the plaster work. No one on the job had any plaster experience. The architect was able to give some direction about “the how to,” but, for the most part we needed to learn about earthen and lime plaster and it’s application ourselves. During that time one of the lead carpenters moved to Massachusetts and the other carpenter needed to focus on other areas of the building process. I was given the opportunity to learn about earthen and lime plasters and how to apply them; in addition I was given the responsibility of training and managing a volunteer labor force for the application of the plaster.
I fell in love with plaster immediately. Learning how to make really good plaster came easy to me, and I 
attribute that to my years of experience cooking and baking in a professional setting. I immediately saw that mixing a
“good batch of mud” was like mixing a good batch of dough (for bread) or batter (for cakes). The next step was learning troweling techniques and training my muscles and eyes to achieve the results the home owner desired.
Learning the proper troweling techniques took a lot of time and energy (just like anything worth learning). Luckily for me I had a tremendous amount of square footage to cover with three coats of plaster to apply, which provided me the space to perfect my techniques and grow my skill set.
On top of learning the necessary skills for the job, I had the opportunity of teaching, training, and managing volunteer interns on the straw bale project. One of the greatest lessons I learned on this job was the importance of ergonomics, and creating a work site suitable for men and women of all sizes. Both earthen and lime plasters are heavy and dense, and they take tremendous effort to apply. I quickly saw the need to learn and practice proper form while working with earthen plaster and then to teach this extremely valuable method to my team.
I found working with women on a construction site very valuable as well. In my experience, each woman on the site saw no need to muscle through the plastering process (where myself and the other guys on the site tried to lift heavy loads and reach higher during the plastering process then we should). The women taught me the importance of making the work site a place where each person can effectively, efficiently, and safely work. We created custom wood scaffolding with type specific adjusters, and set our system according to what the weakest person’s abilities were. By working in this manner, we strengthened the team and worked better as a functioning unit.
