Boyd Jones’ focus on continuous improvement isn’t limited to the growth of our own people. It extends to our clients and subcontractor partners, as well, as we all strive for success on projects.
Through our recently completed project for Wausa Public Schools, renovations and additions will help the Knox County school district improve the quality of education for students and, in turn, will hopefully lead to improved retention of young people. And thanks to a team effort to ensure local subcontractors were able to contribute to the project, business is able to stay in the district.
Kelly Clausen was plenty familiar with large pours, even before the company he owns with his brother submitted a successful bid last year for concrete work on the Wausa school project. In fact, Wausa-based Clausen Concrete regularly pours footings, foundations, and floors for agriculture-related projects like machine shops that are even larger than the footprint of the new school building in Wausa.
But the complexity of the Boyd Jones-led Wausa school project presented a new challenge for Clausen.
“For our ag-based projects, we often get a one- or a two-page blueprint, talk to the superintendent or general contractor, and then we end up being our own engineers for the projects, more or less. When I saw this 60-to-70-page print come through for the school project, I wanted to do it, but I was a little nervous I’d miss something in the bidding stages and then be stuck covering the costs,” Clausen said.
The Wausa alum actually decided not to bid the project at first—until Boyd Jones Project Manager Brian Dembowski reached out with an offer to help ensure that his numbers were solid and that he wouldn’t be left holding the bag for something he missed.
“I could tell he knew enough to do the work,” Dembowski said. “So I got together with him and did a takeoff as if it was us that would do the concrete, and that gave us a number we knew was accurate and could use to be sure that when he bid, he’d have the right number. I was never worried that he couldn’t do the job.”
The strategy paid off. Clausen and his five-man crew (four of whom graduated Wausa Public Schools) worked closely with Dembowski and Superintendent Pedro Perez on a project that doesn’t come around very often in a town like Wausa—and to great success. This fall, students in the Knox County town of about 600 people will resume classes in new and renovated classroom spaces that include a new commons area and a new media center and library.
“We knew going into it that we were capable of doing it, but we got to work closely with Pedro and Brian to make sure we had forms in the right place and had the right elevations,” Clausen said. “These guys talking us through things and double-checking was the reason we were successful.”
Project highlights include the discovery of a time capsule enclosed within the cornerstone of the original 1913 building that was demolished. District stakeholders opened, inspected, and then re-sealed the capsule with its original contents; they also added new objects that will become artifacts unto themselves in time.
Those artifacts and the experiences of local subcontractors like Clausen serve as reminders of the strength and pride that make Wausa—and other small-but-mighty communities—unique places to live and grow.
Another highlight of the project was the involvement of a long-time local subcontractor who was a member of the first Wausa preschool class that received instruction in a then-new preschool addition in the 1960s. That man approached Clausen to be sure he could be involved in the final pour inside the building. Clausen gladly obliged.
“This was a good project to work on. It was fun to be part of it, and to watch the demo of the old building and reminisce a bit about things we did in those classrooms as it was being torn down,” Clausen said. “It was definitely a trip down memory lane.”
