Meet Jon Anglin: Paulina Torres

 Jon Anglin: Safety Director

            Jon Anglin is the Safety Director at Ideal Contracting. He has been with Ideal for 10 years now, since 2006. Jon started off working with environmental, followed by demolition, and worked his way through the construction industry. Jon joined the construction industry because he witnessed many accidents while working in environmental and demolition that it became a passion for him to look after the safety of people. The safety department gives Jon the opportunity to help people, learn from accidents, and advocate safety.

Some of the responsibilities that Jon has as Safety Director are site inspections, site auditing, train people for safety positions, oversee the safety of all field personnel, communicate incidents and among others. The most challenging part of Jon’s position is people. He explains that there are different learners, and he sometimes encounters stubborn people. There are different types of injuries that can be reported. Those injuries include near misses, property damage, First Aid, or recordable. The most common injury that occurs out on a job site is bruising or pulling a muscle: soft tissue injuries. People who do not warm up properly are more likely to pull a muscle or a tendon. Jon strongly emphasizes that for this reason, Ideal Contracting has the Stretch & Flex Program that is performed on every job site first thing in the morning.

Aside from working with Contracting, Jon also works with Shield and Setech. Jon explains that he sees a couple of differences working within the different companies at Ideal. Contracting has a full safety program. Contracting is mainly in their costumer’s site and not the other way around. For this reason, safety requires much higher communication and he explains Contracting as having the most eyes watching over them. On the other side, Shield is Ideal’s own facility. Ideal Shield makes parking blocks, bollard covers, and steel fabrication. They still have a good safety program, but the work environment is much different than Contracting’s. Jon explains that their safety program is more internal. If someone were to get injured, it is not likely for them to let everyone of their customers know about the injury. Whereas with Ideal Contracting, if someone were to get injured at the Warren Tech Center, Contracting would have to notify the customer and everyone else affiliated.

Jon is involved with the winter and summer Incentive Program. This program is a great way for families to demonstrate their safe practices at home, and teach people about them. Family involvement is what Jon likes the most about the Incentive Program. On his free time, Jon enjoys to spend time in the water: swimming, jet-skiing, tubing, work on his home, cook and he likes to drive.

A Day with Steve Sinn: Paulina Torres

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to shadow Steve Sinn. Our day started off at the Detroit office where we met with AGI Construction: the GC for the Cafeteria Project at Detroit Cristo Rey. Later that morning, we headed off to Cristo Rey for their owner meeting. After the meeting, we headed over to the soon to be cafeteria and Steve walked me through all the construction that is being done. I really enjoyed attending this meeting because I find it incredible that Cristo Rey students will now have a cafeteria. The gymnasium used to be our cafeteria when I was at Cristo Rey. The school is going through some very big, positive changes, and I am very excited for all the student body. 

After the owner meeting, we headed off to lunch and went over to Toyota where I got to see everything that is going on there. A pond near the entrance was extended, so that it can accept more water shed that comes off the parking lots. I got to see the area where they will be adding a 110,000 square feet building. Finally, I learned that Ideal will be installing a new generator system that will be able to power the whole facility. The day concluded with checking out the new trailer on site, and helping Steve and Chelsea install their punch in machine. 

Shout out to Steve for allowing me to shadow him for a day, thank you! Below are some pictures of the soon to be cafeteria at Cristo Rey: 

Magna Volunteer Day & Princess Tea Party: Paulina Torres

This past Friday, the Build U interns had the opportunity to work at Cadillac Urban Gardens and Scarcyny Park with Magna International. Although it was an extremely hot and sweaty day, we were able to get a lot of work done and have a great day. 4 interns stayed to help in Cadillac and the other 4 headed to Scarcyny. I was on the Scarcyny team and assisted in pulling weeds, spreading dirt on top of the mulch, and help set up for the Mad Hatter Tea Party that occurred this past Saturday. We had tacos from Taco Veloz for lunch, followed by a refreshing paleta. I also got to drive a skytrac lift toward the end of the day with the help of Angel from PDPM. Below are some pictures from the volunteer day and the Mad Hatter Tea Party.

 

Week 11: Paulina Torres

Earlier this week, I attended our weekly Monday meetings. We had a very positive shutdown, and things are back to normal now. This week I learned how to request quotes, one for an ice machine and water filter, and the other for metal casework needed for the Asset Sustainment project. I was able to successfully purchase the ice machine and water filter, and am currently waiting on a quote on the metal casework for both the steam and chiller plant. I found the process to be easy.

Yesterday we had a safety/retirement luncheon. The safety side of the luncheon was to celebrate the 4,000 safe work hours that the AVI shop has accomplished, and the 41,000 safe work hours from the Asset Sustainment. Mike Pressley is retiring this Friday, and we wanted to celebrate him for all his hard-work and contributions to Ideal Contracting. It was a pleasure getting to meet Mikey and I hope that he enjoys retirement.

Mikey opening his present.

We will be excavating and taking out an old diesel generator tank by the steam plant. A gentleman came out today and I saw him perform GPR. Now that the underground utilities have been identified, our next step is to finalize our excavation permit and get pull this tank out.

Where tank is currently located. Underground utilities all marked up. 

The steam break room renovations is coming along pretty good. 21st Century is currently demoing the place. Below are some pictures:

Paulina in Action!

Here are pictures of a couple of things that I have been able to do this past week: 

Placing concrete in steam basement.

Finishing concrete.

Assisting with excavating basement wall.

Assisting with excavating basement wall.

Jack hammering basement wall.

Trip to Flint with Jon Anglin: Paulina Torres

          Tuesday of this week, I took a trip over to the GM Flint Assembly Plant with Jon Anglin. Throughout this trip I was able to see the steel erection going on there, shadow Jon for a day and interview him. After our trip to Flint, we stopped by the PDPM trailer in Pontiac. I was able to meet the superintendents and safety reps at each site.  
          Jon Anglin has been at Ideal for 10 years and a couple of months. Jon loves his job because he gets to help people, advocate safety and work in a family oriented setting. Some of his responsibilities include site inspections, incident communications, make sure that all field personnel are safe, and amongst others. On his free time he loves to work on his home, spend time in the water, and cook. I'd like to thank Jon for taking the time out of his busy schedule to have me shadow him for a day. I had a great time, and it was nice getting to see another job site. 

Below are some pictures of the steel erection: 

July Shutdown Week: Paulina Torres

          Excavation

          This week has been very busy! I have spent very little time in the trailer, and more time out in the Steam Plant checking out all the work going on. On Monday, I got to see an excavation (happened outside the Steam Plant). The reason for the excavation was to install a City Water valve that goes into a feed that runs through the steam plant. An old fiber glass water line that was leaking was also changed. There were several underground utilities found like a natural gas line and a chilled water line. Below are some pictures that I was able to take: 

  

Lead & PCB Training

          The steam basement and steam break room area came out positive for lead and PCB. As a result, there was Lead and PCB Awareness for all the people involved in abating these areas. Sitting through this training, I noticed that I did not know much about lead or PCB. A couple of things that jumped out at me were that Detroit has the largest lead poisoning population rate. Just a little History, lead poisoning could had contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire. Lead poisoning can only occur through inhalation, injection, absorption and ingestion. PCB (poly-chlorinated biphenyls) comes in form of a liquid or solid. There are two type of PCBs: co-planar and non-ortho.

         For safety purposes, every worker was told to treat the lead and PCB contaminated areas like asbestos. Below are some pictures of the training and abatement of the steam basement: 

Setting up containment for asbestos.

MCC Work

            Below are some pictures of the MCCs that were shut off. for harvesting of the old buckets to allow for rework of the MCC to accept the new buckets.

MCC 101 which powers the whole steam plant. 

MCC 102 which powers the control room in the steam plant.

Prepping Steam Break Room Area for Demolition

Happy Fourth of July! -Paulina Torres

These 8 weeks working at the Tech Center feels like it has only been two weeks! It has been pretty busy out here, especially because the July Shutdown is just a few hours away. This week there has been a lot of meetings/discussions regarding the shutdown. The Steam Plant will shutdown at midnight tonight, and the upcoming two weeks are going to be pretty hectic. There will be a lot of maintenance going on in the Steam Plant. I am pretty excited to see the amount of work that will get accomplished. As always, I have my camera in hand to keep track of everything that goes on out in the plant.

Friday of last week, I went over to the PDPM trailer. Jon Hautau showed me around and introduced me to everyone there. Earlier this week, I went out to lunch with Dylan Yore and Travis George. Although Travis couldn't stop over to our trailer, it was still pretty cool that he got to shadow over at PDPM and have lunch with Dylan and me. Throughout the rest of the week I learned how to archive, and  input dailies onto Contract Manager. 

The Steam Break Room Renovations are starting this upcoming Tuesday. I went out and took some pictures of how the steam break room looks now. I also created a layout on Blue Beam and signage that shows the access and egress routes within the break room, so that the workers know. This project will give me the opportunity to have an active management role, to make sure that we receive all materials onsite as needed per the schedule as well as coordinate the trades.

I hope that everyone has a great and safe holiday with their loved ones! HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY :) 

Fort Wayne Trip - Paulina Torres

This has been a very exciting week! The Build-U Team took a trip down to Fort Wayne, Indiana on Wednesday to get a tour of the job site there. Wednesday evening, we had a nice dinner at Chop's Steakhouse with Glenn Peer and Derek Woloszyk. It was nice to see everyone and follow up on all of the great things that we have been doing. On Thursday, we headed over to the Fort Wayne GM Plant for orientation and a site tour. Throughout the tour we got to see multiple things. First we went to a Light Weight Style Building where we got to see an Air Rotation Unit. Another cool thing that we got to see was how to place concrete. It was amazing to see all the different steps required in placing concrete. I did not know that steel fiber helps reinforce concrete and control cracking. Now I am eager to place concrete some day!

 We also got to go on top of the roof on one of the buildings where I got to see an air handling unit. These air handling units were much bigger than the ones that I have seen at the Tech Center. Glenn talked about the G-Comply tags and the purpose of it; it was nice to hear him talk about something that I am working on at my job site. I also got to see a cooling tower. The day concluded with lunch and a power point presentation given by Glenn. Throughout the presentation we got to see progress photos of all the different jobs happening within the plant. He showed us a three week look ahead schedule for a specific project, talked through a submittal process, and mentioned "last planner". I connected a lot with the power point presentation because most of what he went through I already knew from my experience at the Tech Center. 

I want to give JON, YESI, ALEX, GUS, GLENN and DEREK a huge shout out! You guys are the best! The trip was fabulous and I had a great time. It was great to see another job site and learn about the projects that they are working on. Thank you Glenn and Derek for taking the time out of your busy schedules to make this an experience to remember. IDEAL CONTRACTING and BARTON MALOW ROCKS!

Dinner at Chop's Steakhouse

Orientation

Concrete Laser Screed

Paulina, Yesi & Alex

Build - U Team

Placing Concrete

Roof Top 

Concrete Laser Screed Explanation

Glenn Talking About Concrete

Learning About Steel Fiber