When the Newark Civic Center project initially broke ground, Webcor planned for a staff of one senior superintendent – Justin Marsh – and one assistant superintendent.
When the Newark Civic Center project initially broke ground, Webcor planned for a staff of one senior superintendent – Justin Marsh – and one assistant superintendent. However, as construction progressed, it quickly became evident that a project of this complexity warranted a superintendent to oversee each of the project's buildings: the new City Hall, the library, and the police station.
Webcor Concrete employees immediately stepped up to fill the need.
"How many GCs can do that?" Justin asks "Webcor has a very deep bench."
The first addition to the team was Field Specialist Juan Ramos, who had spent nine of his 10 years with the company working for Concrete as a carpenter, and carpenter foreman.
"He transitioned to the core and shell group when he went to work at the SFO Hotel," Justin says.
"I had always had an interest in learning more," Juan says. "In March, the opportunity came up to join the SFO Hotel team."
What Juan thought would be a short assignment turned into a job offer and a new position.
"It was an opportunity to keep learning and growing, and to be part of the core and shell side of the business," he says.
On-the-job learning
Available after the hotel job wrapped up, Juan joined Justin, stepping into the open assistant superintendent role.
"Juan and I were going to be field leaders for the whole project until we realized it was going to take more than just the two of us," Justin says.
Then the pandemic struck, and Webcor Concrete's work slowed down. "They were looking for a place to put some people from Webcor Concrete and we had the need for extra people."
Enter Webcor Concrete Assistant Superintendent Barret Neumayr and Project Engineer Christophe Allard-Moreau. Now, Justin is overseeing the overall project while Juan is handling City Hall, Barret is managing the police station, and the library is in Christophe's hands.
"I'm also assisting Justin with site logistics and some of the site work," Juan says.
All four of the Newark Civic Center project leaders credit the One Webcor philosophy with the ability of the Concrete employees to step into entirely new roles without missing a beat.
"We take care of each other; we have each other's backs when it comes to making decisions. We think about how a decision can affect the next person and even the next building," Juan explains. "This is about one team, one family. It's extremely important that we grow and learn together."
Christophe agrees. "This is my first Webcor job," he explains, noting he has only worked for Webcor Concrete on jobs for other general contractors. "I like that we all share the same space, even the trade partners. Webcor Drywall is right across the wall from me in the trailer. We get along really well; we got along great with Webcor Concrete while they were here, too. One Webcor is leading to a lot of success for us."
Barret, who is coming up on his fifth anniversary with Webcor, says, "I was working with the Concrete group for the first four years until I came to Newark to help out with Core and Shell," he says. "When the shelter-in-place order started in March, I was sent home and was helping out with Concrete estimating."
That's when he got the call informing him that he had a new assignment.
One Webcor makes it possible
"I've never done anything like this before. It's a great learning experience," he says, adding that he's been lucky that a great Core and Shell team was already in place, along with Webcor Craft team members. "I can lean on them to learn new trades I wasn't familiar with, like drywall and some of the stuff Webcor Carpentry is doing."
Even trade partners from subcontractors like Southland and Cupertino have stepped up to help.
"I can run over with a quick question and have them explain something to me," Barret says. "Sometimes I just go to one of them and say, 'Educate me' and they hold my hand as we go through the whole process."
Christophe is handling project engineer work for the Newark Civic Center project in addition to taking on responsibility for the library.
"I love it," he says. "The principles are similar. On the project engineer side, it's all about communication and sharing specific information and understanding what needs to be done. It's very similar to project engineer work in Concrete."
As for supervising the library work, "That's a whole new experience," he says. "It's a big challenge for me. I problem-solve in the field, coordinate work -- I learn something new every day."
Originally from Montreal, Canada, Christophe has been in the U.S. for 15 years, landing first in Delaware, then Los Angeles, and finally the Bay Area, where he moved to study civil engineering at UC Berkeley.
"I didn't know what working at Webcor Concrete would be like, even after internships. But field work appealed to me. I didn't want to sit at a desk all day running calculations."
He was doing carpentry work for Concrete for most of the winter when he was approached with an opportunity to finish Concrete work at the Newark project. "We had a few metal decks to pour, a few walls and a tower footing to put up." There weren't many Concrete projects for him to move to when that work was done, but he was enthusiastic when offered the chance to tackle the core and shell work.
A cohesive team
"This isn't an opportunity most companies can provide," he says.
"None of these guys have the superintendent title," Justin says. "These guys came into this job without much knowledge outside of Concrete. They have been thrown into the role. Not only are they succeeding; they are thriving."
"Now the four of us are a team," he explains. "We work together to plan out the sequence of how the three buildings get put together. We built some pretty detailed schedules for each building, and they're using those schedules to put the buildings together.
"It is so cool that we have people in our company who can manage and set up a concrete pour in the beginning of the day and run a waterproofing coordination meeting at the end of the day. It's a testament to how strong our employees are," Justin says.
Note: The photo at the top includes, from left, Christophe, Barret, and Juan.
Intern Service Day gives interns a chance to volunteer and have fun while embracing two of Webcor's core values – innovation and community.
Scavenger hunts, baseball games, and mixers. Usually, Webcor internships are packed with fun activities to encourage networking and friendship. While the COVID-19 pandemic might have thrown a wrench into the intern social calendar, one tradition remains as important as ever: Webcor's Intern Service Day.
The concept of an Intern Service Day was established by past interns during a continuous improvement presentation. The day gives interns a chance to volunteer and have fun while embracing two of Webcor's core values – innovation and community.
In Southern California, interns took a break from the jobsite to volunteer at the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. Spearheaded by intern leads Ken Flamer and Aaron Case, volunteers were provided with gloves, masks, and hand sanitizer and encouraged to "socially distance" as much as possible throughout the day.
Webcor interns spent the day packaging food boxes, successfully assembling over 1,456 food kits for Angelenos experiencing food insecurity.
"I was surprised at how productive we were," says Project Engineer Intern Jaime Olmedo. "This was my first-time volunteering at a food bank, and I was amazed we were able to prepare nearly 1,500 boxes in 3 hours!"
Before volunteering, participants met outside to enjoy a delicious lunch of individually wrapped burritos and get energy for the day. The volunteer event proved to be a great networking opportunity for interns, with over 20 Webcorians from different jobsites participating in the event.
"It's truly amazing to see a company like Webcor do so much to give back to the community," notes Alex Buffo. "It was a great opportunity to help out the community and represent Webcor!"
Similar to their counterparts in Southern California, Webcor interns in San Francisco stepped up to the plate to help out their community.
Intern Ambassadors Hamza Shallwani and Kristin Paulazzo organized a day of street clean-up in San Francisco's Mission District neighborhood. The group picked up trash, swept and cleaned sidewalks, touched up paint on storefronts, and helped remove graffiti from recent protests.
"I got the idea of doing this service event from fellow project engineer Yasha Ghaffarzadeh, who did something very similar in Oakland," notes Kristin.
The group partnered with Roberts Obayashi, who donated PPE for the event and graciously allowed the group to use a nearby project site as a meeting point and rest station for the day.
The team worked tirelessly from 8:30am to 3:30pm, painting four businesses and one door of an apartment complex that had been graffitied.
"Everyone had a great attitude throughout the day, and I was really proud to see the difference we made," says Kristin. "The businesses and community members that crossed our paths during the day were very appreciative of our help. It was a heartwarming day."
After four years of design and construction, UCSF Wayne and Gladys Valley Center for Vision has received its Certificate of Occupancy
After four years of design and construction, 576,746 craft labor hours, 96,776 salaried hours, four force majeure events, and 169 days of owner delays, UCSF Wayne and Gladys Valley Center for Vision has received its Certificate of Occupancy.
The CofO was received on June 26.
The full design-build project consisted of a 12-story, 360,000-square-foot structure that houses the UCSF Ophthalmology Department and Research Clinic on one side and an academic and administrative hub on the other. Some of the 1,500 employees from 40 UCSF departments have already started moving in. Ultimately, between 40,000 and 50,000 patients a year will be treated at the facility.
The project team did not accomplish this feat alone. We stood on the shoulders of our trade and design partners, One Webcor self-perform groups (representing 27 percent of all subcontracted cost), and support from our corporate executive and administrative teams.
This was a truly collaborative effort. The Webcor team was co-located with UCSF, inspectors of record, and design and trade partners starting with the award of the project through CofO. The culmination of this co-located team coming together as one is best summarized by a text Superintendent Omar Hosny received from the head Building Official after receiving CofO: "From the contractor's side, it has been the best-run construction of a new building that I've granted occupancy during my time at UCSF."
The team also stayed true to our core values, built safely, actively cared for the project/team/community, and had fun while doing so. While it's hard to put this all into words, the Associate Vice Chancellor of UCSF Capital Programs, Scott Muxen, might have captured the team's values best in a message congratulating Project Executive Todd Mercer on achieving the CofO: "You guys have done an excellent job and demonstrated the highest integrity of all my major project teams."
Following are the members of the project's One Webcor team that made all this possible:
Webcor Concrete
Chris Arnold
Galen Dougherty
Jose Peinado
Jose Pulido
Tom McCue
Webcor Drywall
Adam Martin
Adolfo Arellano
Aliya Karimi
John McElwain
Rachel Chagoya Stuart
Webcor Carpentry
Erik Roggeveen
Jordan Dieken
Joseph Bolous
Kerriann McDermott
Webcor Builders
Alec Gieser
Becca Lyman
Brent Griffis
Brandy Jenkins
Brittany Gilbert
Omar Hosny
Bryan Bishop
Chase Corcorran
Evan Sims
Jai Thangaraj
Jashan Singh
Mario Saenz
Megan Zahnow
Nisha Puri
Ryan Miller
Stuart Chapman-Laver
Ted Williams
Tina Wong
Todd Mercer
Zach Moore
