Professional Profile Resume

Ben W. Holbrook

Cellphone 801-***-****

Senior Project Manager - HVAC, MEP FP

JtecHCM – Oakland, California: January 2018 to April 2023 Consultant for Stanford Children’s Healthcare

While managing the LPCH 2.0 and LPCH 2.5 projects for Harris Company (Superior Air Handling), the LPCH management team requested Ben lead the LPCH “On Boarding” of the MEP FP systems and buy out all the preventative maintenance service contracts for the new hospital expansions. The Rose Award is a quarterly recognition award at LPCH that acknowledges employees who demonstrate exceptional service internally or externally. It is given for outstanding service or consistent behavior that enhances the patient’s experience. Despite not being an LPCH employee, Ben received the Rose Award for his work on-boarding the hospital, and the asset database that The Joint Commission recognized as “Best-In-Class, Ben directly saved LPCH $2.5M by successfully converting an operating room into a Fast-Acting Operating Room (FA/OR) within a shorter timeframe than initially estimated by the mechanical engineer of record. This achievement not only allowed LPCH to keep their promise to the surgeon but also resulted in the acquisition of four FA/ORs instead of just one, as all four ORs were on the same air handling system. Additionally, LPCH received three more FA/ORs that would enhance their surgery revenue 22 months earlier than originally planned. Harris Company (Superior Air Handling) - Ogden, Utah: 2014 thru 2018 Ben Holbrook, a Senior Project Manager at Harris Company was initially hired to manage the mechanical piping team for a major Silicon Valley company's world headquarters building in Cupertino, CA. Two years later Ben was transferred to oversee the troubled Lucile Packard Children's Hospital project (hereafter LPCH) on the Stanford University campus. Ben's value was evident when he took over the LPCH and provided a thorough report highlighting various issues, including inadequate change order scopes, and pricing, the general contractors’ deviations from the schedule, that was heading for a projected loss of approximately $2.5 million. Despite facing initial resistance, Ben successfully resolved the change order issues and built a strong working relationship with the owner's representative, Ron Marshall. Their collaboration resulted in a much better relationship and a profitable job.

F.W. Spencer & Son, Inc. - Brisbane, California: 2007 thru 2014 Ben was hired by F.W. Spencer & Son, Inc. to manage the John Muir Medical Center (JMMC) project from start to finish, which included a large new hospital with a standalone central energy plant building. During the construction phase of the project, there were no major issues. However, during the end of the start-up and commissioning phase of the project, there were random failures of heating hot water (HHW) flex hoses that were bursting throughout the hospital, which threatened the grand opening. Ben took prompt action by immediately making several phone calls to alert the FWS CEO, his wife, the CEO of Metraflex (the flex hose manufacturing company that produced the original hoses), and a local hotel to secure sleeping accommodations. The CEO of the flex manufacturing company, Metraflex, acted and flew to San Francisco to collaborate with Ben at the hospital. Ben and the Metraflex CEO, along with their competitors, jumped in to help procure materials, assemble, and ship over 1,700 new replacement flex hoses within three weeks. The union and their workers joined in to replace all the flex hoses that were overnighted every day until all 1,700+ were replaced. The flex failure was attributed to incorrect pipe dope that was used during assembly. With the amazing coordination between Metraflex and their competitors, the piping union, the general contractor, and FWS, all 1,700+ flexes were replaced within four weeks, which enabled JMMC to open on time. In appreciation, JMMC hosted a “Thank You Party” for all those who helped replace the defective flex hoses.

Ben went on to take over and run many other hospital and other projects for FWS. Ben went on to manage Highland Hospital in Oakland, Regional Medical Center in San Jose, and help with Kaiser Oakland. Time Off from the Mechanical Contracting Industry: 2001 thru 2007 During the years 2001-2007, Ben took time off from the mechanical contracting industry due to personal reasons. His father had been diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor called Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM). Despite the initial prognosis of only six weeks to live, Ben's father lived longer, but his condition took a toll on Ben and his extended family emotionally. During this time, Ben and his wife, a Director of Nursing, identified frustrations with insurance companies reducing payments and reimbursements to her facility, which led them to establish a healthcare billing company. They hired an experienced insurance biller and worked with doctors to handle their billing. Ben familiarized himself with medical billing and collaborated with a programmer to develop a computer program. The program aimed to monitor healthcare insurance payments and identify discrepancies where insurance companies deviated from the contracted amounts. Through a rebilling process, they aimed to reclaim the doctors' unpaid reimbursements. The medical billing company generated revenue from traditional medical billing as well as rebilling "Patient Encounter" transactions that were not paid according to the doctors' insurance contracts.

Comfort Systems USA – Salt Lake City, Utah: 1998 thru 2001 Hired to start the new non-union mechanical group for Comfort Systems USA, in Salt Lake City. Directly accountable for all aspects of the group including marketing, sales, estimating, engineering, sheetmetal team, piping / plumbing team, and controls team.

Ben started this Salt Lake office similarly to how he set up the Colorado Springs office he started for Holbrook Company and immediately began the sales process, working with local developers, general contractors who did design/build projects, and government contractors who did 8(a) set-aside type work, including MBE and WBE projects. As the mechanical group started to grow, we needed to hire more experienced workers who could install the more complex systems. These workers were hard to find, which started a rift between the residential and mechanical departments. This rift resulted in Ben leaving to take a break from the mechanical contracting industry and spend time with his dad as he battled GBM.

Cal-Air, Inc. - Whittier, California: 1992 thru 1998 Ben worked for Cal-Air, Inc. and held various positions including Vice President in the Silicon Valley office, Operations Manager in the same office, Project Manager for the Composite Paint Facility at Lockheed Skunk Works, and Sales Engineer in Whittier, California. He started as a sales engineer but was later asked to manage the Lockheed project due to his aerospace and large project experience. Towards the end of the project, he was promoted to Operations Manager and transferred to Silicon Valley to oversee the construction division, which handled around 600 projects per year. The construction and service divisions were merged, and Ben was promoted to Vice President, also becoming part of Cal-Air's Executive Committee.

Ben received the 20 Year Service Diamond Ring and was recognized by the Cal-Air CEO for achieving more in six years than any other team in the company's history.

University Mechanical & Engineering Contractors - San Diego, California:1986 thru 1992 In 1986, Ben decided to leave Holbrook Company to pursue large projects in big cities. He sent his resume to University Mechanical & Engineering Company (UMEC) in San Diego, California and was hired within 10 minutes into his interview. He chose to work at the Los Angeles office, as it was the office that wasn't meeting expectations. Ben was originally hired as a Design / Build Sales Engineer to sell and manage his own projects for UMECs’ Los Angeles office. While he was there, the Los Angeles office more than doubled their revenue and became the “Flag Ship” office of UMEC. When UMEC purchased Hansen Mechanical, Ben was transferred to oversee and grow the business in San Bernardino County. Later UMEC offered to promote Ben to VP and move him to the San Francisco Bay Area to take over E.H. Morrell Company. Ben turned down the offer once he completed his own due diligence by calling E.H. Morrell’s customers to find out what was going on. Ben recommended UMEC to shut down E.H. Morrell or absorb it into UMEC’s bay area office. Two years later, after losing even more money, E.H. Morrell was absorbed into the UMEC bay area office. Holbrook Company, Inc. - Kaysville, Utah: 1976 thru 1986 Ben worked at Holbrook Company, Inc. from 1976 to 1986, initially as the Colorado Branch Manager in Colorado Springs and later as a Utah-based Design/Build Sales Engineer. He also worked in the Engineering Department, Field Installation, and Sheetmetal Shop Fabrication & Clean Up. In 1977, he was promoted to a Design/Build Sales Engineer and successfully met a large sales quota. In 1982, he was asked to open a new Design/Build Branch Office in Colorado, which became the most successful among the company's offices. US Government Project Experience:

Ben has been involved with several Government Projects since he became a Project Manager, including aerospace type projects, set aside type projects, and a twin home construction project at Hill Air Force Base. Some of the specific projects he was involved in are the Composite Paint Facility and B1 Bomber Hangar at Skunk Works in Palmdale, CA, Satellite Testing Facilities at Rockwell in Southern California, Component Assembly Facilities for the F-117 in Southern California, a Fire Station Update Project and a new central energy plant for the Chemical Testing Laboratory at the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, and Multiple Building Update Projects at both Dugway Proving Ground in Utah and Pueblo Chemical Depot in Pueblo, Colorado.

Education:

Ben’s education includes Pre-Engineering from Weber State College in Ogden, Utah, as well as Mechanical Engineering Studies from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah. He underwent training programs in Personal Leadership, Creative Selling, Total Quality Management, and Sales Presentations at UC Hayward in Hayward, CA. Ben's father used to work on non-holiday Saturday mornings to catch up and prepare proposals. Ben would often assist him, which enabled him to learn how to do system design and system layouts. Together they would calculate building loads, size, and select equipment, layout and route the systems as needed for each proposal. Ben also learned how to take off each different system materials and how to cost and apply labor productivity factors as necessary to estimate labor hours and costs for all the systems. Ben would also write rough draft proposals for the projects they worked on. In high school, Ben joined the engineering department and performed load calculations, system layouts, do take off, estimate project costs, put together Title 24 Reports, created submittals. He also went out into the field for air balancing work to generate the air balance reports.

Ben plans to complete a mechanical engineering degree when he and his family move to Colorado and finish his education at the University of Colorado - Colorado Springs. Business is booming, and he was already earning over twice as much as a graduate mechanical engineer.

Other Information:

Ben is a member of the Syracuse City Emergency Preparedness Committee. He holds a California C4 piping license and has held mechanical contractor licenses for Denver, Colorado Springs, and Pueblo, Colorado. In his previous roles, he had two engineering departments and two mechanical service departments as direct reports. Additionally, he was one of the founding members of the Utah Chapter of NEBB.

Outside of his professional life, Ben has a range of interests, including University of Utah Football, scuba diving (having explored 34 Caribbean Islands including a few of the Hawaii islands), computer programming, and fly fishing. He is married to his high school sweetheart, has four children, and several grandchildren.