riggs newsletter.indd

The
POWER LINE
Message From The Safety Group
-Donald L. Masters, Director
Customer Service in the Field
It should come as no surprise to
everyone that we spend a significant
portion of our work day interacting
with the public in one way or another.
They see us driving our vehicles up
and down roadways, they watch us
from their places of business, and they
certainly have an interest in the work
that we oftentimes perform actually on,
or certainly in close proximity to their
own properties. For the most part, the
public is appreciative of the services
that we perform, but there are times
when – for a variety of reasons – they
can (and have) gotten a little moody,
and on occasion, downright obnoxious.
When that happens, the reality of being
confronted by those angry citizens has
to be dealt with … but the trick is to
not let those situations get out of hand.
Here are a couple of basic rules of
engagement that should be followed:
Contrary to ancient business laws,
the customer is not always right, but
they do reserve the right to think
that they are. They automatically
know more about your business than
you do, so when confronted, you need
to do whatever is necessary to defuse
the situation as best, and as quickly as
possible. Be the educator. Explain to
them what you’re doing, why you’re
doing it, and under who’s authority.
Above all else, make sure you do so in
words and phrases that they can understand. Get your supervisor involved.
Addressing customer complaints is best
handled by those having the specialized
training or authority to take charge of
the incident. If necessary, they too are
the ones that can refer the customer
to higher levels of authority, either
within our own company, or to those
of our client. Avoid at all cost “fighting back”. Never make inflammatory
statements of any kind, that’s only going to make things worse. And if none
of these strategies work - leave them
the name and number of someone that
will discuss the problem with them at a
later time and walk away.
Now a days, conflicts are becoming
a very real and dangerous problem that
can quickly escalate to serious verbal
or physical harm. Treat the public as
you would want to be treated. Don’t
ignore their concerns, but don’t allow
yourself to become a part of the problem either. Be a part of the solution,
and above all else, protect yourself.
PLEASE NOTE:
Our home office is located at:
4 Esterbrook Lane
Cherry Hill, NJ 08003-4002
(856)433-6000 (Phone)
(856)433-6305 (Fax)
In September, our Baltimore
office will be moving to:
9411 Philadelphia Road, Unit L
Baltimore, MD 21237
Phone Numbers Unchanged
July/August 2007
PROUD
TO BE SAFE!
Save the Dates
Safety Training / Meetings
August
Baltimore - Tuesday 8/21
Cherry Hill - Thursday 8/23
(Please note - meeting will actually take place at the IBEW
Union Hall Local 654
on Chichester Avenue)
September
Baltimore - Tuesday 9/19
Cherry Hill- Thursday 9/21
(Meeting Place TBD)
TOPICS: TBA (Topics will be
built around our updated
corporate safety manual)
Safety Training / Meetings are
held from 4PM until 6:30PM
Computer Corner
-Scott Zemaitatis
I am please to announce
that since our move in early June,
there appears to be no problems
with Network, Citrix, or computer
problems, but if you are having difficulty, please feel free to contact Scott
Zemaitatis (609)254-3858
Project News
Our Crews are Everywhere
Paul Bizon, Vice President, Electrical Group
In our Mid-Atlantic Region several
capital improvements throughout a 35
electrical and instrumentation projacre liquids facility. The new ethanol
ects have been completed for a major
railcar unloading facility is progressproducer of gasses which fuel an area
ing nicely. There is also a significant
steel mill.
amount of switchgear that we are in the
Working our way up the coast, our
process of renovating and/or replacing
crews are working on a demolition
to provide additional capacity and reliproject at another producer of gasses
and chemicals in preparation of a new
process coming to this terminal. We
are also installing power drops for the
delivery trucks throughout the site.
They’re moving in! After nearly
eight months of construction and renovations at a Center City hotel to condo
conversion, the owners of the newly refurbished 14th floor condos have made
settlement and are moving in. We are
currently moving towards turning over
the 15th floor, and anticipating doing
the same for each additional floor in
6 week increments. At the moment,
work is progressing on the rough-ins of
the 19th & 20th floors.
At the moment we are installing the
temporary power at a Philadelphia area Photo Courtesy of The New York Times
refinery for the upcoming renovation of
Above: The Center City hotel to
their 859 Unit.
The Philadelphia area is also keeping condo conversion welcomed its first
us busy as we continue with on-going condo owners in June.
New Corporate Office
- Leo Sniger, CEO
ability to their overall plant operations.
Just outside of Philadelphia, a
specialty chemical company had us
installing new feeders to the exhaust
fans in their warehouse building and
connecting several new instruments in
another building.
Over in the Garden State, work has
begun on several projects related to the
fall Crude #7 upgrade turnaround at a
South Jersey refinery. This involves
working on various instrumentation
and electrical projects throughout the
unit.
In the same area, a cement based
shingles and siding products producer
has us continuing to provide maintenance, instrument tech and construction
services to keep their facility running.
Currently they are upgrading the carbon canister process with new instrumentation and controls.
At our new “Home Sweet Home”
in Cherry HIll, our crews are involved
in wiring the new office building with
new lighting in the shop area, demolition throughout the building and providing temporary services to the trailer
complex.
We recently purchased a 40,000 sf building in Cherry Hill,
NJ to serve as our new home office. Currently, the building
is undergoing a complete renovation, including new offices,
training facilities, fabrication shop and vehicle repair facility. The majority of the renovations are being self performed
with in house personnel and are expected to be completed in
late November. At the moment, the service bays are being
cleaned, repaired, painted and fitted out with new racking and a second floor will be constructed in two areas of the buildequipment. The office design, furniture selection, and finishes ing. These areas will be used for storage until such time the
are nearly 90 % complete and are expected to be submitted
fit out is required. If all goes as planned, we hope to have an
for approval within the next 2 weeks.
open house during the week of December 1, 2007.
To accommodate future growth of the company,
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Gearing Up for a New Day
-Manfred Konrath, Vice President, Underground Utilities
The sun comes up - the trucks
go out. When you’re working
with underground utilities and you
have maintenance and emergency
contracts, that’s just how it goes.
For the last 12 years crews have
been departing our White Marsh
Yard at or about the crack of dawn
and sometimes not returning until
the evening twilight - all dependant
upon the demands of our clients.
From this location we have been
performing street light installations,
cable fault locating, primary cable
installations, and secondary cable
installations for a variety of major
utility clients. At present, approximately 75 employees work out of
this yard on a daily basis.
The yard lights are on just as the sun begins to rise to signal the
start of a new day, new challenges, and new accomplishments of
our crews who work out of the White Marsh Yard in Maryland.
General Foreman Cody Koziel, spends his
early morning hours lining up his crews
for the day’s work ahead. Cody arrives
around 5AM every morning to get things
started for the crews that roll in at six.
He will spend a few hours in the office,
then go visit the crews and inspectors on
site, and meet the customer(s) at their
office(s). He returns in the afternoon to
finish up the day’s paperwork for forwarding to the customer. It’s not unusual
for him to still be at the trailer at 5PM.
He has been with Riggs 13+ years.
No Rest for the “Wire Guys”
~Scott Zemataitis, Project Manager, Over Head Lines Group
A steady work flow of line
maintenance, power restoration,
and emergency service has been
keeping our overhead crews busy
the last several months in the MidAtlantic region. Currently we are
performing work for several major
power suppliers and producers,
predominantly in the Maryland
area, but also in New Jersey and
the Philadelphia area as well.
We recently signed a 90 day
contract with a D.C. area power
supplier. This client supplies
power to nearly 750,000
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customers in and around our
nation’s capital. The contract will
utilize an additional 15 crews in
this area.
All work has been running
smoothly and safely, keeping both
our clients and crews happy.
On the Mechanical Side
- Joe Seaman, VP of the Mechanical Group
Employee News
Sean McQuade on the Road to
Recovery
Ralph McQuade’s son Sean continues his rehabilitation from the Virginia
Tech shootings. He has had several
operations with several more scheduled. The prognosis for his recovery
is good, but the full extent of damage
is still unknown at this time. He has
paralysis in his face and is working
hard with doctors and support staff to
regain full mobility/functionality. His
spirits remain high and all are thankful
for what they have.
“All in a Day’s Work”
That’s just what Riggs’ plumber
Rick Melwig will tell you when asked
about the day he helped save a life.
While driving along River Road early
in June, Rick heard cries for help.
Stopping his truck and looking around,
he saw no one along the road or on
the banks of the river. After taking
another look, he noticed a middle-aged
man hanging onto a piling. Rick then
dialed for help and talked to the man
until medics and police arrived. The
man had apparently been the victim of
a car jacking, as he later told police he
had been held at gun point and told to
jump into the river while the suspects
drove away in his car.
were part of a multi-million dollar
alliance contract with a major MidAtlantic power producer. Work in
this area will gear up once again
as we approach the end of summer
and gear up for scheduled fall outages and maintenance.
Projects for a major steel pro-
ducer in Maryland will be finishing
up shortly. This client’s facility is
capable of producing 3.9 million
tons of raw steel annually which
is used in steel service centers, as
well as container, automotive and
construction industries.
Service Anniversaries
JULY
David Hicks – 1 year, Aerial Distribution Equipment Operator, Odenton
Charlie Crouse – 1 year, Aerial Distribution Foreman, Odenton
Jeff Hagerman –1 year, Aerial Distribution Small Job Foreman, Odenton
Charles Young – 3 years, Aerial Distribution Small Job Foreman, Odenton
Pedro Feliciano – 17 years, Street Light Mechanic/Foreman, White Marsh
AUGUST
Ray Ladzinski – 3 years, Street Light Mechanic/Foreman, White Marsh
Ernest Cooper –5 years, Secondary Fault Locating Foreman, Odenton
Ira Johnson –2 years, Directional Boring Groundman, White Marsh
David Ramsey – 2 years, Aerial Distribution Equipment Operator, Odenton
Trivia Question
Q: When and for what job
site were construction worker hard-hats first invented?
A: Construction worker hard
hats were first invented specifically for workers on the Hoover
Dam back in 1933. Speaking of
which, to the locals in Boulder
City, Nevada, it’s still called
Boulder Dam.
Much of the heavy work
is behind as we wrapped up two
major projects at power generating facilities in the Mid-Atlantic
region. Earlier this spring, Riggs
crews were simultaneously working at 6 power houses along the
East Coast. Some of the projects
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