riggs newsletter.indd

The
POWER LINE
Message From The Safety Group
-Donald L. Masters, Director
Do You Have an LSA? – Life Safety Analysis
Although its’s been discussed on
many occasions and in many different
ways, I want to re-emphasize the point
that virtually all of the general health &
safety policies that apply to the scope
and character of our work (even in our
personal lives) exist because of our
willingness to fully identify all of the
“hazards” related to each task. I think
we do a fairly good job of identifying
the more prominent hazards, such as fall
protection, eye protection and the like,
but I’m a little concerned that many of
us have a tendency to overlook some of
the more subtle problems that are capable of representing an equal or greater
risk to our overall health and welfare.
For purpose of article – and certainly
because of things being the way they are
at this particular time – I’m going to put
“Stress” at the top of that list.
To put this into perspective, I’ve
gone back over our numbers and found
that in the last 11 months (beginning
June 1, 2006), we’ve logged in more
than a million and a quarter man-hours
(1,235,302 to be exact). For all I know,
this may be the largest number of
consecutive hours worked in the history
of the company. Six & seven ten or
twelve hour days have become a way
of life, not only for our field forces,
but for many of our office personnel as
well. Although this may have a positive influence on the bank accounts, the
negative is that as I travel around our
job sites, I’m starting to see some significant signs of wear, and like any other
“hazard”, we need to start paying closer
attention to keeping this under control.
The adverse affects of stress are
not limited to simple fatigue or drops
in moral and motivation. Long hours
without a sufficient break can lead to
significant health and psychological
abnormalities that not only need to be
recognized, but dealt with before they
get out of hand. Loss of sleep, loss of
appetite, agitation or sudden bursts of
aggression, being away from your home
and family for extended periods of time,
and all of the other problems associated
with working long hours have the ability
to change everything about you – and
most, if not all of those changes, are not
going to be enjoyable for you or your
loved ones. The point to be made is that
everyone needs to understand their own
Award Winning Service & Growth
- Leo Sniger, CEO
I am pleased to announce that we
have received our 2006 Sunoco Safety
award. This award distinguishes
Riggs Distler & Co. as a contract company achieving a recordable incident
rate of 0.30 or less for the entire year.
My thanks and congratulations to
all who work so hard to make sure we
run a safe site. Your hard work and
dedication is appreciated!
As many of you may know, due to
our growth, the Corporate office is
relocating (as of June 4th):
4 Esterbrook Lane
Cherry Hill, NJ 08003-4002
(856) 433-6000 (Phone)
(856) 433-6035 (Fax)
Also, the Baltimore office is relocating
to: 9411 Philadelphia Road, Unit L
Baltimore, MD 21237
May/June 2007
PROUD
TO BE SAFE!
limitations. If you (or your friends and
families) are starting to notice changes
in your health, your behavior, or your
outlook on life in general … then it’s
time to take a break. With or without
you, the work will get done … it always does. “Stress”, like any other hazard – needs to be included on our own
personal LSA’s. Recognize the hazard
for what it is, and implement whatever
safeguard might be necessary in order to
shield yourself from becoming a victim
of its adversities.
Save the Dates
Safety Training / Meetings
JUNE:
Baltimore - Tuesday 6/19
Sharon Hill - Thursday 6 /21
JULY
Baltimore - Tuesday 7/17
Sharon Hill - Thursday 7/19
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
HAVE COMPUTER
ISSUES? Contact us!
~Network, Compter, Printer, or
Citrix Isues - Contact Scott Zemaitatis (609)254-3858
~Timberline Issues - Contact Steve
Thomas, Jr. (610)915-6002
~Spam or Email Blacklist/Whitelist
Contact Joanne Wilson(610)5221400 ext. 1218
Project News
Beat the Clock in the Sunshine State
-SteveZemaitatis, Vice President, Over Head Lines
Riggs Distler continues to expand
its overhead distribution services to
new clients up and down the East
Coast. We are bidding work for clients
from Pennsylvania to Virginia and are
currently performing Over Head work
in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Florida.
We recently began a 3-year contract
with a Philadelphia area utility which
will make us their aerial contractor-ofchoice. We will be also be tasked with
overhead distribution maintenance and
new business work for this utility that
supplies electricity to approximately
1.5 million customers in the City of
Philadelphia, as well as five surrounding counties.
Our Florida crews are involved
in hardening a critical infrastructure
throughout Miami-Dade County. Last
week, one of our projects had a very
distinguished visitor, the President of
this major utility. This particular project consists of hardening the feeders
that supply electricity to an area hospital. The work requires the setting of
concrete poles, heavier conductor, and
building specifications that are able to
withstand severe winds. We are rushing to get this work completed prior to
the start of the 2007 hurricane season
which is just around the corner.
Keeping Busy From State to State
Paul Bizon, Vice President, Electrical Group
The new switchgear has been set in
the penthouse (22nd floor) of a Center City Philadelphia hotel to condo
conversion after an un-eventful rigging operation. The rigging took place
in the middle of a narrow city street.
Work is progressing on the rough-in of
the 17th & 18th floors. The 14th floor
is nearing completion and is scheduled
for occupancy by mid June.
Work has wrapped up at a Philadelphia area refinery as the Turnaround
at the 1232 Revamp Unit is complete.
Our portion of the electrical and instrumentation work on the “L” structure
and the Console Migration project is up
and running. It’s nice to have this one
behind us.
Also in the Philadelphia area we
continue with on-going capital improvements throughout a 35 acre liq-
uids terminal. They are adding a new
ethanol railcar unloading facility and
we are a major player in this operation.
Over the bridge to New Jersey, we
have just completed the spring Crude
#6 upgrade turnaround at a South Jersey refinery. This involved working on
various instrumentation and electrical
projects throughout the unit. The work
went off without a hitch, and the owner
is very happy with the final outcome.
They have a similar, but much larger
event planned for the fall, and we are
beginning preparations to implement
this work.
Staying in the Garden State, a
manufacturer of cement based shingles
and siding products again had a power
outage which greatly affected their
Page 2
Above: The President of our
Florida power client and associates visit the job-site to check out
the progress thus far.
Left: A hydraulic crane sets the
new concrete post in place while
overhead line trucks with crew
replace and configure heavier
conductors in preparation of
hurricane season 2007.
operations. We provided emergency
response to rectify the situation and
continue to provide maintenance,
instrument tech, and construction
services to keep the facility running.
They are upgrading the operation/control rooms so we are in the process of
upgrading their fiber optic network
throughout the facility.
Well to our south, a producer of
gasses (nitrogen and argon) that fuel an
area steel mill is keeping us very busy.
We have been heavily involved at this
site performing many electrical and instrumentation projects in preparation of
an outage scheduled for mid May. We
previously installed (under emergency
conditions) a temporary high voltage
feeder and will swap this over to a
permanent cable during the outage.
On the Mechanical Side
-Steve Haller, Out-Going VP & Joe Seaman, Incoming VP of the Mechanical Group
Ongoing projects at several power
generating plants in the Mid-Atlantic
region will be wrapping up sometime
in June. This is all part of a multi-million dollar alliance contract with a Mid
Atlantic power producer. The wrap-up
may bring a lull to this area for summer, but things will be gearing up again
come fall for more scheduled outages
and maintenance.
Mark Glowacki and Gary Barson at
In the Hot Seat
– David Eader, Safety Group
Work has been ongoing for a major
electrical utility company in Southern
Florida since early January by our Over
Head Lines group. The majority of the
work involves rear property replacement of damaged and defective wood
poles. The project is required due to
damage to the poles by hurricanes, age,
normal deterioration, and their scheduled replacement program. Most poles
are barely accessible, and care has to
be taken prior to entering the property
with equipment such as back-yard
machines, pole trailers, and numer-
Philadelphia area refineries are making
steady progress at at their respective locations. Rick Melwig, our Philadelphia
area plumber, continues to keep the
pipes flowing smoothly(if you know
what I mean).
Mike Fitzpatrick, with superintendents George Huntsicker and Rich
Kelly, did a fantastic job wrapping up
a challenging boiler project in Eastern
Pennsylvania. They also managed
ous other tools and equipment that can
damage fences, walls, landscaping and
even pools, which most homes have.
Rear property work involves a high
quality understanding of the safety
requirements, good communication,
coordination not only with the utility
owner, but with customers, vendors,
property owners, as well as neighbors
whose yards the crews have to gain access to, even though no work is being
done on their property. While all this
takes time, the crews continue to work
safely and without incident.
to pick up another quarter million in
extras and completed the job on time
without so much as a first aid. Excellent job gentlemen!
Rudy Sabado signed on a month ago
to load out and move the entire office,
ware house and shop to the new location. He and his men are making nice
progress on the transition.
Above: Foreman Ricky Hernandez (on Baker board) and JL Juan
Garcia (back yard bucket) raising
wire in a rear property near Coral
Gables.
New “Toys” (I Mean Tools)
-Manfred Konrath, Vice President, Underground Utilities
Below: The new pride of the
directional fleet, a Vermeer 24x40
Series II drill arrived in March with
training by Vermeer occurring on
Thursday, March 22nd.
Above: From left to right, Joe
Kimmerle, Dan Vargo, and Robert Brydge remove an old street
light pole.
page 3
Above: Crew Leader Rob Brydge
behind the controls of the new Vermeer
plow at an area nursing home. This
is the same type of machine that most
CATV Contractors use. We use it to
install Street Light Cable without causing a lot of disruption to the ground (as
opposed to using a trencher or backhoe,
which would really tear it up).
GET WELL Sean McQuade!
Save the Date
Brunch Benefit for
Sean McQuade
When: June 24th from 1-4pm
Where:
By now we are all too familiar
with the shooting which occurred at
Virginia Tech. Although the school is
hundreds of miles away, this tragedy
has affected the Riggs family. Ralph
Swanky Bubbles,
McQuade, a long time Philadelphia
482 Evesham Road
area electrician, had the displeasure of
Cherry Hill, NJ
receiving a phone call that no parent
ever wants to receive. His son Sean
had been shot in the face while attending German class in Norris Hall. He
was listed as critical, but stable condition and in a coma for two weeks. He
is now out of the coma and improvHosted by neighbors & friends of the
ing, but has a long road to recovery.
McQuade Family
Shortly he will be transferred from
All proceeds benefit the McQuade Family
a Virginia hospital to one here in the
Philadelphia area. He has undergone
several operations with several more
Coordinator. He has experience with
scheduled. The prognosis for his
gas turbines, boilers, process piping,
recovery is good, but the full extent is
equipment installations etc in refinerunknown at this time.
ies, power houses and pharmo / bio
The financial burden on his family
production facilities. Bill will work
will last a long time. We are attemptout of the Sharon Hill office and will
ing to raise money to help with these
report to Joe Seaman .
costs and ask that each jobsite please
Pamela Cunningham has joined
“pass the hat” and contribute what you
can to a family in need. The company our family as a Project Clerk at our
Odenton, MD field office. She comes
has made a generous contribution and
to Riggs after working almost 2 years
several of our jobs have already made
at Utiliquest.
donations. You can forward any contributions to the Sharon Hill office for
distribution to the family. Thank you
for your generosity during this family’s
Steve Thomas, Jr. recently gradudifficult time.
ated from accounting school. Congratulations and get ready to crunch some
more of our numbers!
Mr. William Fischer has joined
our company as a Mechanical Project
Manager. Bill has approximately 20
Kevin Lynch, our electrical superinyears of experience in the refining,
tendent in the Philadelphia area will be
power and pharmaceutical industries.
joining another firm as an owner. We
A pipefitter by training, Bill also has
wish him well with his new venture.
a degree in mechanical engineering,
and is a Certified Diver & Auto CAD
page 4
technician, as well as a trained Safety
Cost: $30 Adults / $15 Children
For information and tickets,
please call (856) 223-0339 or
(856) 223-2890.
Congratulations!
Welcome!
Above: One of thousands of damaged buildings due to the wrath
of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
We have already had one named
storm on May 9th which is before
the official start of the hurricane
season which begins on June 1st.
Trivia Question
Q: What was the costliest
and deadliest hurricane
on record since hurricanes
have been recorded over
100 years ago?
A: Hurricane Katrina
with estimated damages of
$76,000,000,000 and the loss of
1,604 lives makes this category
5 hurricane the deadliest and
costliest recorded hurricane on
record.
Employee News
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Good Luck!
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