by Rick Stryker, P.E.
I remember like it was yesterday. A white collar professional was attending
a large camp conference and announced that he was changing careers to
camping to lower his stress level and so that he only had to work three
months of the year. It was almost painful to watch as a cloud of experienced
camp professionals descended to set his expectations straight. Very quickly,
he was introduced to the world where successfully delivering meaningful
programs takes planning and work all year long. When the swarm departed,
I am certain that he was a changed man.
We frequently receive calls in mid-spring from camps that want to get
something done about this or that from last summer. Like the seasoned
camp folks mentioned earlier, our perspective in the design, permitting,
and construction business tells us that there simply isn't enough
time to properly construct the desired product, let alone design or permit
it. As a result, corners are cut, lots of money is spent, and the results
are far below the expectations. In this column are some thoughts on what
a more productive sequence of events might look like.
Summer
Summer is much more than your "busy" season. It's
when a year of planning and coordination comes together for well executed
and delivered programs and meaningful experiences for your guests. But,
it's also the season when your property and its improvements see
their most intense use. The facilities staff probably has its hands absolutely
full juggling emergencies like the perpetually clogged toilet, the kitchen
hot water that isn't hot, or the bear in the garbage cans. There
are a couple of things that really won't take much more time but
which will pay enormous dividends in the long run. Unfortunately, what
we're going to recommend will be a very hard sell indeed.
Paperwork is usually the bane of maintenance or facility staffs. Fighting
one proverbial "fire" after another while camp is running
can overwhelm anyone, and it can be really hard to make the time to track
what's happening. A daily diary, though, is a wealth of information
when planning, designing, and permitting repairs and new items at camp.
It's not uncommon to hear grousing about something that's
taking an inordinate amount of time or repeated visits. Yet, when December
rolls around, nobody can seem to remember what it was that vexed them
so the previous summer. Until of course, session is in full swing again,
and then EVERYBODY remembers where that gremlin hangs out and exactly
what it looks like. A short note on the timesheet for each stop or chore
will help bring trends to the forefront.
This is also the season when your engineer needs to visit camp and see
what's working well for you and more importantly, perhaps, what's
NOT working well. For seasonal or season-heavy facilities, this is the
only time when meaningful observations can be made and data can be collected
(like daily and peak water consumption and sewage treatment rates and
quality). Without real-time, site specific data, your engineer will have
to use text book or agency table quantities that may not accurately reflect
your operation, making the design too conservative (larger and more expensive
than it may need to be) or undersized (overwhelmed and inadequate from
the outset). As another example, your lake or pond may have symptoms
of other problems like algae blooms or high bacteria counts which are
best addressed when the symptoms are most apparent. Trying to describe
"how big," or "how bad" the condition was six or eight months
prior is seldom as useful as when the expert can see it live and in person.
Autumn
If you don't have professional advisors involved yet, now is the
time. As we've suggested for a number of years, just as each camp
has an attorney in its Rolodex who knows the camp and its operation,
each camp should have both an engineer and architect on retainer as well.
If improvements are to be in place for the next season, fall is the last
opportunity to hold a really meaningful round table discussion of the
previous season (while things are fresh in the memory), and focus attention
on those aspects that didn't work like they should have. This is
the time to set the scope of the projects ahead, and develop schedules
for the coming year.
With the campers gone and the raw information in hand, it's time
to look over the diaries / detailed timesheets and formulate a plan to
get problem areas addressed before next year. Most organizations develop
"to do" lists while inventorying and winterizing facilities to be closed
until spring, and major project formulation works exactly the same way.
It's extremely difficult to assess a leaking roof, damp basement,
or other building issue when there's three feet of snow—or
when the doors and windows are boarded up and the power is off. Autumn
is the last chance to see what's happening before it's inaccessible
for months.
Some issues are larger than "a fix" and require intervention
or assistance from regulatory agencies. They tend to be much more cooperative
during the permit application, review, and issue steps when they have
visited the site and understand the constraints of the site coupled with
the intent of the project. Sometimes, for wastewater treatment and disposal
systems, field and soils testing are required to develop a solution.
These tests can seldom be completed reliably or accurately after the
ground is frozen.
Winter
Your consultants should be working hard to develop the solutions to
the issues identified at the fall conference. But as much as they should
be treating your project like it's the only one they have, the
nature of design is such that lots of things can put production behind
schedule. As the client, there is a certain amount of management you
should do to stay abreast of things.
First, you should hear from your consultant at least weekly. From our
perspective, e-mails are the best, because they allow both parties to
give a complete report or reply without interrupting what they're
doing at that particular moment. Questions more in-depth than, "How
are things coming?" indicate a level of interest and knowledge
that demands a more detailed answer than, "Just fine, thanks." Be
informed and stay informed. From a consultant's perspective, this
is where the moderately squeaky wheel will continue to get greased. Similarly,
be prompt in answering the consultant's questions. Many times,
design decisions depend on seemingly small details and progress stops
altogether.
Next, your fall meeting should have established milestones for the project.
At the very least, each production milestone should include progress
drawings for your review. It will take some time to learn to read them,
but the better you get at it, the more likely that the final product
will meet your expectations with few surprises. With each new set of
progress drawings, your consultant should be able to explain what's
new since the last set.
The project milestones should be set on your computer's calendar
(such as Microsoft Outlook) and you should make a note whether they're
met or missed, if even by a day. This will help to prevent surprises
and will build confidence with your organization that you know just what's
happening and where things stand.
Once plans have been submitted to review agencies, the waiting game
begins. This is where your consultant can really help with carefully
timed and worded follow-up calls to the regulators. We don't recommend
that more than one person work with them because directives or instructions
are inevitably lost in the translation—and approvals get delayed.
Again, even agencies are working more and more by e-mail, and you should
be copied or forwarded exchanges from those entities. This too, will help
to keep you abreast of progress.
This period can feel a lot like wasted time. It seems like we should
be able to be taking bids and lining up contractors. In some cases,
you can, and it works to your advantage to be lining folks up as early
as you can. However, you must proceed with caution since regulatory
reviews may change the plans enough to have a large effect on the contractor's
prices. When proceeding before plans are approved, the contractor should
be preparing quotes or bids on plan and specification sets clearly
marked "Estimation Purposes Only" or "Not Approved for Construction"
to ensure that there is no doubt that they're still subject to change.
The other difficulty with bidding during the winter, even when approvals
are in hand, is that inspection of the site is often difficult or impossible.
If a contractor is expected to provide a hard-and-fast bid for a project
without being able to examine the project site in detail, you should expect
that the smart businessman will hope for the best, but bid for the worst.
This obviously tends to push the price higher than it might otherwise be.
Without a doubt, though, the earlier that you can get a contractor legally
committed to your project at an acceptable timetable, the better off you'll
be.
Spring
At last, bleak winter has passed, your contractor(s) are under contract,
and your projects are under construction. Just like the design production
stage through the fall and winter, each project should have a fairly detailed
construction schedule prepared by the contractor as part of the contract
process. It, too, must have readily identifiable construction milestones
and dates so that you can gauge progress. Where there are local inspections
required, like foundation, framing, and electrical, those should appear
on the schedule and again, should be set on Outlook. For some projects,
like ball field construction or other outdoor improvements without those
formal inspections, you should be able to read the expected number of construction
days along with the number of days which account for inclement weather.
From the outset, then, just by whether he's on site or not, you can
judge whether the contractor is on track, behind from weather, or perhaps
from a lack of commitment.
In addition, the schedule should specifically show a timetable for how
much and when they'll be asking for progress payments. Someone acting
on your behalf needs to be prepared to reconcile their request for payment
with their work progress. The last thing that you want to happen is for
payments to get ahead of progress. At the same time, if you want progress
to slow to a crawl (or stop altogether), delay payment for work completed.
If this sounds like a large time commitment, particularly as you prepare
for another season of programs, you're right. Think long and hard
about whether you or your staff have the time to properly manage contractors
on site. Without a doubt, the more money you're committing, the more
time you should expect it will take to protect your interest and ensure
that things remain on schedule. The money you spend letting someone else
track crossed "T's" and dotted "I's" may
be worth every penny. The same premise applies to trying to act as your
own general contractor, managing subcontractors for all of the different
contributing specialties. That's another column altogether…
Timing Is Everything
Like the changed man at the beginning of the article, you too can be
changed for the better by understanding that even the simplest appearing
projects need all of the time and planning that they can possibly get.
Installed improvements at camp can be difficult under the very best circumstances.
The list of things that can disrupt a well-planned project is limitless,
so to approach it without months of planning and preparation is an invitation
to disappointment. This month, today, right now, take the bull by the
horns and get the ball rolling for the improvements that will make next
year's program the best ever.
Originally published in the 2006 September/October
issue of Camping Magazine. |
