A joint workforce of CEI and Liberty Electric wiremen, along with a handful of production and project administration staff, celebrated more than 200,000 man-hours of incident-free work at the challenging SFO Terminal 3 project, enjoying barbecue chicken, tri-tip and hot links in a sunny airport alcove on April 10.
Project Safety Manager Eric Kim, who joined CEI in November, and the 50 CEI and 87 Liberty Electric employees working on the project have been able to maintain a near perfect safety record in 2014, despite the many challenges of working on a fully-functioning international travel hub.
Aside from the inherent logistical difficulties present, the team also had to maintain passenger experience as part of the bid requirements. That meant building temporary corridors to hide much of the ongoing construction.
Project Manager Eric Wennstrom likened the main electric gear replacement task to a construction version of open-heart surgery, but says they’ve been able to manage difficult work with a focus on safety.
Safety on any project is about leading by example. The airport project executives, project managers, field team, office visitors, and anyone else at the site in the morning take part in stretch-and-flex exercises (a 10-minute standing and stretching activity to promote flexibility and prevent injury). Wennstrom says it’s this type of ongoing activity that gets everyone engaged and on the same page.
Another boon to the project’s prodigious safety record is Senior Project Manager Mark Montana, who comes to CEI having completed several Southern California airport jobs. He says the knowledgeable airport electricians and the expertise of Liberty Electric’s people, who have a long history working with SFO, are just a few reasons they’ve been able to handle such a difficult project with such a great safety record. For more information on this and other projects, visit: http://www.cei.com/our-work.
