Related Links: Crane Had Passed Inspection Profile of Michael Simermeyer, Laborer Federal safety officials cited Yonkers Contracting Co. and a subcontractor in connection with a crane accident last April that killed a 30-year-old laborer at a Manhattan subway jobsite. The firms face proposed fines totaling $75,000.In the accident, a snapped wire rope cable dropped a boom on Michael Simermeyer, who died of his injuries.Most of the possible fine is against Yonkers Contracting Co., based in Yonkers, N.Y. The sub, J&E Industries, Rockaway, N.J., faces a $7,000 fine for a serious violation in allegedly failing to train a rigger.According to industry
Still image created from Earthcam.net webcam The plumbing and mechanical contractor on Penn State's new children's medical center in Hershey, Pa. is seeking arbitration with the general contractor. Related Links: Webcam view provided by Earthcam.net Project construction milestones For a subcontractor on a major hospital project in Hershey, Pa., BIM was a bust.The plumbing and mechanical subcontractor on the Milton S. Hershey S. Medical Center Children’s Hospital project at Pennsylvania State University in Hershey says that the building information model prepared by general contractor L.F. Driscoll Co. revealed so many design errors and clashes that the subcontractor had to spend
Related Links: VIDEO from FIDIC 2012: Why are you an engineer? FIDIC Report Highlights Ratings, Risk and Sustainability in the new FIDIC report An old Korean proverb says, "Even monkeys may fall from trees." In other words, even experts make mistakes, including, perhaps, experts on sustainable design and construction.With the sustainability landscape populated by dozens of decision-making tools and rating and certification systems, engineers and building and infrastructure developers may believe the existing methods guarantee a simple, failure-proof means of attaining sustainability. But a rating system is no substitute for rigorous decision-making. That was a key concept driving the report
Courtesy Long Beach Airport Long Beach Airport terminal upgrade is designed for a fresh visitor experience. Related Links: Temecula's EDGE Development Plans to Close EDGE Developments Website Sureties Liberty Mutual and Safeco are taking over airport and community college contracts from EDGE Development Inc., the 23-year-old, Temecula, Calif.-based general contractor that has said publicly that it is shutting down.Altogether, EDGE Development lists 20 current projects on its website. It isn’t clear how many of them are covered by surety guarantees.One of the biggest contracts held by EDGE is a $24.7-million concourse renovation at the Long Beach, Calif. Airport. Awarded in
Related Links: Ethics Probes Ramp Up for SNC-Lavalin CH2M Hill Appoints Card to New Post SNC-Lavalin has named Robert G. Card, a veteran executive at CH2M HIll, to be the company's next chief executive.Steady leadership by Card will be needed as the Montreal-based engineer and contractor tries to recover from a scandal that cost its prior chief executive his position, triggered the departure of two of the company's top contracting executives and provoked at least two investigations.The company says it will hold a Web-accessible press conference Oct. 1, when Card starts on his new job.Card spent three years as under
If you're blaming all the contractor and subcontractor defaults lately on the recession and how thin times lead to management mistakes, such as chasing unprofitable work, here's yet another concern: Business in some sectors is picking up enough to create perils from recovery risk.Contractors face recovery risk on the back end of a recession when they take on too much work after they've depleted their staff and cash and other assets during hard times and don't have enough resources to finish projects.It's a little bit like a starving man suddenly finding too much food and eating himself sick."We've seen it
Related Links: News story on Kids-for-Cash scandal Juvenile Law Center and Kids for Cash Is it your liability insurer’s job to defend you in a civil lawsuit over an admitted felony? To Pennsylvania contractor and felon Robert K. Mericle, it is.Thankfully, a federal appeals court last month ruled against Mericle, saying that his crimes didn’t constitute an occurrence under his commercial general liability policy with Travelers Property Casualty Co. of America. Occurrences under liability policies are a controversial matter in other states where insurers have declined to provide coverage to honest contractors, sometimes based on legal hairsplitting. But if ever
Courtesy Yaquina River Constructors The earthwork was substantial in the early phases of the Route 20 reconstruction. Related Links: ODOTs Route 20 website page Plagued Oregon Job Will Be Redesigned Did design-build have anything to do with the long delays in completing the tricky Route 20 road and bridge reconstruction project in Oregon? The original design-build joint venture team for the 6.5-mile project, which broke ground in 2005, is now off the job.The project principal for that joint venture suggests that in light of what happened, design-build isn’t suitable for difficult sites.“Design-build is more of a risk on sites with
Related Links: Oh, By the Way: Don Short's Last ENR Commentary Website of The Tempest Co. Don L. Short II, a nationally known cost estimating expert and a prolific crusader for fundamentals in the practice, died June 8 in Omaha. He was 60 years old and had been diagnosed with liver cancer several weeks earlier.Short was president and founder of The Tempest Co., an Omaha estimating firm and consultant. He also was a two-term past president and Fellow of the American Society of Professional Estimators.Known for his bluntness, Short authored numerous articles and opinions that appeared regularly on ENR.com and
. Book recounts how the stimulus unfolded and affected construction, among other sectors. Construction obviously plays a key role in this examination of the the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act—better known as the stimulus. This new book tells the story of how the largest economic recovery plan in U.S. history was created and executed, how it affected the American public and what it accomplished.The depth of research and first-person interviewing by Michael Grabell, a reporter for the non-profit investigative news service ProPublica, is evident.Among other efforts, he recounts a visit to a stimulus-funded New Jersey bridge renovation site and interviews
