Summer 2002 - Hooper Corporation

H O O P E R
SUMMER 2002
OnSite
C O R P O R A T I O N
Mechanical • Electric Power
Benefits Abound When Using
Hooper’s Mechanical Capabilities
With diverse and
enhanced capabilities, the Hooper /
General Heating &
Air Conditioning
team has been the
contractor of choice
on many high profile
projects, such as the
Kohl Center, UWMadison.
ooper’s mechanical division designs and services heating,
ventilation, and air conditionfire protection, process piping, ing systems. Because of our
and custom fabricated metals
diverse capabilities, we are in a
departments - each responsible unique position to provide
for procuring their own work.
combined bids to our cusAdditionally, Hooper’s affiliate tomers.
company, General Heating &
There are numerous benefits
Air Conditioning, Inc. installs,
available to our customers as a
His comprised of plumbing,
result of our diversified offerings.
First, and perhaps most attractive,
is better project coordination. A job
that involves HVAC, plumbing
and fire protection demands extra
attention to the timing and layout
to make sure piping doesn’t interfere with ductwork or vice versa.
Generally, HVAC systems take the
most amount of space above a ceiling. Our CAD capabilities provide
an early platform to minimize
installation conflicts and coordinate all of the trades that will ultimately be sharing the same area.
By using a contractor that can offer
both in-house design and a majority of trades under one roof, customers can expect systems that are
better integrated with more
streamlined installations.
Another benefit is found in
minimizing paperwork by providing a single source with one contract, instead of three documents
to three separate firms. In turn,
continued on page 3
Power Restoration Success
After Severe Storms
ower outages can happen
P any place and at any time of
year. That was the case on January 30, 2002 when a severe ice
storm struck the community of
Kansas City, Missouri and again
on March 9 when storms with
strong winds struck Detroit,
Michigan.
The ice storm that struck the
Kansas City area was the most
widespread storm in Kansas
City Power and Light’s 120-year
history. More than 305,000 customers were without power as a
direct result of this storm. On
January 31, Hooper contacted
Kansas City Power and Light
offering assistance in the efforts
to restore power and clean up
after the devastating ice storm.
An agreement was reached
between Hooper and KCPL to
mobilize crews on that day. All
Iowa overhead crews and additional substation crews were
continued on page 2
Line technician repairing primary
conductor in Kansas City, MO.
2
Storms
(continued from page 1)
mobilized. In all, 40 men and 35
trucks departed from various job
sites in Iowa, driving through
rain and icy conditions to assist
in the Kansas City restoration.
Over the next 11 days Hooper
employees, working 16-hour
shifts, logged 6,653 man-hours of
restoration work. The work dealt
mostly with damaged conductors and downed services caused
by tree limbs breaking from the
buildup of excessive ice.
Four weeks after returning to
Iowa and their scheduled projects on Alliant Energy property,
another severe storm struck the
Midwest. Detroit Edison contacted Hooper on March 10 in
the early morning. Crews were
once again mobilized from Iowa
and drove all day Sunday to
ABOVE:
Hooper Corporation
crew patrols ice
covered circuits,
Kansas City, MO.
RIGHT:
Broken tree limb
and ice covered
conductors,
Kansas City, MO.
help assist in the restoration. At
the height of the Detroit storm
more than 160,000 Detroit Edison customers were without
power. In all, 30 men and 26
trucks made the trip to Michigan. Over the next 5 days
Hooper employees logged 2,350
man-hours repairing downed
power lines, again working 16hour shifts.
Overall, the storm restorations were a success for Hooper
mainly through the efforts of
our Iowa General Foremen Jerry
Jacobs and Lyle Glass, and
through the strong organization
and efforts of the employees of
Kansas City Power and Light
and Detroit Edison who worked
with our crews. ■
Wright’s Vision and Hooper’s Expertise
Embody National Mayor Conference
The Monona Terrace
fountain lit up at
night echoes the
Capital’s dome.
Photo courtesy of Don Kerkhoff
ooper Corporation is proud
H to have been a Contributing
Host for the 2002 U.S. Conference
of Mayors held at Madison’s
Monona Terrace Community
and Convention Center June 1418. The five-day event brought
over 1,000 visitors to the city
including over 350 mayors from
across the nation.
The Monona Terrace is
located on Lake Monona
near the center of Madison’s
eclectic downtown. It opened
in 1997 after more than 60
years of controversy and economic indecision. The Center’s design was the vision of
Wisconsin native Frank Lloyd
Wright in 1938. It was a grand
image of towers, fountains
and terraces rising from the
lakeshore in the shadow of the
State Capitol building. His
idea featured a 683,000 square
foot five-level facility structure
with floor to ceiling windows
that actually extend 90-feet
over the water.
Hooper Corporation provided all the plumbing for the
$67.1 million project, which
began in 1994. The job
included a stainless steel
standpipe routed under John
Nolan Drive, a main thoroughfare that passes through
the structure. The unique
design presented special challenges for Hooper’s plumbing
professionals like installing
some of the building’s fittings
in place from a boat on the
lake.
Hooper also installed the
plumbing for the impressive
Monona Terrace fountain that
continued on back cover
3
Benefits Abound
Our customers get
the benefit of better
pricing and reduced
project management
time with one-stop
shopping.
(continued from page 1)
subcontract management is simpler, and more efficient. Sometimes projects are negotiated,
design-assisted or completely
designed to meet our client’s
objectives. Regardless of the
agreement, our customers get
the benefit of better pricing and
reduced project management
time with one-stop shopping.
We have a number of professional engineers, designers, and
master plumbers offering complete design-build services for
HVAC, plumbing and fire protection systems. Such dedication
to our industry means we have
the resources and knowledge to
contract projects under designbuild terms. Under this arrangement, our clients assign us the
complete responsibility for the
project from inception to commissioning. If there are any
problems on a project, we
assume full responsibility and
fix them to our customer’s satisfaction. Furthermore, the
design-build method helps in
reducing the total time required
for construction. Owners get to
utilize their facilities sooner and
begin realizing returns from
their investments.
With our diverse and
enhanced capabilities, the
Hooper / General Heating &
Air Conditioning team has been
the contractor of choice on projects like the Kohl Center, Physicians Plus, University
Physicians, UW Hospitals and
Clinics, Red Granite Prison, and
the office buildings of Flad
Architects and Affiliated Engineers, to name only a few. We
are grateful to our customers for
the opportunity to work for
them. We continually strive to
enhance our capabilities and
improve our processes to provide the highest level of quality
and service on all projects. ■
Our Response to Cardiac Arrest
AED Training—
(left to right)
Front Row:
Jenny Kratzke,
Tim Seiberlich,
Cindy Benisch.
Back Row:
James Espinosa,
Lori Walter,
Randy Thompson,
Bob Schaller.
Missing from
photo:
Korianne Waller.
ccording to the American
A Heart Association, an esti-
mated 7,700,000 Americans
have cardiovascular disease,
resulting in approximately one
million deaths every year.
Approximately 300,000 to
400,000 deaths occur each year
directly from sudden unexpected loss of heart function,
otherwise known as cardiac
arrest.
The Occupation Safety and
Health Administration
reported that in the years 1999
and 2000, 13% of workplace
deaths were due to sudden cardiac arrest. Data collected from
Calgary, Alberta, from 1992 1996, revealed that 13% of cardiac arrest deaths occurred in
public or commercials sites, 5%
were in large buildings (greater
than 250 people), and 8% in
small buildings (less than 250
people). Additionally, data
reported from a 1990 - 1994
Seattle area study found that
16% of cardiac arrests occurred
in public places.
In June 1999, Chicago’s
O’Hare and Midway Airports
installed automatic external
defibrillators (AED) to respond
in one minute to a cardiac
arrest. In the first 10 months,
14 cardiac arrests occurred and
9 of the 14 victims survived
(64%).
There are several electrical
abnormalities that result in sudden cardiac arrest, but the
majority of deaths begin with
an initial rhythm of ventricular
fibrillation (VF). If VF is not
treated quickly, this potentially
reversible dysrhythmia typically degenerates into asystole,
which is generally fatal. The
standard medical protocol to
correct VF is with the application of electric shock with a
controlled dose and duration
of energy.
Without intervention, survival following sudden cardiac
arrest decreases rapidly as minutes pass. Several studies
reported that for each minute
of untreated cardiac arrest, the
probability of successful
rhythm conversion decreases
by 7% to 10%.
Use of AEDs began in the
1970s providing portability for
emergency medical service percontinued on page 4
4
Old #13 Brought Back to Life
C.A. Hooper Company was
founded in 1913 as a heating
contractor by Charlie A.
Hooper. On May 1 of 1948,
Hooper Company entered the
high voltage line construction
business when Charlie Hooper
hired Gordon Davie to start a
high line department. Davie’s
background was with the Federal Rural Electrification
Administration (REA). He was
managing the Wisconsin Electric Cooperative Association’s
engineering group when he
first met Charlie during the
war years.
Davie first brought together
a small group of REA linemen
and supervisors who he had
previously worked with to
form the fledgling Hooper
High Line Department. His second order of business was to
buy some line construction
equipment. In 1947, line construction equipment did not
come from the factory. Contractors in those days had to fabricate and modify their own
equipment. More often than
not, they bought WWII military
surplus all-wheel drive vehicles
that were then customized with
A-frame booms for pole setting
or flatbeds for transporting. It
was a far cry from the specialized line construction equipment that we order directly
from the manufacturers today.
Cardiac Arrest
Old #13 is the last remaining
Hooper vehicle left from that era.
Last summer we did a lot of
cleanup in our Madison yard. As
a result Old #13 was parked out
back all by itself. One by one her
old comrades had been either
peddled off or sold for scrap
throughout the years. Our fleet
manager, Ron Towne, didn’t have
the heart to see Old #13 meet the
same fate. Ron was eager and
willing to save her, and finally in
August of 2001 he was given the
green light to bring the truck
back to life. And, we are glad
he did.
Here are some interesting facts
on Old #13. It is a 1942 Military
Chevrolet - G7107, 1 1/2T,
Flatbed, 4x4. Exactly 167,373 of
these trucks were manufactured
between 1941-46. These vehicles
were extensively used in both the
European and Pacific theaters
during WWII. The engine is a
93 hp/3100rpm, 6 cyl w/ 216 cu
inches of displacement. It’s a
4-wheel drive with an 8-speed
gearbox, and Old #13’s maximum speed is about 45 miles per
hour on level ground.
The truck has been re-painted
to its original C.A. Hooper Company red color along with original hand painted C.A. Hooper
Company logos on its doors.
Many people have asked about
the original red color that was
changed to yellow in the early
sixties. We speculate that the
color change was done for safety
reasons because yellow is much
more visible in low light. Today’s
colors are white and yellow with
our truck chassis usually a standard manufacturer’s white.
Old #13 has never looked better thanks to Ron, Russ Grossen,
our line shop and all the good
people over at Truck Star in
Deerfield, Wis. who helped bring
her back to life. Her next 60
years will be a pampered existence in comparison to her first
60 years of the rough and tough
cross-country line construction
business. Old #13 will earn her
pay these days by teaching kids
electrical safety through handson history at charitable events
during the summer season. ■
(continued from page 3)
sonnel for treatment of cardiac
arrest. The current models of
AEDs not only analyze cardiac
rhythm, but also prompt the
user to deliver a shock if necessary. These devices only require
the user to attach pads to a victim’s chest, turn the device on,
and follow audio instruction.
They do not require any decision-making or interpretation of
symptoms.
With the technological
advances and lower purchase
costs of AEDs in recent years,
placement and use has been
expanding from emergency
medical services (ambulances,
police and fire) to airports, airliners, malls and public buildings.
Hooper Corporation purchased two AED units this
spring. One unit is maintained
at the Hooper office complex
and fabrication facility with the
other unit at General Heating &
Air Conditioning’s office and
fabrication shops, both in Madison, Wis. Sixteen individuals
volunteered to participate in
forming one rescue team at each
location. Training involved CPR
and AED use, with retraining
planned on a 6-month basis.
As the benefits of AED units
become continually documented
and as their costs are made
more affordable, we may see an
AED on every construction site
in the United States. ■
Old #13
In foreground from
left to right is Ron
Towne, Fred Davie,
and Russ Grossen.
5
Custom Fabricated Metals Helps Establish
Stainless Steel in Mind of Designers
Custom fabricated
metals feeds the
ever-changing
appetites of architects
and designers with
stainless steel and
other decorative
metal options.
rchitects and interior design-
A ers continually try to balance
form and function when creating
new spaces for their clients. As
trends change, and emerging
businesses strive to augment
their brands with the looks of
their office spaces, new materials
play an important role in helping
to define a company’s image.
Metal has recently been a focus
ABOVE:
Foreman Larry
Sailing prepares a
stainless steel
baluster for a railing assembly at the
new Tomotherapy
building (Madison,
WI).
RIGHT:
Jim Yanske and
Duane Hollendyke
install stainless
steel wainscoting
at the downtown
Anchor Bank location (Madison, WI).
of many design professionals,
and Hooper’s Custom Fabricated
Metals Department has been
among the innovators on several
projects in the Madison area.
Whether as simple as a decorative cover plate for an opening,
or more comprehensive like a
wall covering, railing, or series of
door surrounds, stainless steel
has been the most popular metal
alternative. The Custom Fabricated Metals Department has
worked with brass, copper, aluminum, mild and galvanized
steel, but the properties of stainless maximize both versatility
and durability. Stainless can be
welded, polished several ways,
and withstands the elements
without rusting or darkening due
to oxidation.
“I think stainless conveys an
image of both strength and elegance,” says Duane Lange, manager of estimating and
production. “When you touch it,
you know there’s something of
substance, not just a veneer.”
“Dane County’s smaller manufacturing sector often produces
only limited opportunities to get
involved in volume production
work, so the building, or architectural market has provided a
nice niche for our business,” says
Paul Michor, account executive.
As architects and designers
continue to leave an imprint on
the world-class structures of
Madison and Dane County, custom fabricated metals will continue to feed their ever-changing
appetites with stainless steel and
other decorative metal options. ■
Mayor Conference
Employee News
(continued from page 2)
stands tall on the rooftop patio— a
place to enjoy the view of the lake,
State Capitol, and downtown skyline. The patio and fountain provided the perfect ambiance for the
Saturday night Moon Over
Monona event at the recent
Mayor’s Convention. The Monona
Terrace is truly a site to see.
Hooper’s commitment to provide expert and professional service has made them the contractor
of choice in some of Wisconsin’s
highest profile projects such as the
Monona Terrace Community and
Convention Center. ■
Aaron Marheine joined Hooper’s
IT Department in November
2001 as an information
technology implementer. Aaron
has several years experience
as a technology consultant and
came to Hooper from AJM
Consulting. Aaron enjoys golfing,
fishing, sports and fitness.
H O O P E R
SUMMER 2002
Beth LaMore joined the Hooper
accounting staff in February of
this year providing accounting
support for the Electric Power
Division. Beth has a paralegal
degree and will be finishing her
accounting degree within a year.
She comes to Hooper after
working in support positions at
two CPA firms. She enjoys
reading, exercising, playing
racquetball and biking the trails
around Dane County.
Heather L. Lohaus also joined
Hooper Corporation’s accounting
staff in February of this year providing accounting support for the
Electric Power Division. Heather
comes to Hooper with a strong
support background and is currently working toward an Associates in Business degree at Cardinal
Stitch University and plans to
graduate next year. She enjoys
being outdoors and taking vacations. She is also involved in her
children’s activities—soccer, baseball and gymnastics as well as
playing on a women’s soccer team
and deer hunting with her dad.
OnSite
C O R P O R A T I O N
Mechanical • Electric Power
IN THIS ISSUE: Benefits Abound When Using Hooper’s Mechanical Capabilities
■ Power Restoration
Success After Severe Ice Storms ■ Wright’s Vision & Hooper’s Expertise Embody National Mayor
Conference ■ Our Response to Cardiac Arrest ■ Old #13 Brought Back to Life ■ Custom Fabricated
Metals Helps Establish Stainless Steel in Mind’s of Designers ■ Employee News
Bulk Rate
U.S. Postage
Hooper
PAID
Merrill, WI 54452
Permit No. 24
CORPORATION
2030 Pennsylvania Avenue
P.O. Box 7455
Madison, WI 53707-7455
(608) 249-0451
www.hoopercorp.com
www.generalheating.com
Address Correction Requested