001that are for future bond issue that is not April 2024 is when that bond issue election will happen we are in progress with the board and our advisory committee oh my God okay rain give me some drink s Charlotte tomorrow morning at 5 30 5 30. they say how much rain I can't get it wrong I'm I'm sure they'll be 100 accurate warm then and then Friday I think cooler again I think you know getting close just enough to tease you yes it was last two days that doesn't happen too often absolutely yep yes sir sure all right welcome to the special board meeting to conduct interviews with qualified offers for hire of construction management at risk as you know construction management risk is new Newark Missouri it was adopted in our policy in 2018.
002so we want to thank you for the work you've already done in advance with your qualification statements and sending that in and we're looking forward to your presentation um just a couple things on this one you know this is for projects that Roy bond issue that has not happened yet we're looking at going out for election in April April 2nd of 2024 the filing deadline for us to put something out to be with the election Authority is a year and two days from today so 123 24 we have to file with the election board that we are going to have a project and something on the ballot for 4-2 so this is a little bit unique but we're looking to kind of be the early bird catches the worm and get out ahead and have
003something in the works when our when our bond issue passes when you heard me say that yeah when so um I'll go ahead and let you go ahead and do your presentation I'll have a few questions at the end well thank you for the introduction um good evening I'm Ryan putker I'm president of pet care construction you can actually flip to the first you want to click Collins over there he's got the clicker now thank you thank you thank you gotcha okay um Ryan Potter construction company I'm president uh first of all I want to thank you for allowing us to come in and explain um you know kind of what sets us apart in the construction management process from our competitors I also want to thank you for your public service I know I'm
004sure it's always not thankless but uh appreciate appreciate you guys serving um on the board Ryan yeah my name is uh Ryan decamper I'm vice president of reconstruction um I've I've been with putter now for a couple years prior to that I was uh I'm an electrical engineer I graduated from University of Missouri Rolla 2003 and I worked for an map firm mechanical electrical Plumbing firm from then until 21 when I came on board with putter and then I'm Chris robarts I'm a senior project manager for Petco I've been here for a few years as well um been getting a lot into the CM world and then doing a lot of project management on construction for schools mainly and uh I'm Ben elsizer pre-construction manager um and I pretty much live breathe eat sleep construction
005management so I've been doing schools for almost 10 years now and started out as a project manager and then as we developed our CM program realized the need to put that project management mind into the pre-construction phase so um Ryan and Ryan were generous enough to create a role for me to transition into doing this pre-construction thing full time so thank you for the time to come visit you guys thanks um a little bit about us electric instruction was found in 1980 by my father we're a second generation family owned and operated Construction Company were built on collaboration safety and really delivering a quality project for the for the client or um it took us a while to actually fine-tune our model but our motto is our quality relationships build your quality projects and that's
006that's really how we we live and we operate the business in that in that way um you know when when I'm conversing with with some of our co-workers it's always you know we're not here for this one project we're here for the relationship and to be a lifelong partner so so we don't have blinders on um and just focused on on one specific project we're we're here um for for the life of it and that's that's my commitment to you all that that we are a lifelong partner um yeah thank you it's it's actually pretty cool when when we're hired um as a construction manager for uh for CMR for uh for a school district we um we engage uh the student body and and the school district uh in ways that uh that many
007others don't and actually preparing for tonight um I was reading your guys's motto and really hit home um with me you know you guys are are you know here for I don't want to get this wrong to help students succeed succeed not only in academics but in life um in particular the the last part of your model there with a focus on collaboration um creativity communication and critical thinking that um that's us that's that's what we strive for and that's kind of why we engage um so much to the students and School District trying to get them engaged in the construction process just to expand their knowledge and expand their mind a little bit whether it's you know as you can see some of the pictures whether it's you know stem programs in various school
008districts are tours at various milestones we want to engage and and we want to be a partner um you know in the district and especially with the student um you know that that we're serving um you know and some of the the other you know areas I just recently learned of the character plus program um actually our partnership that that we're in right now with uh Parkway School District um working with them they you know they they told me about this program and and we we're just now getting uh involved in in that program and and I'm really looking forward to that and and I think if I remember right you guys are part of that program as well um so so hopefully we can we'll see each other at some of those programs but
009that's a that's an extremely important um program for for students in the area I'll turn it over to to uh yeah as I said I I uh have transitioned into pre-construction so that's a big big emphasis for us especially with our CM program it's a service that we do on all of our cm programs whether it's CM agent CM risk it all of them and we want to be partners with or really collaborators with the owners the design firm because at the end of the day we want to make sure that we're being proactive with our planning process whether that's a program level if it's a individual project that we're brought on for construction manager or a program like you guys are proposing we treat them all the same we want to know what is
010your goal in the end so that we can plan on your behalf and coordinate with designers because as everyone knows designers Constructors and owners all think a little bit different so we like to get everybody in the same room so that we can collaborate and discuss what are the end goals how can we meet those goals and that is budget that's end use that's life cycle you know the full the full span of or scope of the project we do program level budgets so if we with a multi-phase program some similar or similar to this you know we'll look at total funding available we'll look at the goals and not just this first project not the second one we want to look at all the projects and make sure that we're phasing and planning appropriately
011and then as we go through that we move into the living estimate as we call it is it's a collaborative document we share our estimates as much detail as you guys want I will I will sit on the phone and talk for two hours and explain where every penny is going if that's what you want because I I love it I love working for schools I love you know working for kids at the end of the day we want kids to have the best learning environment they can we want taxpayer money to go as far as it can and find that balance of the best ways to allocate those resources um the design and bid phase management my role would be to uh or our role I shouldn't say me we have several people that
012work that I work alongside um you know that's reviewing each phase of the documents how are the documents coming along are we meeting those goals that we set out originally for what the end user is looking for um are there better ways to do things that's looking at constructability from both cost and what makes the most sense how can we maybe get creative and meet the design intent but save some money here for there's maybe a different system which also again leads into local trade engagement that's where we leverage the resources we have and the relationships we have with local trade contractors because they're doing it every day so I know there's kind of four blocks on them but it really all comes into one role for me to juggle all these uh tasks at
013the same time and it's and it's not a linear progress process it's circular and we're always looking to the next project but we're also working on the original project we're looking at the program level and the project level at the same time because um at the end of the day we need to make sure that we're mindful of what's to come and that we're being uh mindful the resources we have available and those trade contractors provide a lot of insight into market conditions from both labor force material availability equipment selection what's the you know the best way to go how can we economize design maybe we can do a detail a little bit different to make it a little more effective save some labor hours costs or maybe there's a creative way to approach a
014problem so that's what I do through pre-construction I'm with the team all the way through to the end but I'll kind of transition to Ryan a little bit and hit the more specific stuff yeah well another thing I just want to add on pre-construction it might differentiate uh putter a little bit from others is that we have multiple Engineers on staff that have expertise in mechanical electrical and plumbing um I myself and one of them I'm involved in the early stages in my past experience was I told you a little bit ago was uh with an engineering firm which we primarily did K-12 in higher ed so that past experience I used to do peer reviews and monitor budgets from the from the beginning part of the project all the way through all the way
015through to the end of the project as well so with that I'm gonna switch the slides and transfer over to Chris perfect so once we get to the fun part of the program these things start taking shape out in the field and so I'm trying to be here on behalf of the project management side and really that's what I feel like it is construction is is fun it's supposed to be fun um we've got a lot of of projects that are stressful but that tries to be you know on our side of the table so the aspect of of taking these visions of improvement and bringing them to fruition is something that we're all here for so um what we do on the construction phase is we try and manage every aspect of risk and
016that starts number one with safety we've got anywhere from developing site safety logistic plans monitoring traffic patterns through just overall keeping Immaculate job site there's no corners to be cut on our side safety is always number one we take great pride in bringing our families into your construction projects but then also at the end of every day bringing them back home to their families and that same thing will apply with Lindbergh and the staff and student population as well um just like safety go hand in hand quality control uh the qaqc process actually starts long before any of shovels in the ground we're taking care of those QA items throughout pre-construction but that doesn't stop there it continues straight into construction as well we've got a dedicated staff that we'll talk about here in a
017moment for our quality control which is similar to our safety aspect but these guys are out there they're taking a look at all the design specs and plans prior to getting in the field kind of heading off some some quality control items not only in the design phase but looking at construction we're putting together pre-installation meetings for some of those Key activities that take place a lot of those being with concrete or building envelopes will have those site meetings in person with our superintendent our quality control staff and then the contractors that actually be installing said equipment and then basically that that goes through the entire process of the building construction just doesn't stop there we've got ongoing site inspections that will last throughout kind of spot inspections that will take place with many of
018our staff as well I'm going to pass over communication tools for just a moment here and go to budget control I know this is uh maybe sounds weird but budget control is actually one of the reasons I really love CM projects uh math is kind of my thing but just to be able to have these tools for ourselves to be able to be in control of all of the owners finances you know we're setting budgets up at pre-construction stage but to have our goal of this is what we need to stay inside of for a budget and maintain I've kind of got a like a Rain Man uh Matrix Excel sheet that we're going through I've got that open on every single day for each of my school projects and I'm making sure that you
019know we're managing allowances contingencies contractor payment applications I mean every dime uh to where somebody from our accounting staff or superintendent might want to know hey where does this sit right now and I can tell you at the drop of a dime where where everything sits and where your money stands within the budget along with that would be schedule management because I think everybody would say time is money we have a an extensive staff that'll that'll communicate our schedules not only the overall project schedules how those look like with Milestone schedules prior to construction taking place but as we go throughout the project we also have updated weekly four-week look ahead schedules those are developed on our side through construction management but those are collaborative with the contractors that are on site to make sure
020that we're giving realistic and proactive schedules as well um and then collaboration with Lindbergh schools I mean that's that says what it is uh depends on the client as far as how much collaboration is going to be needed some clients we've had come up and say hey you're the construction expert I want you guys to take care of things and that's fine um it's it's not typical and we would like to have you involved as much as we can um certainly would take anything that you you want to be involved with and over communicate that from our side and that's kind of where our communication tools come into play so we we're I don't know if everybody's familiar with this but we're we're very high on the the site that we use as procore and
021it basically has everything from our construction process it's submittals rfis Asis photos you name it the drawing specs everything is available just by clicking in on this website and we give that access to our owners and they can see everything but we also develop on our side we try to we're getting into this phase where we're every Monday morning on a particular project we'll develop these weekly reports and those will say hey here's what took place last week here's what we're looking for for construction this week here's where your finances stand here's some things that might be hanging out in the the balance from phone conversations over the last week and then here's five or ten photos of what's going on um certainly it's your job site love to have you guys take a look
022at it anytime and our superintendents are always willing to to do those walk-throughs as well but again we're just trying to over communicate in any aspect that we have we've got some other tools that are available as well the hollow Builder which is a 360 photo program where you can just go in again on a website take a click at a particular room and you can see everything that's ongoing um as a as of the last photo that's been taken into that space we've got cost loaded schedules as well any communication tool that we can to suit the needs that are being asked of us is what we try to to bring to the Forefront there go to the next slide here so you ask why puncher uh Ryan mentioned it earlier about our slogan
023of our quality relationships build your quality projects um that 95 of our work is repeat clients and referrals so that's what that comes from um and it's not just with the to get you a successful project or successful program it's also those relationships have to be developed with the subcontractors so with our previous experience and our current experience with subcontractor base in this area we have a good base we'll perform Outreach events we show appreciation thorough appreciation events and that's all so we can get good coverage for your project on on that on that scale so another thing would be risk management our Risk Management Department Chris touched on a little bit about his QA so and the risk management we have safety we have quality we have warranty and we have our coordinators that
024department is actually separate from our operations department and what that allows is there's no conflict of interest there so the guy that's reviewing safety isn't always also the guy that's reporting to the superintendent he reports directly to the project Executives so at the executive level so that lets us there's no we don't have any sweeping it under the rugs if there's an issue we want it resolved so and that's what we feel is the best way to get that accomplished and then um obviously this is with education we have vast experience in education projects why that's most important is because of schedules a lot of these projects you have a truncated amount of time to do a lot of work and we're very uh uh we have a lot of experience in that so and
025we realize what goes into that when the issues come up you can't be finger pointing on what's going here what's going there we need to get everybody at the table figure out what's going on and how are we going to fix the problem and be able to either maintain the current schedule or if we lost a little bit of time or we have to do a little bit more how are we going to catch back up to get back on schedule because that date that you have in your academic calendar whether the students are coming back that does not change so um and then obviously we talked about safety that's always our most critical thing with students and every everybody on the job or around a job site safety is the most critical so that's
026what we're always thinking about if it's projects going on outside during the school year but outside of the we maintain the passive egress do what we have to do to get um safe passageway for students and to keep their curious minds from wandering into the project sites so I think that's uh all I have on that one and I do appreciate everybody's time and allowing us to come in here and to present to you all tonight we've learned to keep it shorter so we could ask some questions and try to the most important part is hearing what you guys want to know yeah I'm sorry um I think Ben thanks for them Ben answered the question already on number one was cmar is often referred to as open book construction what does open book mean
027to you and I know you said two hour phone call where I can ask you a question number so yeah so our open book policy runs all the way from the first day to the end you know Chris mentioned his his spreadsheet um but you know to the over communication we will we will have weekly meetings with the design team from the as soon as there's a piece of paper for me to start looking at we're going to start having weekly meetings and you guys are more than welcome to sit on that meeting um or represent someone to be on that meeting and then each phase depending on complexity you at a minimum it's usually three budgets but it could be as many as 10 it just depends on the complexity and how the project
028and how the budget is advancing again it's a living estimate so if we're tracking like everything's fine maybe we'll do four or five or three or four if we're tracking over right away then we'll start doing a budget update every couple weeks so that we're tracking live where we're at so that we make sure we're hitting where it is and those budgets are always open like I said we can share as much or as little detail as you want we're not hiding anything we want you guys to know what we're thinking we want the design team to know what we're thinking because sometimes the designers might be thinking one thing in their head and I'm thinking another thing and if we're off then we want to make sure that we're talking about the same thing
029and I'll add that those those do continue through construction a lot of times Dr Lake when we're going through and if you might want to know you know where we stand we're doing those same budgets through construction as well here's where we stand at 25 there won't be any might that I want to know where we are and there won't be any if I want to come out to the job site I'll be out there daily so as I am now all right that's him yep that's him um the second question is relation to um guaranteed maximum price please share your experience with guaranteed maximum price and best practices on contingency percentages owner and contractor and then allowances so when you get to that point I know in our project that's a way out you
030know because we're just starting to design and we have a lot of work to do before we even um have the money in the bank but when we get to that point what are your best practices around that number um so with the I'll start with contingencies because those are usually the um they contribute a lot to where that GMP lands um so there's try not to get too detailed because again I nerd out but uh there's many vehicles to approach unknown and when it comes to contingencies it's all about managing risk whether known or unknown sometimes you know the risk um but you're trying to limit the uh the risk on the bid Market if you will so we know that there's an unsuitable soils condition um and sometimes it makes sense to just
031put that on the bidders to you know try to Max or capitalize on that risk other times we want to control that risk so we'll set an allowance or a contingency you can use various terminologies for the same vehicle to get to the same problem or if we level that playing field we're eliminating these high variants in the the bidding pool we can kind of control some of that other times it makes sense to let the contractors kind of gamble on it it just depends on the you know there's many variables go into that from a market standpoint again as we're reaching out to trade contractors and we're talking about when is the project going to be out for bid can we maximize that by bidding earlier or later if not and there's a lot
032of variance maybe we'll carry a higher contingency on the market escalation side depending on products and things that we're selecting um allowances for various things I mean you can do as many as you want we we don't like to just say we're going to do 10 contingency on every project or we're going to do five percent contingency on every project or two percent or whatever it is we take each project we evaluate the risk um understanding that there's uh there's always a risk um there's always unknowns nobody's perfect designers Constructors nobody's perfect so there's always a risk but how can we get the best value for the risk and identify as much risk as we can before we're underway um which leads into the GMP um so we have a lot of experience with gmps
033um and you know Ryan also has had a lot of experience with gmps from the design side you know and how they what how designers like to approach that but we want to set a GMP that's realistic um and conservative so it wants to be we want it to be accurate at the end of the day but we also don't want to sell you something and then it's not true we want to be truthful um we want to discuss the contingencies discuss where we're being conservative and why so that as the owner you can understand and then that way everybody's it goes back to communication again it's always about clear lines of communication we want you to know where we're thinking and why and if you disagree we want to discuss that summarize the benefits
034of utilizing the cmar method and why your firm would be the best choice for Lindbergh schools I guess of hard bid versus you know structure management risk and sure what you guys have to offer um I think The Upfront um partnership that um you know that goes back and forth between designers Constructors and the school district the number one um reason to go CMR you know you get the uh you know get the GMP established earlier you get the constructability review earlier in the in the process versus you know you know later on um you know after the bids come in and then you get a you know a value engineer idea you don't get the same bang for your buck um so so all that is you know is up front before before any
035bidding takes place and for the most part you know we can we can hash all that those items out and then take it to bid um you know therefore maximizing um the bang for your buck what's up I think I agree with that it eliminates a lot of surprises there's a lot of development that we have up front to be able to kind of give the the best like Ben was talking about a lot of these projects when's the best time it should hit the street you know we know that that that's that's kind of our thing if we've got education questions we're going to go to The Experts as well we know what is taking place out in the world right now on the construction side so there's there's things that all aspects that
036I feel like on the construction manager there's a reason why this is booming for the the school districts right now it started up in Chicago and it's making its way to Missouri as well I think it's going to continue on throughout there's uh I think the probably the biggest thing I would say though is eliminating that surprise effect and giving you that balance of quality assurance that hey I'm I'm avoiding issues for my operations maintenance nightmares after these guys leave from the construction site two three years later I'm eliminating or at least reducing some of those effects that can can take place okay the last item I have is it's the final question or more it's really opinion we're not going to use it for evaluation purposes but because you guys are the experts we're
037not expert in construction that's why we look to hire folks like you um but um in the K as an expert in the K-12 construction Marketplace how have processes and markets chains post covid are there any new Norms in the industry as a result of covid related pricing labor are material issues and then how will the next three to five years look you know what are you guys thinking you know lots of things have changed since covid so yeah this is opinion I'm not but grading you on it just because you guys are out there on the field well obviously the um I'm on I think I'm on three or four different boards um strictly for worker shortage and this is our board this is good information for them to understand too on the construction
038side just trying to and it kind of goes back to to why we engage the students as much as we can just to get them thinking but worker shortage is is a huge huge huge problem uh it's not going to go away anytime soon you know and and uh that's that is obviously um been compounding for several years now material um Lincoln material tell me what not just sure every job in the world um material that that's another reason you know why you know why we're so heavily involved in the pre-construction side um you know whether it's a gear electrical gear our our air handler unit you know some things are you know a year and a half out and we have to plan for that you know if it's if it's you know working
039with the design team to to come up with a different solution or we put an early bid package out it's um you know it's an issue and you know I'm not going to say we're used to it to the issue but um you know we understand the issue and um we are getting out in front of the issue as much as we possibly can and that's I mean it's just it's it's huge huge difference from um you know three or four years ago so is this the new Norm I guess that's what I'm asking you guys everything and it goes back to another I'm running things go back to the way they were before going back to the you know Wise cmar with that equipment thing that's you know we're engaging with the subcontractors up
040front today I what's going to be delayed six months from now um they usually have a handle on that better than we would um and you never know what's going to be it could be a just four inch conduit you know or it could be this different it says 400 amp panel board or 600 amp panel boards were the last thing that were just or meters meter bases so it's just odds and ends that you wouldn't know unless you're engaging with those subcontractors front yeah and sometimes it's as simple as we're specifying a trained rooftop unit and their 20-week lead time and we call up Daikin and they're like oh we've got 10 weeks and it's like okay well we need to know that and maybe maybe your guys's facility operations people again communication we
041want to get the people that run these buildings when we walk away to have input and maybe you know maybe that doesn't make sense to go to a unit they're not familiar with but you know information is key we want to make sure that you guys have the information and then you can instruct us what where the values are and again maybe we can save money somewhere else if we really want to focus on having a unified building automation system across the district across the building maybe that's not as big a concern maybe your staff is confident in their ability to manage multiple systems you know there's a million different variables and the million things that can go on in to Ryan's Point within the labor force shortage or Workforce shortage sometimes it's uh we
042he ran we were in a market not that long ago that was having a real problems with labor shortage so we switched a system to a Precast wall instead of CMU because you can put Precast up with five guys instead of 20. you know that kind of that kind of thing that it costs a little more for the wall but we can get it done faster and we can meet a deadline but um the main thing I want to communicate or get across is that we're communicating all these decisions with the district with the design team um you know we're here to work with everybody we want to put all the options on the table and have a discussion about these are the Avenues we can go down these are the benefits these are the
043cons these are the you know the what way do we want to go and it's not what way putker wants to go and it's not what way the designer wants to go it's what way does Lindbergh want to go but we want you guys to have the information in front of you um to have to be able to make those decisions and make them from an educated position perfect that makes sense um and so tonight we're interviewing three firms um tomorrow we'll send out an RFP for additional information on really the since we don't have our projects finalized yet and we're looking out to the future is we're going to be looking for that RFP profit percent you know that's really the only number we can ask for now because we're way ahead of the
044game um and then those responses will be back due to the district on 3 8 with our goal of taking this to our March March board meeting and then immediately after that when we already have our Architects on staff and our facilities crew is ready to hit the ground running on the projects that we put out for cmar just to start planning so a year from now we're in better shape yep so I don't know if you guys have any questions for us but that's what we have tonight no I appreciate the opportunity thank you very much we appreciate you spending the time on the qualifications and coming in absolutely thank you foreign laughs is everything else he's ready he's taking control yeah no problem you ready guys all right um welcome to the special
045board meeting to conduct interviews with qualified offers for the construction manager at risk um construction management risk is newer to Missouri schools as you guys know it was 2018 when um our policy allowed us to look at this construction method so tonight we were interviewing three firms and we're going to let you do your presentation and I'll have a few questions go ahead well thank you so much for having us here this evening my name is Amanda Bonner I'm the chief marketing officer I'm one of the executives at SM Olson and Company I've been there for 19 years and my role in this project is really to help on the community side the engagement making sure that you're getting everything you need out of this project so we brought quite a big team with us
046here today and we know we have a limited amount of time but we really wanted to show how passionate how commitment committed we are to this project and just dedicated so we're going to actually drive our project our presentations tonight from a website and you guys have access to that website on that placemat is a QR code and you won't get all the information tonight but you're welcome to jump on there at any time to kind of see see this information uh Essa Molson a little bit about our company we are 100 years old uh we're 100 employee owned and we are a premier K-12 construction Builder we go beyond the build to really Inspire the communities where we live work learn heal and play and we've worked with more than 35 school districts in
047Missouri and in Illinois and in Missouri alone at 65 different school buildings so we love what we do and we do it a little bit differently we know um that you're looking at a lot of great firms tonight we're all great solid Builders but we feel like we do just a little bit extra to go beyond the build which is really our mission so uh our experience leads us to become one of the 100 top K-12 builders in the nation and we have more than 1.2 billion of CM at risk experience uh just 545 million of that alone is in schools since the since the change in the Missouri State Statute and in Illinois as well and maybe even more importantly we've helped 19 different pre-referendum issues passed so we've been part of the program
048of 19 different Bond issues passing we built more than 6 000 classrooms and also have 12 different storm shelters under construction we know those are part of your building program as well so what does all this experts teach kind of translate to Mark's going to tell you a little bit more about how that really plays into our processes and how we actually deliver sure thank you Amanda uh as Amanda said my name is Mark Cochran I'm the Chief Operating Officer for SM Wilson and my primary role here tonight and on this project would be to support our team to ensure that we're delivering on the commitments that we make to you here as well as to your community your students and your taxpayers so Amanda went over a lot of great stats and when you
049really think about that it's it's something that brings a lot of knowledge and what does it really mean for you as a district when you look at we built 6 000 classrooms we currently have under contract over half a billion dollars in public K-12 construction management at risk uh work and what that really means for you is we have all this data and knowledge to take from these experiences whether it's a remodel that's extremely complicated student safety we're taking all that information and you are beneficiaries of that information we're going to use that on the costing side of life we're going to use that on the schedule side of life we're going to use that on the student safety side of life so all those skills and experiences we have are going to come to
050you in a form that is going to benefit you your students your teachers and your taxpayers another huge component of that is it's a challenge especially in today's market is program and budget alignment and I want to talk a little bit about that in two different phases really I commend you as a district for getting a CM involved at this process in this stage you know you're a year out from this referendum discussion so there's a lot of work that has to happen now and it's a great time to see them involved and what we can do is we can take the knowledge that we have from all these projects and all this cost history and sequencing and phasing and really work with you and partner with not only you but owner and Perkins and
051will and come up with a plan we understand you probably have priorities you know whether it's the Truman School the storm shelters understand what other work we can do with that and establishing basically a ranking system a priority system and allocating your funds that you're you're planning on to really have a defined plan to make that work at the end of the day so that's our role for the next year to ensure that we're engaged with the community the community understands the work you're going to do they're going to understand how the student safety is going to be addressed they're going to understand how the student learning environment from noise and disruptions is going to be addressed that's our job to help you when we go to this referendum have a defined plan that we
052know will be on in budget and we're going to develop and deliver the program we've talked about so our role is really that from the pre-referendum side of life so it's again it's cost certainty with the program and then the budget at the end of the day and as we move into that pre-construction service side of life when we actually start working on the drawings and with the architect and the estimates our job is to really take that work we did in the pre-referendum side and ensure we're in step with that we have a process that we can it's called Target value design and we really through that process are going to establish specific values for specific components components so we're work and we're going to work with the architectural team and you all to
053ensure that our budget is in aligned with that and the design is in aligned with that so that's really our role in that next step is to ensure what we've talked about what you've committed to your constituents that we deliver that at that stage the other thing I I think is extremely important with all that experience we have is we have a significant detailed track record of saving our clients money specifically in the K-12 Arena and and traditionally that's in the five to eight percent of building program cost and that's through a myriad of issues whether it's alternative material selections alternative scheduling techniques there are lots of different ways that we do that and a lot of times that doesn't show up at the end of the day on on what that contract value is
054because we encourage our clients to reinvest that you know maybe there's some programming stuff I know pending budget discussions there's other programs you want to do it's great to be able to roll those in into the program side of life so that's really as we get through that we'll go through the traditional bidding process again you've probably heard from lots of folks today on what that process looks like we'll engage the bidding Community we'll evaluate those we'll develop a GMP that's in alignment with that budget in in our process ensures and we have a proven track record of that GMP being in alignment with our estimates that we do throughout that pre-construction and pre-referendum services so that's a real short tidbit of how we handle pre-construction and pre-referendum services and I'm sure there'll be plenty
055of questions when we get into that but I want to in the essence of time when turn over to Cherry and Bernie and let them talk about our cost control once we moved out of that pre-construction phase so hi I'm Bernie Birch I'm my role as the Project Director and really I am here to support the execution team and to make sure that everything that Mark just talked about we actually execute and you benefit from it um you know so I'm here to make sure that everybody as far as adult the entire team not just the SM Wilson team but the entire team has what they need to understand what your priorities are you know how much of the program we can get in how much of the logistics we can work through and really
056make sure that your experience is amazing and that you're benefiting from having us come in early and and using that CM at risk method for Contracting so really um you know trying to meet your expectations understanding priorities in the program getting that in trying to solve problems the other thing is on the cost control side we're here to try to identify risks early and to provide Solutions quickly and do any sort of value engineering that we can as quickly as possible you know and that's going to start pre-referendum and continue through the end of the project so there's at any point we can we can take a look and see what we need to do to to help move things along if that's value engineering and any of those kind of things you know to
057support the overall Master budget the other thing is is that I'll be part of the communication to you to make sure that we're being transparent we're being accurate we're being realistic you know there's different forms of that we can help with any of the master budget discussions you know the GMP any of the Masters schedule to kind of understand how we flow through how we enable work from a site Logistics standpoint and not be very disruptive to the the campus and the ongoing activities of the of the school so that's another big thing that we want to make sure that you know we're kind of in the background doing what we need to do and not being really disruptive to your day-to-day activities so um that's my role and uh so I look forward to
058being here from the very beginning all the way to uh you know when students enter the facility so it'll be exciting I'll turn it over to Jerry and he can kind of talk more about some of the cost control things so one of the things to look at site Logistics scheduling and phasing because those impact the work that you put in place okay no problem so when I work with Logistics and scheduling it's money that you spend to get ready to do the work so it's careful it's required to be careful to plan that ahead of time when we get into the post-respondum I do constructability reviews and that you get a cost benefit and value for the systems and the products picked from buildings and then of course there's more scheduling and then communication
059is key once we're into construction for the principals the school superintendent facilities people and that's what I do Mike my tenant is really adorable thanks Jerry uh Mike Ashley my role would be general superintendent and I was kind of heading up last night and I think there's seven districts I've worked in the St Louis area so far we've got a 100 Year program that you guys are familiar with you saw in the literature there I've not been here for 100 years I've only been here for 20. we what I do is verify basically what they're telling you as far as schedules things like that to make sure they're realistic that they can actually happen we're all aware of some of the changes that's happened in the different districts right now so materials things like that
060we've instituted a lot of different controls on that safety is one of my big priorities I've worked with a lot of the principals and what we do is typically is uh when we get into a school we'll meet with the administrators we'll meet with the principal I have all of our superintendents including myself will fill out a daily work test telling them what we're doing because we're going to be in your building we don't want you to be taken by surprise Logistics we get with you in the beginning a lot of times it'll be something where I might see it one way you see it a different way and we try and work together on it to make sure it's working for everybody safety like I said is our our big thing we've got a
061really good track record on that a lot of the districts that we've worked in are always the occupied campus we have to work around your schedules your guys are here for a short period of time so we have to get things done when we can in those areas so it works out really well for all of us basically that's all I've got like is there anything in terms of the quality side of life you know talk a little bit about the 360 photos that we'll be sharing with with the team yeah so typically we'll go in and if it's an existing building we'll go in we'll do 360 photos so that we can see the conditions that are there um as we're going through it we use several programs one of the ones that that
062we use primarily out in the field is we use Autodesk which is basically a living document when Perkins and will gets the drawings ready we update any of the changes in there so that it's current all of our subs utilize the same thing so um you know things have evolved a lot in the last 20 years it used to be you had a big set of drawings and you were always fumbling through those trying to get the latest updates uh updates rfis things like that playing Autodesk is um it's right there in front of you so there's rfis are in there all your submittals are in there so as you're walking around confirming things to make sure they're done correctly you have it right in front of you so there's no guessing every one of
063our superintendents has a has an iPad that they use so like I said it's it's with you all the time so you can actually view what's going on in the field make sure it's being done correctly on the website here that's an example of that instruction site and that's something that lives with you guys forever and it's we take those photos at specific times so before we cover up the project with drywall we'll go through every room and photo document that stuff facilities has that forever and it's even a scalable discussion so if you're going to install a marker board in three years you could pull this photo up and look at hey do I have an electrical conduct here or a water line here and again that's something that we provide uh for you
064all for for perpetuity one of the other things that we do is uh I work with a lot of facilities guys you know it's one thing when the architect draws it up but it's another thing to realize if it's serviceable or not later on down the road when you've got to do any kind of maintenance on there all that so we kind of walk through that making sure that there's excess panels for them or maybe a VAV or something needs to be turned the other direction so that it's usable and your guys can get in there and have a less impact on your students Mike why don't you talk just a moment about what you have done in the pre-referendum phases for some of your other jobs along those same lines uh Ledoux we had
065numerous meetings uh in their actual facilities area went over different things some of the things that I've learned over the years with working with different principals things that we take for granted they look at it a totally different aspect I'll give you a prime example I did the Ladue High School ran that project Brad and I were walking around I looked at a stairwell as an escape means for me to get you know people in and out and he looked at it as a hiding place for kids to get underneath of it so we made some changes in that aspect to make sure that you know there wasn't any areas where kids could be hiding out because it's been a long time since I've been in school and trust me I didn't crawl under stairs
066and things like that when I was there so like I said that's something he I just took for granted we were using it as a means of getting up and down the stairs and he looked at it totally different so a lot of those impacts have kind of changed how I look at things I look a totally different when I go into a school now like I said making sure the doors are locked with the way things are going nowadays all of our people are background checked we have a sticker program we've had badge programs we've had a lot of different ways to make sure that we're having that under control and my biggest thing that I've always tried to do is isolate my Construction excuse me isolate my construction from the general public and
067the schools and by doing that building temporary partitions that are locked to where we're in that in that part now there are times where we have to get in where it's occupied but most of the time we try and separate the two out that way I have a better control over it there's a couple things we went through that I want to just call your attention to back on the safety page um there is when you have some time there's a video on there that we did for Francis hell North that project the front entrance had to be completely kind of torn apart and there's multiple schools on that campus so we created this video uh and even had some bus drivers come out that they sent to the parents ahead of time so they
068knew where drop new drop-off Loops were so they knew where new parking was for their students so they say they knew some of that information and then back on the GMP page that is actually there's a picture there of our cost control of a dashboard that we've used with another school district to see how much allowances you have how much contingencies you have and this is updated you know on a weekly basis with with that so those are just a couple examples I wanted to call to you real quick um anything else sat on the construction sign so with that we're going to move into uh so Community engagement so smolson's tagline is beyond the builds and it's our goal to do more than just build this project for you to actually become a partner
069with the school district and we know that your stakeholders need to be informed they need to be informed through the pre-referendum phase and they also need to be stay informed during the building process so a few of the value ads we have is this website can be turned into either something internal facing for your school district or external facing that we can share information about the referendum or once construction starts we could put project webcam links on here we can basically do project updates and it just helps keep everybody engaged we also work on job site celebrations and social media we share all these things because we're just as excited as you are to go through this process and quite frankly in my eyes one of the best value ads we bring is a program
070called skilled skilled was founded in 2019 and I'm a parent of two um school-aged kiddos myself and when my when my son was four he went to preschool in the local high school and high school was being renovated and every day all I saw was this pain that I had to like my drop off location was closed so now I had to walk all the way through the school and drag my four-year-old with me doing it and one day he stopped and he saw some workers just working in the hallway and he was just enamored by what was going on and I took a moment I kind of looked through his eyes and I was like what a cool opportunity that every day you get to see all these different careers and all these things
071happening right outside your window and so actually that was not our project but I worked with his preschool teacher at the time and we themed his room around construction so all of his little segments that his school went to they were all construction themed and I I thought to myself why can't we do this at Essa Molson our team's already entrenched they're already taking tours with the school schools with the kids Mike knows everybody on that site why can't we make this a formalized program that we can give back to create these inconvenient construction sites because that's what they are and turn them into Interactive Learning opportunities because all of these different stem opportunities are just happening right outside your door and so we've been able to do that with the skilled program and we're
072incredibly proud of that and Maggie is our skilled coordinator I'm going to talk a little bit more about that good evening everyone I'm Maggie Farrell I'm A diversity and HR manager at SM Wilson my role is to support the company and the projects skilled and other community engagement programs as well as our diversity equity and inclusion initiatives skilled as Amanda said really complements our work in the K-12 market and it's such an important component of our Dei and Workforce Development efforts we look forward to collaborating with you to identify opportunities for students at all levels Hands-On engaging activities to throughout the construction process and our project teams including our trade Partners truly enjoy that connection with the students with the staff and the community to create these memorable experiences that really highlight all the cool
073things that the construction industry has to offer so through our programs like build and tell and follow the build as well as career presentations steam challenges and art installations we can expose them to a multitude of careers in the architecture engineering and Construction Industries and the mission is simply to inspire the future of construction but additionally we know that that's also contributing to increasing the diversity of the construction industry while helping us create a Workforce pipeline for the skilled trades we know that collaborative diverse teams are critical to having an Innovative and successful project so we'll work intentionally to identify opportunities for Workforce diversity and for women businesses owned by women people of color and Veterans along with local suppliers as we're building with your District we have a culture of Care Program where we're
074committing to create a safe welcoming and inclusive work environment that's free from harassment hazing and bullying where all members of the team are empowered to succeed and they're valued for their lived experiences their perspective and their contributions to the project so we'll develop a customized plan that will set the tone and the expectations for a respectful job site that prioritizes the dignity and the safety of everyone involved including your students staff and Community knowing and recognizing that a culture of belonging really starts with that psychological safety so mental health and suicide prevention are important parts of our culture of care plan we have conversations host toolbox talks and share resources to help address the stigma associated with mental health problems and seeking help when needed which is particularly a challenge in our industry so we've
075had several of our project teams that have hosted Safety Stand Downs recognizing mental health awareness months Suicide Prevention month including a couple months back at the Francis hell North site where about 200 workers on site there had an opportunity to hear impactful messages from two mental health experts and it's really been amazing to see the construction industry being involved in that and the impact that that's making on our teams and the safety of the industry and the folks involved with the project so so you'll see that our commitment to diversity Equity inclusion is woven into our values and our beliefs that we're stronger together through programs like skilled and the culture of care we know that we'll be able to create a successful project for the district and for the community and making a lasting
076impact on those communities in the construction industry too thanks Maggie that wraps up our formal stuff we've got a short closing but wanted to open up for any questions that you may have of us I have some prepared questions that we're asking um well three of the firms being interviewed this evening um first one is cmar is often referred to as open book construction what does open book mean to SM Wilson from SM Wilson's perspective and we'll have anyone jump in and add their perspective on this is when I think about open book and the way we address open book it is it is that everything is open for review we're we're completely transparent to the point you know we have a bid opening this week with a school client in town that they're coming
077to our office to open the bids we're reviewing the bids together we're evaluating the bids together we provide every backup every receipt of every cost that goes into a project that has always provided with everything we do and open booked for us is fully transparent there is nothing that we are trying to hide you know for lack of a better word it is exactly that any question is is fair game and anything we do whether it's the financial side or risk side with subcontractors that is all open uh for review and discussion okay um it's like a question pertaining to GMP you know our DMP on this these projects way out because we're in early planning but um as you guys being experts um please share your experience with GMP and best practices on contingency
078percentages owner and contractor and allowances it's a multi-person answer here and you'll get some perspectives on this again from our perspective we understand uh and again the benefit of seeing at risk is there's cost certainty for for you all and that's where our experience really comes in when we're working in this pre-referendum side of life and in pre-construction we're working with that budget and that that program and locking that in there and really working with the design team to make sure it's in alignment there when it gets to the discussions of creating that GMP obviously Fallen Missouri statutes 67 50 50 on how we're bidding that that work evaluating that stuff we have taken approach the contingency side of life of again it's an open book transparent discussion r i I would never suggest it
079you know assigned three percent contingency for all these projects or five percent at the end of the day we want to evaluate the risk of the projects with the group as a team and and come up and try to monetize that risk and address how we do that so we will come up with an aggregate discussion of what that contingency is both owner and and contractor and I think a big part of this process is having clear definitions of what pot those discussions come from or what how'd those issues come from and that's something I would encourage we would sit down and have a very open discussion about what is construction contingency what is owner contingency uh the same discussion about about allowances are when we will recommend that there are allowances within uh the
080contract and a lot of that is when we're doing that we're trying to get again the best value for the school district at that point in an allowance traditionally is hand them where there's a risk that's unquantifiable a lot of times we can assign some values to it but we also don't want this bidding Community to assign a lot of risk to that and then it things go great on their side or it's not as defined and they effectively take advantage of that or they get a lot extra contract value out of that so those are just some perspectives from from my side Bernie and Jerry open to thoughts we did a major remodel here we did a major remodel where you were taking on block walls that was certainly more risky than just the
081demolition or the automatic science book um so each job has to be viewed on its own parents on its own risk and what is known and what's an island yeah I'd say contingencies on our side and your side would be you know just you know we can look at numbers or we can look at percentages but it's really stuff to take care of stuff right like we just things come up that we have to handle of whether that's the contractor side or the owner side allowances can be kind of identified in each area of the GMP like there could be some known risk maybe um but a little bit unknown as far as quantity and so we will take a look at you know trying to quantify that and taking a look at a square
082foot price and trying to assign something that would be you know a little bit more specific uh in a work category group or you know something that's a little bit more definable but is not kind of in that contingency where it's it's there to you know take care of stuff and that's really where our experience right now you know having over 500 million under contract working with CM at risk right now and a lot of those aren't uh you know we've got 12 storm shelters under construction a lot of these are multi-campus multi-building programs to where we have that institutional knowledge to know yes this is an appropriate hey we ran into that three years ago here's how we addressed that that knowledge is invaluable for us to address these uh risks appropriately um I
083have a question here that is really a question it's really opinion based and it won't be any part of your evaluation but we got an expert panel here so we've been asking um all of our interviewees this that um as experts in the construction Marketplace how have processes and markets changed post covid um are there any new Norms in Industry as a result of covid pricing labor or material and what do you see happening in the next three to five years I know you can't predict the future but I want to hear what you guys think because you are the experts we're gonna need the eight ball first and opinion so big picture there are a couple obvious discussions um one the the schedule side of life that's where I think there are two components
084schedule and costs that we've seen the most dramatic impact on um and there are things that we can do on both sides to mitigate that and and we'll never mitigate all of it at the end of the day but we've come up with plans and I'll just share a few on the schedule side of life some recent examples we are out actively um working with our design teams to basically develop a load for the electrical switch gear and we may be buying electrical switch gear well before we've ever started the design side of the building to where we're going out to the manufacturers directly procuring that ensuring that it's here in time because right now it's over a year to get substantial gear section same discussion with air handlers roof insulation we've had projects where
085we rent warehouses to get material and and hold it to address the cost and the availability from from that side of life we are seeing on the price escalation side of life the volatility has tabled but we're still seeing significant upward movement uh you know we had a lot of issues with prices being good for two days three days seeing significant jumps month over month a lot of that has leveled off and it's more consistent steady climb um so again part of that discussion is how do you strategically buy that work in the time where you're not asking subcontractors also to Bear 100 on the risk on a job that's two years out because what's going to happen is if you tell them that they're going to add 30 40 50 60 percent to their
086material cost to address that so we've come up with strategies to based on the specific trade that it's in specific commodity or identifying specific allowances with escalation or indexing material prices to use asphalt as an example to the MoDOT price index and saying look we bid the job at this point the Modoc price index is why and we know how many tons of asphalt we have that's a objective index that we use to to monitor that instead of someone trying to predict what that price is going to be two years in advance all right just to add on that I mean choosing the CMR ID is really going to help you navigate those risks because we can we can plan for that stuff we can add the allowances you can add into your GMP we
087are on the hook for the GMP that's your guaranteed maximum price and we've seen a lot of school districts still competitively hard bid and they're coming in way over budget and they already have spent all their money on the design documents and they didn't have any input on all these delayed materials or the materials that we can't get or the price escalation so just choosing this delivery method you will help navigate those those Solutions in the next three to five years because we don't have that crystal ball and it does look different than it ever has before you know I mean labor yes sure and I think we've seen the challenges labor and and really you know the the skilled discussion is really where that stem from because we've seen this shortage of Labor coming
088for a number of years um so we um we're really trying to to build that labor pool at the end of the day what we have to do is construction managers is we have to make this project entice of for bidding and we have to make it entices for the actual trades people that are here working they have to enjoy that experience they have to want to come and work on these projects for the Lindbergh school and that's one of the things we look at doing is you know having a great schedule having Mike be a great superintendent and having daily meetings with you know the people on site understand what are their challenges because at the end of the day there are only so many trades people in St Louis that you're pulling from
089you've got to do everything you can to have them come to work on the Lindbergh project and that's really how we are addressing that part of it because it again we're trying to get more people into the trades absolutely and that's we're having success of that we have a lot of but it's it's a long soap process to do that so we that is really what we're trying to do is make this project attractive for the trades people to work there not only trades people but the companies as well thank you counted his opinion not an evaluation uh the last one we have which will probably work well with your final slides is um you know summarize why you're the best choice for Lindbergh schools um and while utilizing the cmar which you already addressed
090that as well is the best choice for lumbering schools so summarize it up yeah I mean Essa Molson is a premier Builder but more than that I mean we we do want to integrate with your school districts we have worked with Perkins and well we've worked with honor we have successful relationships there and we want to be you know a member of your community and we want to see this be successful we want to work for you for a long time and build those repeat relationships and we look at this as a holistic project it's more than just building a building it's more than you know it's laying roots and foundations for the entire community and that's why every one of our projects has the skilled component and it has the community involvement it has
091Maggie and we do the Dei components regardless of the if that's what our clients are really you know gauging us on or not so that's what we deem our true importance and our value and it's bringing to the table I think on on top of that that's all you know tremendous value that we're bringing but then can't lose track of our proven track record at the end of the day the numbers speak for themselves on our ability to deliver this type of work in addition saving money for you that either you know goes on to the next Bond program or goes back into additional programming so those those two components there are really uh from from our aspect our ysm Wilson at the end of the day uh We Believe cement risk is the best
092way to build I mean honestly going back to that first question that we already answered but so I got a quick question so exactly right that's why we're here because cmar I don't want to tell our community we have these projects then we come back oh we don't have the money to do it so that's why we're doing that second is um yes your numbers indicate lots of success and all of that but how do I know or this board how are you going to guarantee that we are priority um do you what does your Workforce look like I know that um company construction companies we work right now are always looking to hire so I guess how what does that team look like for us because this board and our community won't be I
093mean you got a lot I I know all the projects you're doing we won't be second fiddle to anybody so how do how do you ensure that or what does our team look like I know what teams I have worked with in the past and place so just if you kind of just talk to me about that a little bit yeah a great question and and reasonable question especially the the one the great thing I'll share out of that 500 million we have 250 million of it that is wrapping up at the end of this year and early next year Athena Day so from our staff experience I think it's a tremendous opportunity that you know we brought Jerry and and Mike here and Mike's working on one of those jobs that finishes up the
094end of this year we have 20 or 30 people that have been working on those two significant building programs that are going to be done uh By the time this project starts and absolutely that team great experience a lot of learning experience from challenging sites multiple sites um I'm absolutely confident our ability to shift and move those team members uh over here from my perspective in terms of being responsible for the the Staffing side of life with us I see absolutely no issue giving you the best team and you wouldn't play second fiddle to anyone I'm going to do a good place for me to go but it's also it's also one of the districts [Music] had a chance on the high school job [Laughter] well I get you guys summarize and we'll be out
095of here by 6 30. you guys slides you said you had some slides to end up I mean really we we wrapped it up you did all right we're good all right yeah all right sounds good thank you very much for the opportunity all right there we go appreciate it thank you foreign [Music] this concludes our meeting for the evening so you'll move to 5.0 adjournment do I have a motion to adjourn special board meeting 1569 so moved motion by Christy second second by Megan all those in favor aye motion passes five zero special board meeting 1569 is adjourned