Methods Practice

May 23, 2011 Methods Practice 1

Expanded Notes

Ogden 12th Street Preconstruction Meeting
May 23, 2011 2:00-3:00
There are people sitting along all sides of the conference room. There’s a circular table in the center of the room where the project manager from UDOT (Nate and Jace) and other project representatives from UDOT (Resident Engineer, Field Engineer, Office Manager) and the Contractor’s project Manager and Superintendent were sitting with a few unidentified men. The man conducting the meeting (Todd) didn’t have a name or title on the agenda so I wasn’t sure who he was, but I did learn he was from Delta and knew my family.
 Other people around the edge of the room included: EEO Officer, Inspectors, Pavement, Traffic, and Materials Engineer, Public Involvement Coordinator, Preconstruction Engineer, Safety Manager, Design Manager, Assistant Traffic Engineer, Inspect Level IV, Inspector, Materials Tech, Region Director, Ogden Maintenance, South Maintenance Area supervisor and the Contractor counterparts. Each group sat with their own team. (Actual UDOT names listed in the Agenda.) Geneva was the contractor and these men sat in the right back corner of the room, Public Involvement being performed by Jacques and Associates (me) and my boss Sydne Jacques hired by Geneva and Front Line (Dave, Marty, Dez, other woman with purple hair I was not introduced to) hired by UDOT. They will do the ground work while we will be in direct contact with the contractor and with the hotline number. We will also be providing the partnering session for the project which is to occur Wednesday May 25, 2011.
Marti, Dave, and purple hair lady left early and two UDOT interns joined the meeting late. There was a joint reminder in my public involvement corner of the room to silence the cell phones, yet we had 4 cell phone ringers go off in the meeting, one of them Syd’s as she showed Vic (UDOT PM (public manager)) some photos of her kids. Two people walked out to take phone calls.
During introductions most people looked out for a moment but would hold eye contact with the group for the entire duration of their name. Lots of men, probably about 5 or 6 women and 30 men.
The South District Engineer (the boss) Brent DeYoung entered late and sat down. I know him from Christmas Parties with my father every year and he acted much differently in a meeting than the bubbly man at Christmas. His voice was lower and he sat slouched in his chair. But he fit right in! My boss Sydne stands out because she’s a woman and very friendly, she delivers cookies to everyone personally in the room and offers them multiple times to everyone. Every meeting has cookies. Everyone notices and loves Syd.
As we went through the Agenda Todd read word for word was written and word for word what was in the contract when the Agenda called for it. Shane, the Geneva contractor showed little emotion in the whole meeting. UDOT men at the table were more open to speak and smile.
Two other women in the room, Sue and Kathy, did paper work for Geneva (I believe) and were highly praised by UDOT and their boss Shane at Geneva. Sue was the only other person with a direct and clear voice when they introduced themselves.
UDOT emphasized their attention to Safety and proper attire hard hats, steel toes, glasses and orange vests. There were about 5 -8 men wearing their orange vests. The typical attire in the room was a button up unironed shirt. Work Boots and jeans. There were a few in a nicer shirt but not white shirts and ties with slacks. I sat next to the Ogden City Traffic Engineer and he wore a wrinkled white shirt and tie with more cargo like pants. He interrupted the meeting when Geneva began speaking about Ogden cities involvement with the old man holes across their project. Syd piped up and said “I don’t think they know you’re here” and then he entered the conversation and affirmed that Ogden City was ready to replace the old man holes.
Flaggers- Hold the stop and slow signs and need to have certifications submitted to UDOT before they can work.
Public Involvement people are even happier then UDOT, Marty especially loves to laugh.
Discussion on Traffic Control: Lanes can be restricted to 1 lane each way at nonpeak hours. Work hours are from 8-7pm M-F and 10 am -7pm Saturday and Sunday. They will mostly be working at night. Vic commented that one little beep after 10 o’clock and the public will be screaming.
Jace was giving apologetic yet blunt conditions on the contractors schedule. 2 week leeway. Holidays and only 100 days. It’s 4,000 per day incentive/disincentive. No time allowance for bad weather. (I talked with Sydne after the meeting and she explained that UDOT created this new way of bidding for contractors where the contractor gives UDOT a quote for how much it would cost for them to do the project and how long they can complete it. Then UDOT chooses who can do it in the shortest amount of time because then they can do the incentive/disincentive time based on how much the project costs per day. This frustrates us for Public Involvement because UDOT Isn’t giving any mercy for weather, holidays or incidents and so to the contractor time really is money and they don’t want to waste time. This situation in Syd’s opinion has the contractor and UDOT bickering from the beginning and stressed. After she explained this their body language made sense.)
There are 3 schools affected by the project and only 2 are year round. Construction will begin June 1st. Jace (UDOT) says its up to the contractor how they go about completing the project. Vic asked if it was preferable to start on one side of the road and then complete the other side. Jace said that the department doesn’t have a preference but Vic probably did.
After 40 minutes they started talking about specific things like “curb match” and “crown” as well as the square foot of the project and man holes as well as pedestrian access and traffic. I started yawning
Conduit??
Mostly residential project but there will be a flower shop and the owner of Dylan’s burger shop that could be problematic for Public Involvement. I was confused how Brent, Nate, Jace and Todd’s roles are supposed to be played in this project but the partnering session can probably help me sort this out.
Should have business cards to give out in the future. Gave Dave my blackberry number on the back of Syd’s card.

Actors: UDOT, Geneva Rock Company, Front Line, Jacques and Associates, Ogden City
Location: Region 1 UDOT Office Conference Room, Ogden, UT
Activities: Preconstruction Meeting, Agenda and discussion.

June 8, 2011 Interview Practice

Place- 12th Street Ogden
Actors- Dez (Public Involvement Manager for the project)
Activity- Walking the project Dez explained to me which stakeholders were most concerned with the project.

This was a very informal and unstructured interview. It began with one grand tour question and then she really talked a large large majority of the time. I asked her when we arrived to walk with me down the street and describe to me what construction was occurring, the process for mill and fill and which stakeholders were most concerned and effected by the construction. The majority of my questioning after that was asking for a description of terms:

millings: ground up pavement used to create a ramp or fill holes temporarily
grade: the area where pavement has been removed and construction workers are working
rotomilling: the same as milling, its the grinding up of the top layer of material on the road
steel gates: used for temporary access to residencies along the corridor
corridor: refers to the street that project is located along

She gave me pertinent information about a number of key stakeholders. To respect the privacy of these stakeholders I will not expand this aspect of the interview here.