WEBVTT

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Good afternoon and welcome to

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the thirteenth annual Schnabel Engineering lecture.

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My name is George Filz, and I serve as the Director of

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Virginia Tech Center for

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Geotechnical Practice and Research.

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I'd like to begin by recognizing Allen Cadden.

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He will be introducing today's speaker.

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Allen is a Principal Engineer, and the Director of

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Strategic Development

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for Schnabel Engineering Associates.

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Allen Cadden is a great friend of

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the Civil Engineering Department

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in general and the Geo-Tech program in particular.

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He sponsors many activities,

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including Schnabel's membership in our center;

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he is sponsoring this event

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and many other things including the food and

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the alcohol which I invite you

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all join after the presentation.

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We're grateful for all things that Allen

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does to support our program,

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so please join me now in

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thanking Allen.

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Please go ahead to introduce yourself. [APPLAUSE]

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Good afternoon everybody.

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It's Election Day.

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Hope everybody took the opportunity

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to exercise their right.

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I trust everybody who laughed about it was a good thing.

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I just want to mention that and make sure we're

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aware of that before I [NOISE] dive

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into the second most important event for the day,

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introduction of Schnabel's lecturer.

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Thank you, Dr. Filz [inaudible] .

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Sandy, you're here somewhere?

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Thank you very much for helping organize

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this, and Taylor for organizing dinner last night.

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We really appreciate that.

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Some of you might know a little bit about Schnabel.

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Schnabel has been around for over 60 years.

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We're 60 years young,

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I like to say or maybe I'm

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60 years old, I don't know which one it is,

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but we're getting there.

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We have about 20 offices,

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mostly on the East Coast,

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but we work on projects across the country overall.

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They're a little bit unique as

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a geotechnical firm and a civil engineering firm,

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we've actually worked and done 100 countries.

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I've worked in other countries over

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the last decade or so.

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Over the 60 years, we've grown quite a

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bit and changed a little bit the breadth of our services.

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We've moved from digital.

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We are solely geotechnical engineering firm,

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just a little geosciences,

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dam engineering, underground engineering and

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house have become a significant part of our work.

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Our vision is to improve the lives

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by engineering solutions and managing risk,

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complex, and destructive challenges.

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Civil engineering is

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an exciting business to be in these days.

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I don't think we're ever going to run out of

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interesting challenges and everyday seems to be a new

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one from the near failure of Oroville dam last year to some of

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the innovative transportation

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solutions that we're hearing

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about from the boring company in [inaudible] ,

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I think we got a lot in

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store for us here in the future.

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With these exciting problems comes

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the different non-engineering challenges

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that you would likely face in your career.

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We host this lecture each year to bring

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you different based off

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of our profession outside of

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the academic halls that regularly hear.

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Although the nice thing is it's very practical education.

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You will see clear to appreciate that.

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These lectures, many of them have been

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recorded and are available in your library.

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But they present different aspects

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of a career in civil engineering.

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Take this

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[LAUGHTER]

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[inaudible].

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they typically share their stories with

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their careers and they also do a little bit

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of pontificating and stuff,

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what you might see as your careers begin.

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Things have changed so much in my career,

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I don't even want to venture to

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guess but you're going to see throughout here

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so it's a good basis to start from right now.

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Today we're actually bringing you a friend of

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mine and of Schnabel engineer, Mr. Brian Vella.

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Mr Vella has support Schnabel Engineering over

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the years and at one time

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served on our board of directors.

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For over 30 years,

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Mr. Vella has focused his practice on

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heavy in commercial construction matters.

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He has dealt with

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contract formation interpretation issues,

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as well as resolution of disputes

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with litigation, arbitration mediation.

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He gravitated to contractors, engineers,

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and owners throughout all phases

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of construction processes,

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on projects across the United States and oversees.

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Issues that included deffective specifications,

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different site conditions with

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accelerated delays, inefficiency plagues.

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Mr Vella has written

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numerous articles and book chapters and

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is a frequent speaker of construction related topics.

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Just as in law practice he's

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an adjunct member at

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the University of Virginia School of Law.

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He is a member of the bar in the Commonwealth of Virginia

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and in the District of Columbia,

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he served as members of the Board of Governors,

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for the construction of law section

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in Virginia State Bar.

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As an active member of

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the Association General Contractors of America

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and the [inaudible] amongst other organizations.

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We are honored that Mr. Vella joins our past

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twelve lecturers here at Virginia Tech.

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Today is the topic

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subtitled'' How engineering put

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my kids through college''.

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I wish it could be the other way around,

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however, it's nice to know that we're helping out.

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Thank you and welcome Mr. Vella [APPLAUSE]

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I did all my electronic gears, squared away here.

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Thank you Allen and it really

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is a privilege for me to be here today.

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I'm having a little fun with the first slide.

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In terms of sometimes there

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can be a little bit of tension

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between the engineering community,

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and the legal community.

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We're going to explore some of those reasons

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today and talk about some of the projects that

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I've had the privilege to be involved with.

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Some of which involve folks that are in this room.

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Despite the fact that there are sometimes some tensions,

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I've often been told that you need to start

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off of talk like this with a little bit of humor.

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Many of you are getting ready to graduate.

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You're going to be engineers, and

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the one thing you need to

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know to be a successful engineer,

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at least at the start of your career,

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is a good lawyer joke.

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So I'm going to tell you the oldest lawyer joke I

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know, maybe new to a lot of you, but here it goes.

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At the end of a long and distinguished career,

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a lawyer passes away, and he gets to

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the pearly gates and

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finds that there's been a bit of a mix up.

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His name's not on the list and so they say we're sorry,

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but you're misdirected and they send them to hell.

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He gets to hell, and he finds out the conditions

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there are just hellish.

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It's very unpleasant, but he does what engineers do.

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He looks around, assesses

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the situation, and he gets to work.

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Soon enough, he's got the air conditioning

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up and running, and he's working on

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a chilled water system.

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They look down from heaven and think,

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"Oh no, we've made a mistake here.

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We can go back to the books."

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They get it all squared away,

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and God speaks down and He says,

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"Send up my engineer.

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There's been a mistake. We've got it reconciled,

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send him up", and the devil says to God "Oh,

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no, we like the engineer.

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He's a good hand, and we're making

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a lot of progress here.

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I think we're going to keep him".

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God's a little bit angry at this point.

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He says," Listen, I'm not going to

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tell you again, you send him up,

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or I'm going to sue",

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and the devil just laughs, he says to God,

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"Right and where are you going to find a lawyer?"

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[LAUGHTER] Hear that when

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I've often told my friends in Schnabel

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who I'm privileged to have

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both as friends and as clients,

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that there's nothing I like better than lawyer jokes,

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particularly when I'm on the clock.

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If you know of any other lawyer joke send them to Allen,

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send them to Walt, and the next time

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that we get together for a client meeting,

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we'll spend the first hour or so telling lawyer jokes.

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The truth is I'm a little bit envious of engineers.

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You guys take on challenges, and you

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accomplish things that a layman like

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me or lawyers that are not trained in

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hard sciences can't even imagine how

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you work your way around these things

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many times. You do great things, and

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it's a tribute to the engineering community that we

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enjoy the standards that we do in

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this country and the luxuries that we have.

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My esteem for engineers is probably

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best summed up by the fact that my daughter's dating one,

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he'll be graduating from Texas A&M in

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a couple of weeks with a degree in engineering,

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and so good enough for my daughter, good enough for me.

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Enough about me. The question is,

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as part of this lecture is,

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so where is it that your world intersects with my world?

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How can it be that people who do

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things and build things have

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a relatively constant opportunity

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to come in contact with the legal community.

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I want to explore some of those things today.

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I had to find my clicker here for slides.

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How many of you have had

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some involvement in the construction industry in

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some form or fashion? Lots of folks.

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The first slide I want to show

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you is probably self-evident.

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Construction is contracting.

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It's risky business, and there are risks

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that are somewhat more obvious ones.

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You have worker safety, potential fires, floods,

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lots of things that can impact

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a construction project once it's underway,

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that can be very costly and very difficult to deal with.

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Those things are typically

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dealt with though, through insurance.

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A contractor or an owner carries

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insurance policies that allow

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these kinds of risk, generally,

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to be dealt with in ways that

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don't necessarily require litigation,

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or going to court, or arbitration.

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The kinds of projects that I tend to be involved

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with are those where

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there's a dispute between the parties,

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and they tend to be larger complex projects.

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This is the old World Trade Center.

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But you can see the number of cranes that are involved,

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the logistics of getting materials,

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people in and out.

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This is the new World Trade Center

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right in the middle of New York.

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You can see it's going up with

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all sorts of activity around it.

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This is a channel project.

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This is why I say I'm envious of engineers.

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If anybody could ever explain to me how you make

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a tunnel under the English Channel,

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to me, it's just awesome stuff,

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but it's a huge undertaking,

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and when even small things get off track,

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the dollars involved can be astronomical.

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A tunnel boring machine,

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which is used on this project,

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those pieces of equipment are so

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incredibly expensive that any idle time at

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all can quickly amount

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to hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars.

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This is a project in which I did work.

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It was probably two and a half years.

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This is the Jamestown-Verrazzano bridge

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across Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island.

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It had a lot of neat features to it.

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One was this heavy lift system that would

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take precast spans and lift them into place.

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But when you're dealing with

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barge mounted cranes and marine equipment, again,

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the cost on a daily basis to

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a contractor is hard to get your arms around.

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So if there's any idle time,

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there is anything that delays a project like

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this for any period of time at all,

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it's going to cost

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somebody a significant amount of money.

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Generally, those kinds of things

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are not covered by insurance.

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You have to look to your contract to see how the contract

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assigns the risk of delays and changes to the work,

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and that's generally where I get involved.

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The courts have recognized that on projects like this,

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except in the middle of a battlefield,

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nowhere must men coordinate the movement of

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other men and materials in the midst of

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such chaos and with such limited certainty of

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present facts and future occurrences

00:13:09.490 --> 00:13:12.025
as in a huge construction project.

00:13:12.025 --> 00:13:13.555
This judge got it.

00:13:13.555 --> 00:13:17.770
This judge understood the complexities of

00:13:17.770 --> 00:13:20.140
scheduling and the logistics and

00:13:20.140 --> 00:13:23.050
the costs associated with a large construction project.

00:13:23.050 --> 00:13:26.785
I find that this judge is very much the exception.

00:13:26.785 --> 00:13:31.120
Many times we are in court with judges who have had

00:13:31.120 --> 00:13:33.490
no more exposure to

00:13:33.490 --> 00:13:35.695
a large construction project

00:13:35.695 --> 00:13:38.200
than any other person off the street.

00:13:38.200 --> 00:13:41.650
They may be well-versed

00:13:41.650 --> 00:13:45.490
in divorce cases or traffic cases,

00:13:45.490 --> 00:13:49.180
or other kinds of disputes they hear on a daily basis,

00:13:49.180 --> 00:13:52.270
but when they're confronted with a construction dispute,

00:13:52.270 --> 00:13:54.940
they're very often out of their element.

00:13:54.940 --> 00:13:58.060
But in this case, the judge understood it.

00:13:58.060 --> 00:14:00.370
Here's a good example of, again,

00:14:00.370 --> 00:14:01.030
we're going back to

00:14:01.030 --> 00:14:03.640
the reconstruction of the World Trade Center.

00:14:03.640 --> 00:14:06.865
You can see this is like a military operation.

00:14:06.865 --> 00:14:09.490
You've got equipment, you've got people.

00:14:09.490 --> 00:14:11.750
On this project, you probably have

00:14:11.750 --> 00:14:16.095
500-600 craft labor people out there,

00:14:16.095 --> 00:14:18.750
not to mention the need to bring in steel,

00:14:18.750 --> 00:14:20.985
concrete, haul off the rubble.

00:14:20.985 --> 00:14:23.070
All of that has to be

00:14:23.070 --> 00:14:26.050
coordinated while you're not impeding traffic

00:14:26.050 --> 00:14:30.235
and otherwise inconveniencing the rest of

00:14:30.235 --> 00:14:34.050
the operation and the commercial world

00:14:34.050 --> 00:14:35.610
that's happening right around us.

00:14:35.610 --> 00:14:37.410
You can see there are great number of

00:14:37.410 --> 00:14:39.390
buildings that are still functioning,

00:14:39.390 --> 00:14:40.980
and people have to get in to work each day

00:14:40.980 --> 00:14:43.320
and carry on their lives.

00:14:43.320 --> 00:14:47.820
This is the kind of project in which I have

00:14:47.820 --> 00:14:49.710
gotten involved and had

00:14:49.710 --> 00:14:54.185
a 30-year career on behalf of contractors,

00:14:54.185 --> 00:14:58.180
helping them prosecute claims.

00:14:58.180 --> 00:14:59.605
What that means is,

00:14:59.605 --> 00:15:01.525
we will be asked to come in,

00:15:01.525 --> 00:15:04.060
most contractors have a job cost report

00:15:04.060 --> 00:15:06.265
of some type, they can tell,

00:15:06.265 --> 00:15:08.845
we're 30 percent into this project

00:15:08.845 --> 00:15:10.300
and we're already burned

00:15:10.300 --> 00:15:12.160
through 50 percent of our budget.

00:15:12.160 --> 00:15:16.645
So we're $20 million under water already,

00:15:16.645 --> 00:15:18.280
and there is no sign

00:15:18.280 --> 00:15:19.450
that this is going to get any better.

00:15:19.450 --> 00:15:23.050
We're behind schedule, and the question is, why?

00:15:23.050 --> 00:15:24.910
Why is that happening?

00:15:24.910 --> 00:15:26.575
Is that happening as a result

00:15:26.575 --> 00:15:29.950
of something for which the contractor is responsible,

00:15:29.950 --> 00:15:31.210
or something for which

00:15:31.210 --> 00:15:34.675
the owner and/or an agent of the owner?

00:15:34.675 --> 00:15:38.920
In many cases, that other party,

00:15:38.920 --> 00:15:40.405
and we're going to talk about, is

00:15:40.405 --> 00:15:42.850
the engineer, the architect.

00:15:42.850 --> 00:15:46.510
If you take nothing else away from this,

00:15:46.510 --> 00:15:48.820
understand that change is equal dollars.

00:15:48.820 --> 00:15:50.770
If a contractor starts

00:15:50.770 --> 00:15:54.430
off with his plan, and it's unimpeded,

00:15:54.430 --> 00:15:57.385
and it goes according to schedule,

00:15:57.385 --> 00:15:58.690
and everything goes great,

00:15:58.690 --> 00:16:02.470
then they make a profit and everybody is happy,

00:16:02.470 --> 00:16:04.690
and I never see those cases.

00:16:04.690 --> 00:16:06.835
Those are the happy ones.

00:16:06.835 --> 00:16:08.470
The ones that I see are the ones

00:16:08.470 --> 00:16:09.940
that don't go according to plan,

00:16:09.940 --> 00:16:11.665
they don't go according to schedule,

00:16:11.665 --> 00:16:13.555
and there are changes.

00:16:13.555 --> 00:16:20.620
Changes can be additional work, doing work differently,

00:16:20.620 --> 00:16:22.645
doing work out of sequence,

00:16:22.645 --> 00:16:26.500
taking longer to get work done because you're waiting for

00:16:26.500 --> 00:16:28.495
an answer to a design problem

00:16:28.495 --> 00:16:30.580
that's come up during construction.

00:16:30.580 --> 00:16:32.140
But in any event,

00:16:32.140 --> 00:16:34.180
change is equal dollars.

00:16:34.180 --> 00:16:37.480
Change is relative to what?

00:16:37.480 --> 00:16:39.760
For those of you who had

00:16:39.760 --> 00:16:43.240
some involvement with construction contracting,

00:16:43.240 --> 00:16:45.850
this is the 101 level diagram

00:16:45.850 --> 00:16:48.610
for explaining who the parties are generally,

00:16:48.610 --> 00:16:51.475
but at the top of the pyramid you have the owner.

00:16:51.475 --> 00:16:55.195
The owner decides that they want something,

00:16:55.195 --> 00:16:57.460
they want a building,

00:16:57.460 --> 00:16:59.260
they want a bridge, they want an airport,

00:16:59.260 --> 00:17:01.165
they want a dam, whatever.

00:17:01.165 --> 00:17:04.165
The owner is the one who sets the criteria,

00:17:04.165 --> 00:17:06.160
what is it that they want,

00:17:06.160 --> 00:17:08.680
and when they decide what it is they want,

00:17:08.680 --> 00:17:12.250
they then go to the architect engineer.

00:17:12.250 --> 00:17:14.980
What this chart is poor in

00:17:14.980 --> 00:17:17.980
showing is that below the architect engineer,

00:17:17.980 --> 00:17:21.085
just like below the contractor, you have subcontractors,

00:17:21.085 --> 00:17:23.095
below the architect and engineer,

00:17:23.095 --> 00:17:26.755
are many sub-consultants.

00:17:26.755 --> 00:17:28.450
You may have a geotechnical consultant,

00:17:28.450 --> 00:17:30.250
you may have a structural engineer,

00:17:30.250 --> 00:17:32.380
you may have a MEP engineer,

00:17:32.380 --> 00:17:36.160
but all of those engineering entities

00:17:36.160 --> 00:17:41.005
work with the architect to meet the owner's objectives,

00:17:41.005 --> 00:17:44.200
and then they pass their work product up to

00:17:44.200 --> 00:17:47.800
the architect who's responsible to coordinate it,

00:17:47.800 --> 00:17:50.589
makes sure it all fits together, works together,

00:17:50.589 --> 00:17:52.750
it's compatible, and it gives

00:17:52.750 --> 00:17:55.750
the owner what the owner wants.

00:17:55.750 --> 00:18:01.630
The path goes from the architect up to the owner.

00:18:01.630 --> 00:18:03.850
Now the owner takes that package,

00:18:03.850 --> 00:18:06.925
that design package, plans,

00:18:06.925 --> 00:18:11.350
specifications, and typically, a geotechnical report,

00:18:11.350 --> 00:18:14.275
and puts them out to bid.

00:18:14.275 --> 00:18:16.000
On a typical project,

00:18:16.000 --> 00:18:18.700
sometimes they negotiate with a particular contractor,

00:18:18.700 --> 00:18:21.700
but let's just say it's a typical circumstance

00:18:21.700 --> 00:18:24.894
where the owner now takes the design package,

00:18:24.894 --> 00:18:26.365
puts it out to bid,

00:18:26.365 --> 00:18:28.445
gives it to the general contractor,

00:18:28.445 --> 00:18:30.030
and the general contractor and

00:18:30.030 --> 00:18:32.630
the owner come to an agreement.

00:18:32.630 --> 00:18:34.120
They come to an agreement on

00:18:34.120 --> 00:18:37.360
price, and they come to an agreement on the schedule.

00:18:37.360 --> 00:18:38.800
The contractor says, "Look,

00:18:38.800 --> 00:18:40.495
I can do this project for you.

00:18:40.495 --> 00:18:44.155
It's $35 million, it's two and a half years"

00:18:44.155 --> 00:18:45.880
They sign off on the contract,

00:18:45.880 --> 00:18:47.170
and neither one of them really pays

00:18:47.170 --> 00:18:50.365
too much attention to all the other terms and conditions.

00:18:50.365 --> 00:18:53.290
For the lawyer, the price

00:18:53.290 --> 00:18:56.245
and the schedule are almost irrelevant.

00:18:56.245 --> 00:18:58.285
Those are commercial terms.

00:18:58.285 --> 00:19:00.940
What I look at when I look at a contract is

00:19:00.940 --> 00:19:06.040
how does the contract allocate risks between the parties?

00:19:06.040 --> 00:19:10.405
Does the contract have a different site condition clause?

00:19:10.405 --> 00:19:13.270
Does the contract have a changes provision?

00:19:13.270 --> 00:19:15.460
Does the contract say that there's

00:19:15.460 --> 00:19:19.420
an indemnity requirement that if one party is negligent,

00:19:19.420 --> 00:19:21.205
that they're going to indemnify the other?

00:19:21.205 --> 00:19:24.730
All of those contract provisions take the risk of

00:19:24.730 --> 00:19:26.800
a large construction project in attempt

00:19:26.800 --> 00:19:29.814
to assign risk to different parties.

00:19:29.814 --> 00:19:31.750
Now in practice, each of

00:19:31.750 --> 00:19:33.820
those parties will do their level best to

00:19:33.820 --> 00:19:37.870
avoid responsibility when a problem occurs.

00:19:37.870 --> 00:19:41.530
So despite what may be written in the contract,

00:19:41.530 --> 00:19:43.330
how a contract is read and

00:19:43.330 --> 00:19:48.250
interpreted results in people like me getting involved.

00:19:48.250 --> 00:19:50.440
On a large project,

00:19:50.440 --> 00:19:53.140
if there's a conflict with the design documents,

00:19:53.140 --> 00:19:56.080
and so a duct bank runs right into

00:19:56.080 --> 00:19:59.485
the same spot where a concrete pile is,

00:19:59.485 --> 00:20:04.480
and there's no coordination

00:20:04.480 --> 00:20:05.875
that's going to overcome that.

00:20:05.875 --> 00:20:09.640
Somebody with an engineering degree is got to sit down,

00:20:09.640 --> 00:20:12.070
figure out how to reconcile that conflict,

00:20:12.070 --> 00:20:15.280
and the process of doing that takes a matter of weeks,

00:20:15.280 --> 00:20:17.095
and then you have to reorder material,

00:20:17.095 --> 00:20:18.880
and all of that ends up delaying

00:20:18.880 --> 00:20:21.820
the schedule for some period of time.

00:20:21.820 --> 00:20:24.415
The contractor is going to say to the owner,

00:20:24.415 --> 00:20:26.305
"You owe me money for that.

00:20:26.305 --> 00:20:29.590
These plans and specifications are not my responsibility,

00:20:29.590 --> 00:20:31.405
you gave them to me."

00:20:31.405 --> 00:20:33.955
The owner is going to say, "Well,

00:20:33.955 --> 00:20:37.210
the contract says that the architect gets

00:20:37.210 --> 00:20:38.590
to make the first pass at whether

00:20:38.590 --> 00:20:40.240
or not this is a change or not,

00:20:40.240 --> 00:20:41.815
so let's ask the architect,"

00:20:41.815 --> 00:20:44.215
and the architect looks at it and says,

00:20:44.215 --> 00:20:47.530
"This contractor is just trying

00:20:47.530 --> 00:20:50.875
to get a change order to get additional money.

00:20:50.875 --> 00:20:54.025
We think that this was just a pure coordination issue,

00:20:54.025 --> 00:20:56.530
and so the responsibility's on the contractor."

00:20:56.530 --> 00:21:00.550
So you have this loggerheads about how to

00:21:00.550 --> 00:21:02.530
deal with a problem that has to be dealt

00:21:02.530 --> 00:21:05.515
with if this project is going to be delivered.

00:21:05.515 --> 00:21:11.890
Many times, the parties can work it out.

00:21:11.890 --> 00:21:14.800
In fact, the great majority of times parties work it out,

00:21:14.800 --> 00:21:16.585
but sometimes they don't,

00:21:16.585 --> 00:21:19.040
and when they don't,

00:21:21.060 --> 00:21:24.145
many of you probably don't remember Mike Tyson.

00:21:24.145 --> 00:21:29.230
He was a boxer who was fairly notorious guy,

00:21:29.230 --> 00:21:31.600
he was a bad guy.

00:21:31.600 --> 00:21:33.700
You've to be a bad guy to have

00:21:33.700 --> 00:21:35.530
a tattoo like that on your face.

00:21:35.530 --> 00:21:37.000
But he has a great quote,

00:21:37.000 --> 00:21:38.080
that everyone has a plan

00:21:38.080 --> 00:21:39.805
until they get punched in the mouth.

00:21:39.805 --> 00:21:42.385
The contractor has a plan,

00:21:42.385 --> 00:21:44.410
he's got a scheduling, he's got it all figured out.

00:21:44.410 --> 00:21:47.410
He's got his equipment lined up, material ordered,

00:21:47.410 --> 00:21:48.895
everything's ready to go,

00:21:48.895 --> 00:21:50.440
and then he gets punched in the mouth,

00:21:50.440 --> 00:21:54.430
something happens that was unexpected.

00:21:54.430 --> 00:21:56.410
This is another little cartoon that I've

00:21:56.410 --> 00:22:00.220
always found interesting [LAUGHTER].

00:22:00.220 --> 00:22:01.900
You got your plans,

00:22:01.900 --> 00:22:04.345
and you think you're doing the right thing,

00:22:04.345 --> 00:22:05.800
but it turns out that that's

00:22:05.800 --> 00:22:07.570
not what the owner wanted at all.

00:22:07.570 --> 00:22:09.790
He wants the moat on the outside of the wall,

00:22:09.790 --> 00:22:12.100
not on the inside of the wall.

00:22:12.100 --> 00:22:15.610
Those are the kinds of conflicts that obviously,

00:22:15.610 --> 00:22:18.130
this is a cartoon version,

00:22:18.130 --> 00:22:21.310
but it's not far off reality sometimes.

00:22:21.310 --> 00:22:23.620
You can get design documents that

00:22:23.620 --> 00:22:26.200
the contractor is working

00:22:26.200 --> 00:22:28.870
to build and building in accordance with the plans,

00:22:28.870 --> 00:22:30.745
and that's really not what the owner wants.

00:22:30.745 --> 00:22:32.380
The owner now comes in and says,

00:22:32.380 --> 00:22:35.125
"I'm going to direct you to do additional work."

00:22:35.125 --> 00:22:36.670
It's going to cost more,

00:22:36.670 --> 00:22:38.680
it's going to take longer on the schedule,

00:22:38.680 --> 00:22:40.615
and who's going to be responsible for that?

00:22:40.615 --> 00:22:43.915
Well, let the lawyer sort it out.

00:22:43.915 --> 00:22:47.185
When parties can't figure it out themselves,

00:22:47.185 --> 00:22:49.299
they turn to the court system,

00:22:49.299 --> 00:22:51.550
they turn to the Lady Justice

00:22:51.550 --> 00:22:54.520
to go out and hire lawyers on both sides who are

00:22:54.520 --> 00:22:57.460
going to sit with

00:22:57.460 --> 00:23:01.600
their clients and try and sort out contractually,

00:23:01.600 --> 00:23:05.770
factually, legally, who is responsible

00:23:05.770 --> 00:23:07.840
for changes on a project that

00:23:07.840 --> 00:23:10.885
has cost sometimes tens of millions.

00:23:10.885 --> 00:23:12.850
The largest matter that

00:23:12.850 --> 00:23:14.380
I've personally been involved with

00:23:14.380 --> 00:23:18.220
was $130 million problem on

00:23:18.220 --> 00:23:20.710
a project to transit project in New Jersey that

00:23:20.710 --> 00:23:25.180
had literally hundreds of issues to try and sort out.

00:23:25.180 --> 00:23:27.055
There wasn't one single thing,

00:23:27.055 --> 00:23:29.680
it was 103 issues at

00:23:29.680 --> 00:23:32.530
the end of that project that we had to try and go to

00:23:32.530 --> 00:23:35.290
a judge who didn't know anything

00:23:35.290 --> 00:23:39.320
about construction to get resolution on.

00:23:39.600 --> 00:23:43.090
I'm not going to tell you that the court system is

00:23:43.090 --> 00:23:46.645
necessarily the best forum to get things resolved,

00:23:46.645 --> 00:23:48.940
but in our system of justice,

00:23:48.940 --> 00:23:52.735
that's where you go when you have a contract dispute.

00:23:52.735 --> 00:23:57.590
Again, back to this little diagram.

00:23:57.590 --> 00:23:59.940
The courts have assigned

00:23:59.940 --> 00:24:01.470
different responsibilities to

00:24:01.470 --> 00:24:04.755
different players in this play.

00:24:04.755 --> 00:24:10.280
The owner, as we talked about before,

00:24:10.280 --> 00:24:13.570
first goes to the architect and commissions

00:24:13.570 --> 00:24:15.160
a set of plans and specifications

00:24:15.160 --> 00:24:17.080
in a geotechnical report.

00:24:17.080 --> 00:24:21.370
Those are provided by the architect to the owner,

00:24:21.370 --> 00:24:23.635
the owner then provides them to the contractor.

00:24:23.635 --> 00:24:26.485
The contractor says, "There's a problem here.

00:24:26.485 --> 00:24:29.800
These are not well-coordinated, and I'm stuck.

00:24:29.800 --> 00:24:32.125
I need answers and it's costing me money."

00:24:32.125 --> 00:24:35.610
Well, the courts have looked at that and said,

00:24:35.610 --> 00:24:39.180
"Well, as far back as 1917,

00:24:39.180 --> 00:24:41.640
the United States Supreme Court said that,

00:24:41.640 --> 00:24:42.990
"If the contractor is bound to

00:24:42.990 --> 00:24:44.460
build according to the plans and

00:24:44.460 --> 00:24:47.825
specifications prepared by the owner,

00:24:47.825 --> 00:24:50.440
the contractor will not be responsible for

00:24:50.440 --> 00:24:52.405
the consequences of defects

00:24:52.405 --> 00:24:54.490
and the plans and specifications."

00:24:54.490 --> 00:24:56.815
It's a no-fault deal.

00:24:56.815 --> 00:24:59.320
If I'm a contractor and I get a set of plans and

00:24:59.320 --> 00:25:01.540
specifications and there's a problem,

00:25:01.540 --> 00:25:04.135
I don't have to figure out why there's a problem,

00:25:04.135 --> 00:25:07.060
or who's responsible for the problem,

00:25:07.060 --> 00:25:09.040
I simply go back to the owner and I

00:25:09.040 --> 00:25:12.445
say to the owner, "There's a conflict.

00:25:12.445 --> 00:25:15.310
You can see on sheet X and sheet Y,

00:25:15.310 --> 00:25:16.450
and we overlay those things,

00:25:16.450 --> 00:25:19.465
here's a conflict, and I need resolution of that.

00:25:19.465 --> 00:25:21.595
I'm not a licensed engineer,

00:25:21.595 --> 00:25:24.160
I'm not licensed to practice architecture,

00:25:24.160 --> 00:25:27.070
you need to direct me on how to proceed."

00:25:27.070 --> 00:25:30.640
So it's a very low bar for contractors to get over,

00:25:30.640 --> 00:25:34.705
to prove entitlement to additional compensation.

00:25:34.705 --> 00:25:37.120
Their remedy against the owner is

00:25:37.120 --> 00:25:39.579
simply to show there's a problem,

00:25:39.579 --> 00:25:41.365
you gave me these plans,

00:25:41.365 --> 00:25:43.360
it's your problem, pay me.

00:25:43.360 --> 00:25:46.840
Well, the natural response from an owner is to say,

00:25:46.840 --> 00:25:49.210
"Well, I'm just an owner, what do you want for me?

00:25:49.210 --> 00:25:50.740
I don't know anything about it.

00:25:50.740 --> 00:25:52.720
I didn't prepare these plans and specs.

00:25:52.720 --> 00:25:55.360
I certainly didn't prepare the geotechnical report.

00:25:55.360 --> 00:25:58.510
So if I'm liable to you, Mr. contractor,

00:25:58.510 --> 00:26:01.750
then surely the architect and engineer is

00:26:01.750 --> 00:26:03.460
responsible to me as the

00:26:03.460 --> 00:26:05.695
owner," and the courts have said,

00:26:05.695 --> 00:26:08.890
"No, that's not necessarily the case."

00:26:08.890 --> 00:26:14.005
Architects and engineers belong to a pretty good club,

00:26:14.005 --> 00:26:18.340
that's also lawyers and doctors are part of that club.

00:26:18.340 --> 00:26:20.980
Professional service providers.

00:26:20.980 --> 00:26:25.615
The law does not require perfection of architects,

00:26:25.615 --> 00:26:28.780
or engineers, or doctors, or lawyers.

00:26:28.780 --> 00:26:32.140
As a provider of professional services,

00:26:32.140 --> 00:26:35.035
you're held to what's called the standard of care.

00:26:35.035 --> 00:26:37.150
The standard of care is,

00:26:37.150 --> 00:26:39.130
you're required to do

00:26:39.130 --> 00:26:43.330
your work and to exercise the care and skill ordinarily

00:26:43.330 --> 00:26:45.355
exercised by other members

00:26:45.355 --> 00:26:47.260
of the engineering profession in

00:26:47.260 --> 00:26:50.155
performing professional engineering services

00:26:50.155 --> 00:26:52.180
under similar circumstances.

00:26:52.180 --> 00:26:54.625
It's almost a peer review thing.

00:26:54.625 --> 00:26:57.610
You can deliver a set of plans and specifications to

00:26:57.610 --> 00:27:00.010
an owner that unquestionably

00:27:00.010 --> 00:27:02.110
have errors and omissions in them.

00:27:02.110 --> 00:27:05.380
That doesn't make you financially responsible,

00:27:05.380 --> 00:27:07.855
unless those errors and omissions

00:27:07.855 --> 00:27:11.600
arose because you didn't meet the standard of care.

00:27:12.980 --> 00:27:16.710
It's a point that's hard to prove.

00:27:16.710 --> 00:27:18.540
It's hard to demonstrate many times.

00:27:18.540 --> 00:27:20.910
If an engineer or

00:27:20.910 --> 00:27:23.910
an architect has just flubbed it somehow,

00:27:23.910 --> 00:27:26.070
they've missed some provision of the building code,

00:27:26.070 --> 00:27:28.170
well, that's a pretty easy call.

00:27:28.170 --> 00:27:29.760
You could say, well, they didn't meet

00:27:29.760 --> 00:27:30.930
the standard of care because

00:27:30.930 --> 00:27:34.080
any other similarly trained engineer

00:27:34.080 --> 00:27:37.050
faced with the same problem surely would have checked

00:27:37.050 --> 00:27:38.550
the building code before they

00:27:38.550 --> 00:27:40.800
stamp that set of drawings and deliver it.

00:27:40.800 --> 00:27:44.160
But a lot of times engineers and architects face

00:27:44.160 --> 00:27:45.930
circumstances and they're facing

00:27:45.930 --> 00:27:48.855
problems that are unique.

00:27:48.855 --> 00:27:52.830
They're different, they're one-off kinds

00:27:52.830 --> 00:27:53.850
of problems and there's

00:27:53.850 --> 00:27:56.535
no textbook you can go to and say,

00:27:56.535 --> 00:27:59.025
here, follow this formula,

00:27:59.025 --> 00:28:01.515
you surely would have gotten the right answer.

00:28:01.515 --> 00:28:03.975
Many times the owners left in the middle.

00:28:03.975 --> 00:28:07.050
They have a claim coming upstream to them

00:28:07.050 --> 00:28:10.305
from the contractor for additional compensation,

00:28:10.305 --> 00:28:12.660
but they really don't have an avenue to

00:28:12.660 --> 00:28:15.750
go and chase the engineer or the architect

00:28:15.750 --> 00:28:19.215
unless they feel like they can make a case that there was

00:28:19.215 --> 00:28:21.030
an error or omission that arose

00:28:21.030 --> 00:28:24.315
because of a breach of the standard of care.

00:28:24.315 --> 00:28:27.370
In your profession,

00:28:27.370 --> 00:28:30.825
you will be held to this standard of care.

00:28:30.825 --> 00:28:34.860
You have to think to yourself in the product that you

00:28:34.860 --> 00:28:36.870
produce and if you get to

00:28:36.870 --> 00:28:39.930
the point where you're a PE before you stamp things,

00:28:39.930 --> 00:28:42.150
are you doing those things?

00:28:42.150 --> 00:28:46.530
Have you taken all the precautions and thought through

00:28:46.530 --> 00:28:48.900
the problem in ways that

00:28:48.900 --> 00:28:51.600
you believe that your peers would agree with you?

00:28:51.600 --> 00:28:55.125
That yes, that was a reasonable course of action.

00:28:55.125 --> 00:28:56.580
Now, if you give

00:28:56.580 --> 00:28:58.920
an engineering problem to 10 different engineers,

00:28:58.920 --> 00:29:00.390
you might get three different results

00:29:00.390 --> 00:29:01.785
or four different results.

00:29:01.785 --> 00:29:03.870
It doesn't mean that the result

00:29:03.870 --> 00:29:06.240
that you came up with was wrong.

00:29:06.240 --> 00:29:08.250
Because they may be

00:29:08.250 --> 00:29:10.380
four different reasonable results because of

00:29:10.380 --> 00:29:13.230
different ways of attacking the problem.

00:29:13.230 --> 00:29:16.965
This is where the standard of care

00:29:16.965 --> 00:29:20.430
can be a little bit murky in terms of determining,

00:29:20.430 --> 00:29:21.810
have you met the standard or

00:29:21.810 --> 00:29:23.580
have you not met the standard?

00:29:23.580 --> 00:29:25.140
This is where lawyers get

00:29:25.140 --> 00:29:29.410
paid to take on these kinds of cases.

00:29:29.480 --> 00:29:34.094
Let's talk a little bit about how this works in practice.

00:29:34.094 --> 00:29:35.700
This is a project

00:29:35.700 --> 00:29:40.410
that I got involved with maybe 20 years ago.

00:29:40.410 --> 00:29:44.835
In fact, it was my introduction to Schnabel Engineering.

00:29:44.835 --> 00:29:49.260
In a moment I'll explain how that is.

00:29:49.260 --> 00:29:52.275
This is a project called Pentagon Row,

00:29:52.275 --> 00:29:55.020
and it's right across the street from the Pentagon.

00:29:55.020 --> 00:29:58.050
At the time it was a new project,

00:29:58.050 --> 00:29:59.565
you see these all the time now,

00:29:59.565 --> 00:30:01.410
but this lower level is

00:30:01.410 --> 00:30:05.400
a commercial level and it's concrete and CMU,

00:30:05.400 --> 00:30:12.010
it's all masonry and it's owned by owner A.

00:30:12.260 --> 00:30:20.175
Above it are stick built or wooden of heart structure,

00:30:20.175 --> 00:30:24.120
and it's owned by owner B.

00:30:24.120 --> 00:30:27.720
Owner A has their architect

00:30:27.720 --> 00:30:30.900
put together the plan for the commercial,

00:30:30.900 --> 00:30:34.380
[NOISE] and owner B has

00:30:34.380 --> 00:30:36.180
their architect put together

00:30:36.180 --> 00:30:39.090
their plan for the apartment level,

00:30:39.090 --> 00:30:40.530
and then those two sets of

00:30:40.530 --> 00:30:42.330
plans went to the engineer record,

00:30:42.330 --> 00:30:44.175
the architect of record,

00:30:44.175 --> 00:30:47.385
who is supposed to coordinate to make sure

00:30:47.385 --> 00:30:51.060
that the part sitting on

00:30:51.060 --> 00:30:55.890
the concrete was coordinated and everything fit together.

00:30:55.890 --> 00:30:59.925
They also provided a geotechnical report to our client,

00:30:59.925 --> 00:31:02.010
so my client was a company called

00:31:02.010 --> 00:31:05.190
Foulger-Pratt and they contracted to build this.

00:31:05.190 --> 00:31:06.705
As I mentioned before,

00:31:06.705 --> 00:31:09.060
part of what the owner gave them was a set

00:31:09.060 --> 00:31:12.645
of plans and specifications

00:31:12.645 --> 00:31:15.300
and a geotechnical report that talked

00:31:15.300 --> 00:31:17.640
about water conditions at

00:31:17.640 --> 00:31:19.770
the site and where the groundwater was,

00:31:19.770 --> 00:31:21.285
and what they could expect in

00:31:21.285 --> 00:31:24.640
terms of dewatering and etc.

00:31:25.220 --> 00:31:28.140
They arrived at a price,

00:31:28.140 --> 00:31:29.955
they agreed on a schedule,

00:31:29.955 --> 00:31:32.130
Foulger-Pratt went to work,

00:31:32.130 --> 00:31:35.520
and the water conditions

00:31:35.520 --> 00:31:37.080
at the site turned out to be a little

00:31:37.080 --> 00:31:38.730
more challenging than what

00:31:38.730 --> 00:31:42.700
the owner's geotechnical report had indicated.

00:31:43.400 --> 00:31:47.775
The geotechnical report said that there was water,

00:31:47.775 --> 00:31:50.730
groundwater was at level X,

00:31:50.730 --> 00:31:53.520
nothing unusual, nothing extraordinary,

00:31:53.520 --> 00:31:55.905
and when they begun the activation,

00:31:55.905 --> 00:31:59.275
they found artesian conditions at the site.

00:31:59.275 --> 00:32:01.580
In order for me,

00:32:01.580 --> 00:32:06.845
as the attorney to help make a case for my client,

00:32:06.845 --> 00:32:09.860
that what was encountered at the site was

00:32:09.860 --> 00:32:10.910
different than what was

00:32:10.910 --> 00:32:13.010
indicated in the geotechnical report,

00:32:13.010 --> 00:32:14.425
we go out and get

00:32:14.425 --> 00:32:16.980
a consulting engineer, a geotechnical engineer.

00:32:16.980 --> 00:32:20.655
In this case, it was Gordon Matheson at Schnabel,

00:32:20.655 --> 00:32:24.360
and that was my first introduction to Schnabel.

00:32:24.360 --> 00:32:29.955
Gordon did a tremendous job and ultimately helped

00:32:29.955 --> 00:32:32.730
engineer a fix that resulted

00:32:32.730 --> 00:32:37.005
in redoing the foundation system for the structure,

00:32:37.005 --> 00:32:40.215
a different mechanism for dewatering the site.

00:32:40.215 --> 00:32:42.540
It was a very, very costly and

00:32:42.540 --> 00:32:45.420
time-consuming problem to overcome,

00:32:45.420 --> 00:32:47.940
but what nobody knew at the time was that was

00:32:47.940 --> 00:32:50.640
the tip of the iceberg for this project.

00:32:50.640 --> 00:32:53.340
Once we got out of the ground,

00:32:53.340 --> 00:32:56.610
I wish I had more photos

00:32:56.610 --> 00:32:59.070
on this project because now we're up at the roof level.

00:32:59.070 --> 00:33:02.820
What happened with the plans

00:33:02.820 --> 00:33:04.260
on this project is that you had

00:33:04.260 --> 00:33:09.945
the ground level concrete and masonry structure,

00:33:09.945 --> 00:33:14.220
and now when the apartment building design

00:33:14.220 --> 00:33:16.425
was placed on top of it,

00:33:16.425 --> 00:33:19.785
it fit within the same footprint,

00:33:19.785 --> 00:33:23.820
but internally, the designs were not coordinated.

00:33:23.820 --> 00:33:29.940
Where you had elevator openings or stairwells that

00:33:29.940 --> 00:33:31.860
couldn't be moved because they were in

00:33:31.860 --> 00:33:36.060
the underlying structure already cast into concrete,

00:33:36.060 --> 00:33:39.960
now the contractor is charged with laying out his work

00:33:39.960 --> 00:33:42.450
and the space available

00:33:42.450 --> 00:33:45.090
to layout the rooms and the layout,

00:33:45.090 --> 00:33:48.450
the apartments, was not consistent

00:33:48.450 --> 00:33:53.430
with the underlying concrete structure.

00:33:53.430 --> 00:33:55.500
The architects response was,

00:33:55.500 --> 00:33:57.810
"You just go coordinate it. Figure it out."

00:33:57.810 --> 00:34:00.570
Well, [LAUGHTER] as a contractor,

00:34:00.570 --> 00:34:04.545
that's not your prerogative to go figure it out.

00:34:04.545 --> 00:34:07.950
The problem was, in order to make the adjustments

00:34:07.950 --> 00:34:12.120
to make everything fit on this concrete slab,

00:34:12.120 --> 00:34:15.180
you needed to move walls and move things around

00:34:15.180 --> 00:34:19.080
features internally within the structure, bearing walls,

00:34:19.080 --> 00:34:20.610
for instance, that you

00:34:20.610 --> 00:34:22.080
can't just say to a contractor, "Well,

00:34:22.080 --> 00:34:23.790
I know that's a bearing wall, but

00:34:23.790 --> 00:34:27.225
move it a foot and a half to the right."

00:34:27.225 --> 00:34:30.120
There's nothing [LAUGHTER] under to support

00:34:30.120 --> 00:34:32.580
it if you move it a foot and a half to the right.

00:34:32.580 --> 00:34:35.370
Or if you move it even six inches,

00:34:35.370 --> 00:34:37.695
even if it's not a bearing wall,

00:34:37.695 --> 00:34:39.180
you've diminished the size of

00:34:39.180 --> 00:34:41.355
the room that you've now laid out,

00:34:41.355 --> 00:34:43.590
so that may not meet code and it

00:34:43.590 --> 00:34:46.685
no longer qualifies as a bedroom.

00:34:46.685 --> 00:34:49.780
I mean, all of these things are

00:34:49.780 --> 00:34:53.560
the responsibility of the architect to resolve

00:34:53.560 --> 00:34:57.145
these things and coordinate all of that so that

00:34:57.145 --> 00:34:58.810
when the contractor is

00:34:58.810 --> 00:35:01.255
handed this set of plans and specifications,

00:35:01.255 --> 00:35:04.540
it's like being handed a recipe if you're a baker.

00:35:04.540 --> 00:35:08.530
You're not supposed to use any particular ingenuity.

00:35:08.530 --> 00:35:10.525
You're supposed to follow the recipe.

00:35:10.525 --> 00:35:14.620
If it says, two cups of flour and two eggs,

00:35:14.620 --> 00:35:16.060
you'll say, "Well, yeah,

00:35:16.060 --> 00:35:17.515
maybe I'll take some liberties here."

00:35:17.515 --> 00:35:20.275
You follow the recipe and you get

00:35:20.275 --> 00:35:23.890
exactly what it is you are tasked with delivering.

00:35:23.890 --> 00:35:27.400
Here the contractor was trying to follow the recipe,

00:35:27.400 --> 00:35:29.620
and the recipe didn't work.

00:35:29.620 --> 00:35:31.570
It was uncoordinated.

00:35:31.570 --> 00:35:33.175
There were conflicts.

00:35:33.175 --> 00:35:36.190
Finally, there was an area

00:35:36.190 --> 00:35:37.840
up here on the roof because when you

00:35:37.840 --> 00:35:40.150
carry all these changes

00:35:40.150 --> 00:35:42.715
and modifications up through the structure,

00:35:42.715 --> 00:35:44.920
what the architect then didn't

00:35:44.920 --> 00:35:48.250
account for was what impact is it going to have

00:35:48.250 --> 00:35:49.480
on all the ridge lines and

00:35:49.480 --> 00:35:51.850
the intersecting roof lines

00:35:51.850 --> 00:35:53.905
that were a part of this structure?

00:35:53.905 --> 00:35:56.020
There was an area here that was just open

00:35:56.020 --> 00:35:58.060
to the weather for months that was

00:35:58.060 --> 00:35:59.950
referred to jokingly as Area

00:35:59.950 --> 00:36:03.190
51 because nobody knew what was going on there.

00:36:03.190 --> 00:36:06.040
Nobody had an answer for what was going on there.

00:36:06.040 --> 00:36:08.635
Finally, the contractor said,

00:36:08.635 --> 00:36:11.260
"I will not spend

00:36:11.260 --> 00:36:17.089
any more of my money until you get this resolved."

00:36:17.130 --> 00:36:21.520
The owner terminated the contractor, and we ended up in

00:36:21.520 --> 00:36:24.460
a $50 million dispute over who's

00:36:24.460 --> 00:36:27.550
going to be responsible for delays to the project,

00:36:27.550 --> 00:36:30.490
late opening, loss of rental revenues,

00:36:30.490 --> 00:36:33.880
all things that cascaded from the fact

00:36:33.880 --> 00:36:36.670
that the architect hadn't

00:36:36.670 --> 00:36:38.695
bothered to coordinate these drawings.

00:36:38.695 --> 00:36:41.980
The architects sat back on the sidelines and said, "Well,

00:36:41.980 --> 00:36:44.110
you're the owner and contractor you

00:36:44.110 --> 00:36:46.705
need to figure that out, that's your problem."

00:36:46.705 --> 00:36:48.280
I would submit to you that

00:36:48.280 --> 00:36:50.320
that architect did not

00:36:50.320 --> 00:36:53.270
meet the standard care in this case.

00:36:53.340 --> 00:36:55.705
That's just one example

00:36:55.705 --> 00:36:59.410
of a matter in which we had been involved.

00:36:59.410 --> 00:37:01.690
Other than the artesian conditions,

00:37:01.690 --> 00:37:05.470
it wasn't terribly specific to geotechnical matters,

00:37:05.470 --> 00:37:08.470
but here's one that is.

00:37:08.470 --> 00:37:11.230
This is in Ellis Square Park,

00:37:11.230 --> 00:37:13.975
which is in downtown Savannah, Georgia.

00:37:13.975 --> 00:37:15.850
Well, it looks like a park,

00:37:15.850 --> 00:37:18.355
now this is the finished product.

00:37:18.355 --> 00:37:21.310
All of this is sitting

00:37:21.310 --> 00:37:25.720
over a four-story underground parking garage.

00:37:25.720 --> 00:37:28.329
The city wanted a garage

00:37:28.329 --> 00:37:31.930
and they had an old concrete structure there,

00:37:31.930 --> 00:37:33.685
it was really an eyesore.

00:37:33.685 --> 00:37:36.295
They had this concept for

00:37:36.295 --> 00:37:41.320
this very nice pedestrian friendly park.

00:37:41.320 --> 00:37:43.240
So they put together

00:37:43.240 --> 00:37:45.370
a geotechnical report and

00:37:45.370 --> 00:37:48.025
a plan for the construction of this facility,

00:37:48.025 --> 00:37:49.885
and they put it out to bid,

00:37:49.885 --> 00:37:54.610
and part of that geotechnical report

00:37:54.610 --> 00:37:57.310
was issued by a company called WPC.

00:37:57.310 --> 00:37:59.740
WPC report number 1,

00:37:59.740 --> 00:38:02.050
on an area this size

00:38:02.050 --> 00:38:05.395
the owner decided four borings was adequate.

00:38:05.395 --> 00:38:09.160
That's all they needed to accurately forecast what

00:38:09.160 --> 00:38:10.810
those underground conditions were going to

00:38:10.810 --> 00:38:12.895
be on this project site.

00:38:12.895 --> 00:38:16.270
Now, this site is right in

00:38:16.270 --> 00:38:19.570
the middle of some very old buildings

00:38:19.570 --> 00:38:21.340
in the city of Savannah.

00:38:21.340 --> 00:38:24.520
Unreinforced masonry buildings that

00:38:24.520 --> 00:38:27.670
couldn't tolerate much in the way of movement.

00:38:27.670 --> 00:38:30.880
This was the deepest excavation that had ever been

00:38:30.880 --> 00:38:33.955
attempted in this part of the city as well.

00:38:33.955 --> 00:38:37.390
They were embarking on a high risk venture here.

00:38:37.390 --> 00:38:40.285
They were going deeper than anybody ever had to excavate,

00:38:40.285 --> 00:38:42.550
and they were doing it in

00:38:42.550 --> 00:38:45.370
close proximity to buildings that,

00:38:45.370 --> 00:38:47.380
this is not some greenfield project

00:38:47.380 --> 00:38:49.300
out in the middle of a cornfield somewhere.

00:38:49.300 --> 00:38:51.790
This is in the middle of the city.

00:38:51.790 --> 00:38:55.570
In any event, they provided four borings.

00:38:55.570 --> 00:38:58.030
They asked their geotechnical engineer to

00:38:58.030 --> 00:38:59.260
give them four borings that they

00:38:59.260 --> 00:39:01.435
provided to the contractor.

00:39:01.435 --> 00:39:03.880
Of those four borings,

00:39:03.880 --> 00:39:07.150
one of them met refusal before it even got to the bottom

00:39:07.150 --> 00:39:11.259
of the proposal excavation,

00:39:11.259 --> 00:39:14.095
that was boring over here, boring Number 1.

00:39:14.095 --> 00:39:16.465
Boring 2 showed a little bit of

00:39:16.465 --> 00:39:19.330
soft clay at a certain elevation,

00:39:19.330 --> 00:39:24.230
but the rest of these showed sand and clay sand

00:39:24.230 --> 00:39:25.680
certainly to the bottom of

00:39:25.680 --> 00:39:30.570
the area where the the excavation was intended to go.

00:39:30.570 --> 00:39:36.050
Further the geotechnical report,

00:39:36.050 --> 00:39:37.930
and I will read all of this,

00:39:37.930 --> 00:39:39.760
but they interpreted

00:39:39.760 --> 00:39:42.490
their own borings for the contractor.

00:39:42.490 --> 00:39:45.520
A lot of times a geotechnical consultant won't do this.

00:39:45.520 --> 00:39:48.100
They just give the contractor the raw data and say,

00:39:48.100 --> 00:39:49.610
"I've given you the borings,

00:39:49.610 --> 00:39:51.420
you have to make your own conclusions

00:39:51.420 --> 00:39:52.980
about what the conditions are."

00:39:52.980 --> 00:39:57.090
Well, here they looked

00:39:57.090 --> 00:40:00.000
at their own geotechnical investigation.

00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:02.110
They said, fine sands were

00:40:02.110 --> 00:40:03.130
predominantly encountered in

00:40:03.130 --> 00:40:05.320
the upper 70 feet within the borings,

00:40:05.320 --> 00:40:07.840
and that's finding is consistent with

00:40:07.840 --> 00:40:10.390
the general soil conditions in the area,

00:40:10.390 --> 00:40:15.055
so they said, we found what we expected to find,

00:40:15.055 --> 00:40:19.390
its sand, and we're going to give you

00:40:19.390 --> 00:40:24.220
earth pressure design parameters that you can

00:40:24.220 --> 00:40:28.210
use to calculate the Earth pressure

00:40:28.210 --> 00:40:30.700
in the design of the sidewalls of the basement,

00:40:30.700 --> 00:40:32.725
which was the partly dry.

00:40:32.725 --> 00:40:34.465
They looked at the data.

00:40:34.465 --> 00:40:36.100
They said it was sand,

00:40:36.100 --> 00:40:38.199
they gave these design parameters,

00:40:38.199 --> 00:40:42.350
and so the contractor proceeded accordingly.

00:40:42.810 --> 00:40:46.675
The whole idea was now we took this and modeled it.

00:40:46.675 --> 00:40:49.900
If you were to take this area

00:40:49.900 --> 00:40:54.340
and you'll recognize this shape before we're done here,

00:40:54.340 --> 00:40:57.190
but it's like two squares.

00:40:57.190 --> 00:40:59.110
If you were to just take

00:40:59.110 --> 00:41:01.165
it and pull it out of the ground,

00:41:01.165 --> 00:41:03.415
this was all sand

00:41:03.415 --> 00:41:06.925
in the upper 70 feet according to the report,

00:41:06.925 --> 00:41:08.695
where there's one pocket of

00:41:08.695 --> 00:41:13.330
soft clay and then underlying by a layer of morel.

00:41:13.330 --> 00:41:15.670
That's what the contractor thought that they

00:41:15.670 --> 00:41:18.430
were getting themselves into.

00:41:18.430 --> 00:41:21.025
The idea for this project was,

00:41:21.025 --> 00:41:23.365
before any excavation started,

00:41:23.365 --> 00:41:26.245
they will go around the perimeter and install

00:41:26.245 --> 00:41:28.900
a soil cement mix wall down to

00:41:28.900 --> 00:41:32.365
the bottom of the proposed excavation.

00:41:32.365 --> 00:41:36.280
Then within that soil cement wall

00:41:36.280 --> 00:41:39.070
they would put soldier piles.

00:41:39.070 --> 00:41:43.225
Then as the excavation proceeded down to a certain level,

00:41:43.225 --> 00:41:46.000
they would install tiebacks to hold

00:41:46.000 --> 00:41:50.485
this wall in place and allow the excavation to perceive,

00:41:50.485 --> 00:41:52.850
that was the plan.

00:41:53.070 --> 00:41:55.690
This was the machine that was used

00:41:55.690 --> 00:41:59.180
and this is the, sorry.

00:42:00.690 --> 00:42:04.705
This is the constructed wall now.

00:42:04.705 --> 00:42:08.560
Our client was a Japanese company called Raito,

00:42:08.560 --> 00:42:11.095
and they had this very sophisticated

00:42:11.095 --> 00:42:13.915
soil cement mixing machine.

00:42:13.915 --> 00:42:17.320
You can see it's three augers around

00:42:17.320 --> 00:42:20.140
the entire perimeter and make this wall.

00:42:20.140 --> 00:42:21.520
You can see up at the top,

00:42:21.520 --> 00:42:23.500
these are the soldier piles taking up.

00:42:23.500 --> 00:42:27.400
While the material was still liquid,

00:42:27.400 --> 00:42:30.685
after they had drilled down, injected cement,

00:42:30.685 --> 00:42:35.140
they would pull their machine out and set soldier piles.

00:42:35.140 --> 00:42:37.240
You can also see that there are

00:42:37.240 --> 00:42:39.295
some rows of tiebacks here.

00:42:39.295 --> 00:42:42.160
That was the intention,

00:42:42.160 --> 00:42:45.775
which was to excavate and to keep this project safe,

00:42:45.775 --> 00:42:53.230
and in no danger of having excessive movement.

00:42:53.230 --> 00:42:55.780
When work began on the North side of

00:42:55.780 --> 00:42:58.330
this project up here,

00:42:58.330 --> 00:43:02.170
the tiebacks, when they were putting them in,

00:43:02.170 --> 00:43:06.535
the spoil was coming out of this hole were not sand,

00:43:06.535 --> 00:43:08.980
they were getting soft clay, very,

00:43:08.980 --> 00:43:11.950
very soft marine clays started coming

00:43:11.950 --> 00:43:15.880
up when they were doing their work up in this area.

00:43:15.880 --> 00:43:17.500
They stopped work and said,

00:43:17.500 --> 00:43:18.850
"We need more borings."

00:43:18.850 --> 00:43:20.050
They went to the owner and said, "Give us

00:43:20.050 --> 00:43:21.910
more borings of this area,

00:43:21.910 --> 00:43:24.355
because we need to know what's going on up here.

00:43:24.355 --> 00:43:27.100
We think we've got a different condition that may

00:43:27.100 --> 00:43:30.100
take different means and methods, as a contractor."

00:43:30.100 --> 00:43:32.500
Sure enough, when we looked at

00:43:32.500 --> 00:43:35.935
those set of borings, the new borings,

00:43:35.935 --> 00:43:38.770
this three and this one over here,

00:43:38.770 --> 00:43:41.650
show now a very distinct layer of

00:43:41.650 --> 00:43:46.840
soft clay along that Northern boundary of the property.

00:43:46.840 --> 00:43:51.310
Now the plan to proceed and design this wall and plan

00:43:51.310 --> 00:43:54.385
the excavation for sandy conditions

00:43:54.385 --> 00:43:57.220
had to be modified significantly.

00:43:57.220 --> 00:44:00.370
The contractor shifted operations away

00:44:00.370 --> 00:44:04.690
from the North wall and move down to the South wall.

00:44:04.690 --> 00:44:07.270
They were doing jet grouting up in the area of

00:44:07.270 --> 00:44:09.310
the North wall and had to

00:44:09.310 --> 00:44:11.845
shift their resources over to the South wall,

00:44:11.845 --> 00:44:14.435
and begin excavation there.

00:44:14.435 --> 00:44:21.665
This row of masonry buildings here,

00:44:21.665 --> 00:44:25.840
there was a woman who used to have a cooking show on TV,

00:44:25.840 --> 00:44:27.595
her name was Paula Deen,

00:44:27.595 --> 00:44:31.480
and that's her restaurant.

00:44:31.480 --> 00:44:33.100
This was like a big,

00:44:33.100 --> 00:44:36.354
big tourist draw in the City of Savannah.

00:44:36.354 --> 00:44:40.885
It was very, very important to the owners,

00:44:40.885 --> 00:44:46.675
not only of the building but the city elders there,

00:44:46.675 --> 00:44:49.180
not to disrupt this operation,

00:44:49.180 --> 00:44:51.910
not to do anything to dampen tourist trade.

00:44:51.910 --> 00:44:54.580
God knows, they didn't want things shut down

00:44:54.580 --> 00:44:58.100
because of this construction operation.

00:44:58.380 --> 00:45:03.370
Construction is moving along in that area,

00:45:03.370 --> 00:45:09.430
and again, we're down now near the bottom,

00:45:09.430 --> 00:45:13.045
we're right about the 30-foot level.

00:45:13.045 --> 00:45:15.850
You can see a row of tiebacks,

00:45:15.850 --> 00:45:20.035
and there's a dewatering well here.

00:45:20.035 --> 00:45:23.990
Things seem to be moving along reasonably well.

00:45:24.630 --> 00:45:27.115
This gives you a better look at

00:45:27.115 --> 00:45:31.030
the close proximity of these buildings to this wall.

00:45:31.030 --> 00:45:33.400
You can tell if there's any movement at all,

00:45:33.400 --> 00:45:36.865
it's not going to go well for that set of buildings.

00:45:36.865 --> 00:45:38.290
This is the South side,

00:45:38.290 --> 00:45:40.820
back over here is the North side.

00:45:42.060 --> 00:45:44.320
Again, this is the North side,

00:45:44.320 --> 00:45:46.420
they're doing the jet grouting up here,

00:45:46.420 --> 00:45:49.160
excavating in the South.

00:45:51.960 --> 00:45:56.845
Ed Cording was one of your prior speakers here.

00:45:56.845 --> 00:45:59.470
Ed living in Savannah at the time,

00:45:59.470 --> 00:46:03.535
he's one of the preeminent soil mechanics

00:46:03.535 --> 00:46:06.250
and geotechnical people around,

00:46:06.250 --> 00:46:08.200
and he's walking his dog and

00:46:08.200 --> 00:46:10.120
he starts talking to

00:46:10.120 --> 00:46:12.385
the construction guy is saying, "Look,

00:46:12.385 --> 00:46:16.165
I'm seeing cracks up here and this is

00:46:16.165 --> 00:46:21.160
outside of the limits of the excavation,

00:46:21.160 --> 00:46:23.935
we're outside of the hole now

00:46:23.935 --> 00:46:27.505
and there are cracks that are appearing in the ground."

00:46:27.505 --> 00:46:29.260
I'm not sure that these photos

00:46:29.260 --> 00:46:32.265
are doing this justice here,

00:46:32.265 --> 00:46:36.370
but I've got a better map here.

00:46:36.650 --> 00:46:42.120
Seventy-five feet West outside of the excavation now,

00:46:42.120 --> 00:46:43.470
you're starting to see cracks

00:46:43.470 --> 00:46:45.360
developing in the sidewalks.

00:46:45.360 --> 00:46:49.105
There's another building that was even further away,

00:46:49.105 --> 00:46:53.485
102 feet West of the excavation wall,

00:46:53.485 --> 00:46:57.295
and so the alarm bells started going off.

00:46:57.295 --> 00:46:59.480
What is going on here?

00:46:59.480 --> 00:47:04.665
Dr. Cording went out

00:47:04.665 --> 00:47:07.395
and mapped the cracks that were occurring.

00:47:07.395 --> 00:47:10.350
We looked at the excavation that was here.

00:47:10.350 --> 00:47:12.965
This is the jet grouting that's going on up here.

00:47:12.965 --> 00:47:16.270
This is the role of these Paula Deen

00:47:16.270 --> 00:47:18.250
and the other masonry buildings here,

00:47:18.250 --> 00:47:22.495
and Dr. Cording is seeing cracks.

00:47:22.495 --> 00:47:25.210
Seventy-five feet outside of

00:47:25.210 --> 00:47:27.745
the excavation here behind the wall,

00:47:27.745 --> 00:47:33.320
and 102 feet or more behind this wall.

00:47:33.390 --> 00:47:36.610
That foretells some very,

00:47:36.610 --> 00:47:42.140
very potentially some serious things for this excavation.

00:47:42.390 --> 00:47:47.020
Ultimately, another consultant was brought in,

00:47:47.020 --> 00:47:51.250
Dr. Alan Marr, and you'll see his name up here.

00:47:51.250 --> 00:47:54.070
Dr. Marr was brought in to do test

00:47:54.070 --> 00:47:57.370
pitting in this excavation.

00:47:57.370 --> 00:47:59.800
After digging a series of test pits,

00:47:59.800 --> 00:48:04.090
what Dr. Marr found out was that this wasn't

00:48:04.090 --> 00:48:09.340
all sand down to 75 feet.

00:48:09.340 --> 00:48:11.710
He had inter-bedded soft clay and

00:48:11.710 --> 00:48:16.420
sand, and those strength parameters for

00:48:16.420 --> 00:48:19.540
that material were markedly different than what had

00:48:19.540 --> 00:48:24.850
been indicated in the geotechnical report from the owner.

00:48:24.850 --> 00:48:27.790
Now the contractors faced with,

00:48:27.790 --> 00:48:30.250
"This is a very different scenario

00:48:30.250 --> 00:48:32.530
than what we thought we'd gotten ourselves into.

00:48:32.530 --> 00:48:34.510
What do we do now?"

00:48:34.510 --> 00:48:37.570
Luckily, Alan Marr is

00:48:37.570 --> 00:48:43.105
a top-notch person, and Ed Cording is a top-notch person.

00:48:43.105 --> 00:48:45.700
We looked at them, we model these things.

00:48:45.700 --> 00:48:47.590
These are exhibits that were used in

00:48:47.590 --> 00:48:51.710
the trial of this case because the owner said,

00:48:52.290 --> 00:48:54.760
"This is your problem.

00:48:54.760 --> 00:48:57.760
I know we told you we use

00:48:57.760 --> 00:49:01.495
the word clay in our geotechnical report.

00:49:01.495 --> 00:49:04.150
I know we said it was only in one spot,

00:49:04.150 --> 00:49:07.120
and I know we didn't say it was near the bottom of

00:49:07.120 --> 00:49:09.160
the excavation. I know we gave you

00:49:09.160 --> 00:49:11.875
soil strength parameters for sand.

00:49:11.875 --> 00:49:14.304
But nevertheless, because the word clay

00:49:14.304 --> 00:49:16.570
appeared in our geotechnical report,

00:49:16.570 --> 00:49:18.160
then you had fair notice of

00:49:18.160 --> 00:49:19.600
what you're getting yourself into.

00:49:19.600 --> 00:49:22.735
This is your problem, contractor."

00:49:22.735 --> 00:49:28.450
After about $12 million,

00:49:28.450 --> 00:49:32.695
we end up in court trying this case to a jury,

00:49:32.695 --> 00:49:37.315
and I'm proud to say we got every penny.

00:49:37.315 --> 00:49:40.570
But this was one of the exhibits to show the difference

00:49:40.570 --> 00:49:42.970
between what the condition was

00:49:42.970 --> 00:49:46.570
anticipated based on the WPC report

00:49:46.570 --> 00:49:48.100
and the conditions that were

00:49:48.100 --> 00:49:49.660
actually encountered based on the test

00:49:49.660 --> 00:49:53.740
pitting that was done by Dr. Alan Marr.

00:49:53.740 --> 00:49:55.675
The implications again were,

00:49:55.675 --> 00:49:57.130
now we're going to rotate around here,

00:49:57.130 --> 00:49:58.330
so give me a second.

00:49:58.330 --> 00:50:01.670
We're just looking at this from different angles.

00:50:05.160 --> 00:50:07.765
What does this mean

00:50:07.765 --> 00:50:11.540
from the standpoint of constructability?

00:50:11.550 --> 00:50:16.585
The first thing that we had to do is figure out,

00:50:16.585 --> 00:50:20.410
is this even a safe condition that we're working in?

00:50:20.410 --> 00:50:23.830
What our geotechnical experts told us was

00:50:23.830 --> 00:50:27.220
that if conditions had

00:50:27.220 --> 00:50:30.115
been as described in the geotechnical report,

00:50:30.115 --> 00:50:34.255
then as you went from level B down to level C,

00:50:34.255 --> 00:50:35.500
you should have about a quarter

00:50:35.500 --> 00:50:37.570
of inch lateral displacement.

00:50:37.570 --> 00:50:41.170
It would be concentrated between the B and C levels.

00:50:41.170 --> 00:50:43.525
You wouldn't have displacement

00:50:43.525 --> 00:50:46.915
at level B, no additional displacement.

00:50:46.915 --> 00:50:50.080
No displacement close to the bottom of the soldier pile,

00:50:50.080 --> 00:50:52.360
which is this extending below here,

00:50:52.360 --> 00:50:53.980
and very small surface

00:50:53.980 --> 00:50:57.655
settlement close to the wall up here in the active zone,

00:50:57.655 --> 00:51:00.040
which is not what we were seeing in the field.

00:51:00.040 --> 00:51:02.770
Remember, the cracks that we were seeing in

00:51:02.770 --> 00:51:06.520
the field were 75 or 100 feet back from

00:51:06.520 --> 00:51:09.760
this wall indicating that there

00:51:09.760 --> 00:51:13.570
was something happening here that was not anticipated.

00:51:13.570 --> 00:51:16.750
One of the things was I always assume that,

00:51:16.750 --> 00:51:18.835
well, if the wall's in trouble,

00:51:18.835 --> 00:51:21.370
it's going to deflect into the hole.

00:51:21.370 --> 00:51:23.500
This is the excavated side and

00:51:23.500 --> 00:51:25.870
the wall would would deflect this way.

00:51:25.870 --> 00:51:32.740
One fact was observed was this wall was moving out.

00:51:32.740 --> 00:51:34.690
It was moving out,

00:51:34.690 --> 00:51:36.100
and I'll show you here in just a minute,

00:51:36.100 --> 00:51:38.050
I've got some better diagrams.

00:51:38.050 --> 00:51:43.720
The actual movement [NOISE] from 30-40 feet,

00:51:43.720 --> 00:51:46.840
the inclinometer showed displacement over

00:51:46.840 --> 00:51:50.755
the height of a wall into the bottom of the soldier pile.

00:51:50.755 --> 00:51:54.490
I keep [LAUGHTER] clicking the wrong button here.

00:51:54.490 --> 00:51:59.905
[NOISE]

00:51:59.905 --> 00:52:01.480
This whole wall was

00:52:01.480 --> 00:52:06.910
moving and the tie back for not doing their job.

00:52:06.910 --> 00:52:09.220
The whole point of the tie back is to

00:52:09.220 --> 00:52:11.200
keep that wall from deflecting and

00:52:11.200 --> 00:52:13.960
moving and from the bottom

00:52:13.960 --> 00:52:16.285
of the soldier pile to the top of the wall,

00:52:16.285 --> 00:52:22.570
you're seeing movement and that movement indicated that

00:52:22.570 --> 00:52:29.080
there was readings below the bottom of the soldier pile.

00:52:29.080 --> 00:52:31.330
If that's true, if they're so

00:52:31.330 --> 00:52:35.200
moving below the bottom of the soldier pile,

00:52:35.200 --> 00:52:38.380
and you're seeing cracks 50-100

00:52:38.380 --> 00:52:41.905
feet behind the excavation outside the active zone,

00:52:41.905 --> 00:52:46.180
up here, you've got a very different situation.

00:52:46.180 --> 00:52:50.725
You've got a very serious potential

00:52:50.725 --> 00:52:53.740
for a global instability problem.

00:52:53.740 --> 00:52:55.975
The factor of safety

00:52:55.975 --> 00:52:59.019
that was calculated if this excavation

00:52:59.019 --> 00:53:00.580
had continued down to

00:53:00.580 --> 00:53:05.540
the design level at 45 feet would have been below one.

00:53:05.850 --> 00:53:09.730
At that point, when these calculations were done,

00:53:09.730 --> 00:53:12.055
the excavation stopped completely,

00:53:12.055 --> 00:53:15.100
and the contractor begin bringing soil back into

00:53:15.100 --> 00:53:18.205
the hole to shore up and

00:53:18.205 --> 00:53:22.795
placing soil back up against the wall in this area

00:53:22.795 --> 00:53:25.225
to add support to the wall and to

00:53:25.225 --> 00:53:28.750
arrest any further movement of this wall.

00:53:28.750 --> 00:53:30.910
Ultimately, again this is

00:53:30.910 --> 00:53:32.590
a diagram that we did for the trial,

00:53:32.590 --> 00:53:37.030
but this was the phenomenon that we were hoping to avoid.

00:53:37.030 --> 00:53:41.110
Ultimately, the fix was to take this soil

00:53:41.110 --> 00:53:42.610
mixing machine from right to

00:53:42.610 --> 00:53:44.665
turn it perpendicular to the wall,

00:53:44.665 --> 00:53:47.350
build buttresses to the wall,

00:53:47.350 --> 00:53:51.250
concrete buttresses that held that wall in place,

00:53:51.250 --> 00:53:52.990
until you could excavate down through

00:53:52.990 --> 00:53:54.610
those and lock everything in

00:53:54.610 --> 00:53:58.165
place with slabs on grade.

00:53:58.165 --> 00:54:00.640
Ultimately, the project was built,

00:54:00.640 --> 00:54:03.010
and you saw a picture of it at the beginning,

00:54:03.010 --> 00:54:04.870
it turned out to be a very lovely park,

00:54:04.870 --> 00:54:07.690
but it came at a high cost.

00:54:07.690 --> 00:54:13.105
Again, the geotechnical expert in that case,

00:54:13.105 --> 00:54:18.225
who prepared the geotechnical report for the owner,

00:54:18.225 --> 00:54:21.540
I don't think it was his fault.

00:54:21.540 --> 00:54:22.860
We got the report that didn't

00:54:22.860 --> 00:54:25.005
accurately describe the conditions,

00:54:25.005 --> 00:54:26.685
but it was the owner who said,

00:54:26.685 --> 00:54:28.455
"Look in this great big area,

00:54:28.455 --> 00:54:32.330
I think four borings is adequate.

00:54:32.330 --> 00:54:34.300
One of them met refusal.

00:54:34.300 --> 00:54:36.535
One of them you can just take and toss.

00:54:36.535 --> 00:54:40.375
It had three borings and the owner said,

00:54:40.375 --> 00:54:44.260
"I'll take that risk."

00:54:44.260 --> 00:54:46.975
When the chickens came home to roost,

00:54:46.975 --> 00:54:49.525
so to speak, he didn't want to take the risk.

00:54:49.525 --> 00:54:52.720
Anyway, that ended up going to a jury trial.

00:54:52.720 --> 00:54:55.600
As I said, that's how it ultimately got resolved.

00:54:55.600 --> 00:55:02.560
This one goes under

00:55:02.560 --> 00:55:08.110
the heading of no good deed goes unpunished.

00:55:08.110 --> 00:55:09.111
Schnabel was involved.

00:55:09.990 --> 00:55:12.400
University of South Carolina had

00:55:12.400 --> 00:55:15.880
a successful Collegiate Baseball Team.

00:55:15.880 --> 00:55:18.865
They won the College World Series and they decided,

00:55:18.865 --> 00:55:20.680
we need a first grade stadium.

00:55:20.680 --> 00:55:23.890
They had some property that they owned.

00:55:23.890 --> 00:55:26.035
You can see the outline here.

00:55:26.035 --> 00:55:27.550
You can probably see some of

00:55:27.550 --> 00:55:30.775
the topographical marks up here.

00:55:30.775 --> 00:55:33.430
This existing piece of property was one that

00:55:33.430 --> 00:55:36.535
they targeted for construction.

00:55:36.535 --> 00:55:39.790
Schnabel went out and did a geotechnical report.

00:55:39.790 --> 00:55:41.710
They made a preliminary set of

00:55:41.710 --> 00:55:44.155
recommendations that in that area,

00:55:44.155 --> 00:55:47.035
where you can see that was falling off,

00:55:47.035 --> 00:55:49.450
that there were construction debris

00:55:49.450 --> 00:55:51.760
had been reported years ago, and it wouldn't be

00:55:51.760 --> 00:55:54.100
suitable for structural support and

00:55:54.100 --> 00:55:57.325
will require complete removal and replacement.

00:55:57.325 --> 00:56:00.190
Then did a final recommendation saying

00:56:00.190 --> 00:56:02.380
the construction debris area will

00:56:02.380 --> 00:56:04.630
require complete removal and

00:56:04.630 --> 00:56:07.345
replacement or further investigation to determine

00:56:07.345 --> 00:56:08.980
the most cost-effective course of

00:56:08.980 --> 00:56:11.665
action to stabilize the area.

00:56:11.665 --> 00:56:14.230
The geotechnical engineer provides

00:56:14.230 --> 00:56:15.835
all of that to the architect.

00:56:15.835 --> 00:56:19.315
The architect in this case did nothing with it,

00:56:19.315 --> 00:56:22.175
didn't write it in little plans and specs.

00:56:22.175 --> 00:56:25.710
As a result, the work on

00:56:25.710 --> 00:56:27.780
this project proceeded without

00:56:27.780 --> 00:56:30.105
regard to these recommendations.

00:56:30.105 --> 00:56:32.925
This was a stadium afterwards, ultimately built.

00:56:32.925 --> 00:56:34.920
It's a first grade facility.

00:56:34.920 --> 00:56:38.315
It's really a great facility.

00:56:38.315 --> 00:56:40.225
The area that we looked at

00:56:40.225 --> 00:56:42.340
earlier [NOISE] up here and you can

00:56:42.340 --> 00:56:44.350
tell it's an area level

00:56:44.350 --> 00:56:46.210
was draining off down toward the river,

00:56:46.210 --> 00:56:48.280
but there was a depression in

00:56:48.280 --> 00:56:51.385
that area that had been filled with junk earlier on.

00:56:51.385 --> 00:56:54.955
That's the area where problems began to occur.

00:56:54.955 --> 00:57:00.445
Now we're looking out along the left field line,

00:57:00.445 --> 00:57:02.320
here's some bleachers that sit over

00:57:02.320 --> 00:57:05.350
a concrete garage structure where

00:57:05.350 --> 00:57:07.600
they put their field equipment

00:57:07.600 --> 00:57:09.700
and maintenance equipment and all that stuff.

00:57:09.700 --> 00:57:11.980
Then you have bleachers

00:57:11.980 --> 00:57:14.350
in a little concourse area out here.

00:57:14.350 --> 00:57:15.910
If you walk out there,

00:57:15.910 --> 00:57:18.115
this little seating concourse area,

00:57:18.115 --> 00:57:20.920
you begin to see and there's the bleachers again.

00:57:20.920 --> 00:57:26.760
Cracks, not thermal cracks,

00:57:26.760 --> 00:57:30.090
cracks and all the concrete that was happening out

00:57:30.090 --> 00:57:32.770
there and this was

00:57:32.770 --> 00:57:35.470
a year or two after the construction was complete,

00:57:35.470 --> 00:57:38.230
so it was a sign that things were

00:57:38.230 --> 00:57:40.180
happening and they were happening

00:57:40.180 --> 00:57:42.340
fairly rapidly after construction.

00:57:42.340 --> 00:57:44.870
This wasn't after 20 years.

00:57:44.880 --> 00:57:49.780
Again, this is the area that is for the intersection of

00:57:49.780 --> 00:57:54.250
the concourse and the left field bleachers, more cracks.

00:57:54.250 --> 00:57:59.904
[NOISE] There were all sorts of measurements taken,

00:57:59.904 --> 00:58:02.815
trying to get a sophisticated reading on it.

00:58:02.815 --> 00:58:07.105
Here now we're outside along that same left field line,

00:58:07.105 --> 00:58:09.280
crack gauges that are put in place.

00:58:09.280 --> 00:58:11.410
But here even to

00:58:11.410 --> 00:58:15.775
the untrained eye you can look down there and eyeball it.

00:58:15.775 --> 00:58:18.535
Concrete is not supposed to sag like that

00:58:18.535 --> 00:58:22.570
that's a bad thing to see.

00:58:22.570 --> 00:58:24.280
In looking at this,

00:58:24.280 --> 00:58:27.430
you can tell that the settlement in this area

00:58:27.430 --> 00:58:30.055
was extreme and that's

00:58:30.055 --> 00:58:33.160
the source of the cracking, was right there.

00:58:33.160 --> 00:58:35.665
Again, [NOISE] in the area,

00:58:35.665 --> 00:58:36.865
these are the bleachers.

00:58:36.865 --> 00:58:38.950
This is actually the roof of

00:58:38.950 --> 00:58:41.425
the garage structure underneath.

00:58:41.425 --> 00:58:43.660
Now we're underneath looking up,

00:58:43.660 --> 00:58:49.630
and the roof of this structure needed repair,

00:58:49.630 --> 00:58:51.130
the floor of the structure.

00:58:51.130 --> 00:58:54.130
There were several millions of dollars of repairs needed

00:58:54.130 --> 00:58:57.980
to stabilize this brand new facility.

00:58:58.320 --> 00:59:02.380
What the university did was to go out and sue

00:59:02.380 --> 00:59:04.150
everybody that they could get

00:59:04.150 --> 00:59:07.960
their arms around, including Schnabel,

00:59:07.960 --> 00:59:10.330
who had provided the geotechnical report

00:59:10.330 --> 00:59:11.560
that the university was

00:59:11.560 --> 00:59:15.565
using to point to the other project participants saying,

00:59:15.565 --> 00:59:17.650
look, here's a report that

00:59:17.650 --> 00:59:20.095
the geotechnical engineer told you.

00:59:20.095 --> 00:59:23.140
You need to go out and replace that mark

00:59:23.140 --> 00:59:27.170
and you couldn't build on it yet, you didn't do it.

00:59:27.360 --> 00:59:30.670
They're saying to the contractor, you're responsible.

00:59:30.670 --> 00:59:31.900
They're saying to the architect

00:59:31.900 --> 00:59:33.160
you're responsible because

00:59:33.160 --> 00:59:35.785
you didn't follow Schnabel's recommendations.

00:59:35.785 --> 00:59:38.110
Then they said to Schnabel, well you've got insurance,

00:59:38.110 --> 00:59:40.255
so you're in the mix as well.

00:59:40.255 --> 00:59:44.290
Somehow, as I said earlier,

00:59:44.290 --> 00:59:46.315
this is the no good deed goes unpunished.

00:59:46.315 --> 00:59:49.720
Even very very good work by

00:59:49.720 --> 00:59:52.150
an engineer that was used

00:59:52.150 --> 00:59:55.585
by the owner to make his case against somebody else.

00:59:55.585 --> 00:59:57.460
He turned around because money is

00:59:57.460 --> 01:00:00.760
an issue and drags in another company anyway,

01:00:00.760 --> 01:00:02.515
a company that clearly

01:00:02.515 --> 01:00:05.545
had performed in accordance to the standard of care.

01:00:05.545 --> 01:00:08.440
We know that Schnabel's recommendations

01:00:08.440 --> 01:00:10.164
were not written to the specs.

01:00:10.164 --> 01:00:11.680
We know that Schnabel was never

01:00:11.680 --> 01:00:15.745
contacted regarding additional investigation.

01:00:15.745 --> 01:00:18.460
We know that the owner's consultant,

01:00:18.460 --> 01:00:21.070
they did a remedial investigation and confirmed that

01:00:21.070 --> 01:00:24.790
the rubble fill had not been removed and none of that

01:00:24.790 --> 01:00:26.800
consultants data suggests that measures

01:00:26.800 --> 01:00:29.335
were taken to stabilize the rubble.

01:00:29.335 --> 01:00:32.050
Nothing that Schnabel had observed and

01:00:32.050 --> 01:00:36.100
recommended had been implemented and so he had a very,

01:00:36.100 --> 01:00:38.530
very expensive problem that could have

01:00:38.530 --> 01:00:42.080
been and was foreseen and predicted.

01:00:43.020 --> 01:00:47.290
One more, Dulles Jet Center is one

01:00:47.290 --> 01:00:51.010
that is not a complicated engineering issue,

01:00:51.010 --> 01:00:52.780
but it's an interesting project.

01:00:52.780 --> 01:00:54.280
It's a big parking garage

01:00:54.280 --> 01:00:57.145
for private jets out of Dulles Airport.

01:00:57.145 --> 01:00:59.050
It's just a metal building.

01:00:59.050 --> 01:01:01.690
There's nothing particularly fancy or exotic about it.

01:01:01.690 --> 01:01:03.400
Schnabel made some recommendations

01:01:03.400 --> 01:01:06.850
about the foundations for the structure.

01:01:06.850 --> 01:01:10.460
The designer for this building

01:01:10.460 --> 01:01:15.300
did their design to provide for big open spaces.

01:01:15.300 --> 01:01:17.490
You need a lot of span to accommodate

01:01:17.490 --> 01:01:20.300
these planes are going to be there.

01:01:20.300 --> 01:01:23.215
The owner says to the designer,

01:01:23.215 --> 01:01:25.750
"Construct this and design it for

01:01:25.750 --> 01:01:29.995
a 30-year snow load." How bad can it be?

01:01:29.995 --> 01:01:33.950
How often do we get snows that are worse than that?

01:01:34.080 --> 01:01:41.290
The answer is, here's a helicopter fly over after

01:01:41.290 --> 01:01:44.470
these snow megaton occurrence that

01:01:44.470 --> 01:01:48.220
we had two giant snow falls and rapid succession.

01:01:48.220 --> 01:01:50.080
You can see that the roofs have

01:01:50.080 --> 01:01:53.245
collapsed on those buildings.

01:01:53.245 --> 01:01:55.480
Now on the inside,

01:01:55.480 --> 01:01:58.180
this is a security camera footage

01:01:58.180 --> 01:02:01.870
and you can imagine each one of those little snowflakes,

01:02:01.870 --> 01:02:05.020
each one of those little infinitesimally

01:02:05.020 --> 01:02:08.770
light snowflakes adding to the load.

01:02:08.770 --> 01:02:11.560
You have to give this a minute or so.

01:02:11.560 --> 01:02:17.740
But the end result

01:02:17.740 --> 01:02:20.290
indicates that there were no problems with

01:02:20.290 --> 01:02:22.960
the geotechnical recommendations made

01:02:22.960 --> 01:02:25.640
by Schnabel on this project.

01:02:33.690 --> 01:02:36.700
I was going to speed it up for dramatic effect,

01:02:36.700 --> 01:02:40.015
but you're seeing it in real time.

01:02:40.015 --> 01:02:42.730
They're watching this from a security office

01:02:42.730 --> 01:02:46.330
thinking there's not a thing they can do about it.

01:02:46.330 --> 01:03:04.320
[BACKGROUND]

01:03:04.320 --> 01:03:06.310
[NOISE].

01:03:06.310 --> 01:03:10.900
It's a mess. This was

01:03:10.900 --> 01:03:12.910
the one that's closest to the camera,

01:03:12.910 --> 01:03:14.455
but there were, I think,

01:03:14.455 --> 01:03:20.050
18 jets in that structure at the time.

01:03:20.050 --> 01:03:24.205
The initial pleadings where they

01:03:24.205 --> 01:03:25.405
went out and sued

01:03:25.405 --> 01:03:26.800
everybody who had had anything

01:03:26.800 --> 01:03:28.030
to do with the constructions;

01:03:28.030 --> 01:03:30.280
the landscape guy,

01:03:30.280 --> 01:03:34.210
the [LAUGHTER] geotechnical engineer, everybody.

01:03:34.210 --> 01:03:36.400
Everybody was in the pool.

01:03:36.400 --> 01:03:41.155
$450 million was the original complaint

01:03:41.155 --> 01:03:42.520
and jets are expensive.

01:03:42.520 --> 01:03:46.420
So when you collapse a roof on a jet.

01:03:46.420 --> 01:03:48.760
When I walked through with some of

01:03:48.760 --> 01:03:51.070
the Schnoll guys, all of these jets,

01:03:51.070 --> 01:03:53.020
because as you see that roof came down,

01:03:53.020 --> 01:03:55.060
it contacted the tail section

01:03:55.060 --> 01:03:57.955
and forced the nose up in the air.

01:03:57.955 --> 01:04:00.775
Before they could do anything else,

01:04:00.775 --> 01:04:02.140
they had to figure out,

01:04:02.140 --> 01:04:06.580
how are we going to remove the parts

01:04:06.580 --> 01:04:07.630
of the roof that are resting

01:04:07.630 --> 01:04:08.680
on these planes without having

01:04:08.680 --> 01:04:11.005
the planes collapse back down on the floor?

01:04:11.005 --> 01:04:12.670
You'll see, here they built

01:04:12.670 --> 01:04:15.550
these jigs that would be put in

01:04:15.550 --> 01:04:17.575
place and jacked up to support

01:04:17.575 --> 01:04:20.695
the nose section of each of these planes.

01:04:20.695 --> 01:04:24.470
Here's another one and another one.

01:04:24.660 --> 01:04:29.230
Again, as you can see from looking at this,

01:04:29.230 --> 01:04:34.569
this was not a failure of the materials,

01:04:34.569 --> 01:04:36.580
it wasn't a failure of design.

01:04:36.580 --> 01:04:39.460
It was just that there was too

01:04:39.460 --> 01:04:42.730
great a load on the materials that were put in place,

01:04:42.730 --> 01:04:47.530
and that seemed to not satisfy the insurance company.

01:04:47.530 --> 01:04:49.990
They had to pay for all these planes and now they were

01:04:49.990 --> 01:04:53.570
headhunting for people to help pay them back.

01:04:54.060 --> 01:04:57.970
That was one where [NOISE]

01:04:57.970 --> 01:05:02.200
ultimately all the parties involved

01:05:02.200 --> 01:05:05.470
in this had to get together and reach some resolution

01:05:05.470 --> 01:05:09.430
and the insurance companies duked it out.

01:05:09.430 --> 01:05:11.680
But one of the very last things I

01:05:11.680 --> 01:05:12.940
want to talk about is there has

01:05:12.940 --> 01:05:14.335
been some discussion about,

01:05:14.335 --> 01:05:16.660
where do you see things going in the future?

01:05:16.660 --> 01:05:18.550
We talked about this model,

01:05:18.550 --> 01:05:23.935
which is the design-build model,

01:05:23.935 --> 01:05:30.355
and more and more now we see the design-build model.

01:05:30.355 --> 01:05:33.220
The designer, instead of providing plans and

01:05:33.220 --> 01:05:36.070
specifications upstream to the owner,

01:05:36.070 --> 01:05:40.510
the designer is now collaborating with

01:05:40.510 --> 01:05:42.310
the contractor either as

01:05:42.310 --> 01:05:46.015
a subcontractor or as a joint venture partner.

01:05:46.015 --> 01:05:49.630
But now instead of giving design documents to the owner,

01:05:49.630 --> 01:05:52.150
they're giving them directly to the contractor.

01:05:52.150 --> 01:05:54.880
It doesn't mean that there aren't any more problems,

01:05:54.880 --> 01:05:57.310
but from a contractor standpoint,

01:05:57.310 --> 01:05:59.410
this is a much tougher haul now,

01:05:59.410 --> 01:06:00.940
because now if you have

01:06:00.940 --> 01:06:02.470
a problem with the design documents,

01:06:02.470 --> 01:06:04.375
you can't just go back to the owner and say,

01:06:04.375 --> 01:06:05.845
"Hey, there's been a change.

01:06:05.845 --> 01:06:07.855
You owe me a change order

01:06:07.855 --> 01:06:10.780
because of your defective design documents."

01:06:10.780 --> 01:06:13.495
If the design documents are defective now,

01:06:13.495 --> 01:06:14.920
the contractor has to turn to

01:06:14.920 --> 01:06:17.530
their joint venture partner and say, "Mr.

01:06:17.530 --> 01:06:20.440
Designer, your documents are a mess.

01:06:20.440 --> 01:06:22.240
I've got conflicts and

01:06:22.240 --> 01:06:24.760
it's costing me millions of dollars.

01:06:24.760 --> 01:06:27.650
Get out your checkbook."

01:06:28.170 --> 01:06:32.980
I don't want to say it's

01:06:32.980 --> 01:06:34.840
new because design-build has been a model that's

01:06:34.840 --> 01:06:37.000
been coming for quite some time,

01:06:37.000 --> 01:06:38.650
but it hasn't been nearly as

01:06:38.650 --> 01:06:41.290
prevalent as it's becoming the last couple of years.

01:06:41.290 --> 01:06:43.600
So we're still sorting our way

01:06:43.600 --> 01:06:46.510
out with how these risks are now going to be

01:06:46.510 --> 01:06:48.340
handled when the designer and

01:06:48.340 --> 01:06:51.160
the contractor are basically

01:06:51.160 --> 01:06:53.035
now on the same side of the table,

01:06:53.035 --> 01:06:54.820
and the owner can stand back now and

01:06:54.820 --> 01:06:56.620
say, "This isn't my problem.

01:06:56.620 --> 01:06:57.760
You guys work it out.

01:06:57.760 --> 01:06:59.665
It's either a construction problem

01:06:59.665 --> 01:07:01.375
or it's a design problem,

01:07:01.375 --> 01:07:03.055
but the one thing I know for sure,

01:07:03.055 --> 01:07:04.645
it's not an owner problem.

01:07:04.645 --> 01:07:09.370
So don't come asking me for additional compensation."

01:07:09.370 --> 01:07:11.530
Anyway, I know I've gone a little bit long.

01:07:11.530 --> 01:07:14.965
I apologize for that, but I could do this all day.

01:07:14.965 --> 01:07:16.510
I've told these guys,

01:07:16.510 --> 01:07:17.800
lawyers get paid by the word,

01:07:17.800 --> 01:07:19.945
so we love to hear ourselves talk.

01:07:19.945 --> 01:07:31.000
Thanks for your attention. [APPLAUSE]

01:07:31.000 --> 01:07:33.460
We'll just take a couple of questions.

01:07:33.460 --> 01:07:35.320
[inaudible] [LAUGHTER] Any questions, please?

01:07:35.320 --> 01:07:41.520
This could be one

01:07:41.520 --> 01:07:42.570
of those things in your career,

01:07:42.570 --> 01:07:43.590
you're going to realize it's all

01:07:43.590 --> 01:07:46.035
about communication and the client selection.

01:07:46.035 --> 01:07:47.760
You could do the best engineer in the world

01:07:47.760 --> 01:07:50.959
and you're still going to need Brian sooner or later.

01:07:50.959 --> 01:07:54.885
The question is on the engineering side.

01:07:54.885 --> 01:07:57.975
On the first, starting the engine,

01:07:57.975 --> 01:08:01.060
how can the contractor handle

01:08:01.060 --> 01:08:11.080
the vibrations and noise coming from the [inaudible]

01:08:11.080 --> 01:08:11.180
[inaudible]

01:08:11.180 --> 01:08:13.510
Well, those are written into

01:08:13.510 --> 01:08:15.610
the project specifications that you have to

01:08:15.610 --> 01:08:18.250
stay within certain decibel levels.

01:08:18.250 --> 01:08:20.890
You have to work within certain hours of the day.

01:08:20.890 --> 01:08:23.590
You're allowed greater latitude in terms

01:08:23.590 --> 01:08:26.730
of noise and things during certain hours and not.

01:08:26.730 --> 01:08:29.355
Those things are very closely monitored, and

01:08:29.355 --> 01:08:32.925
they'll come out and shut down your generator equipment.

01:08:32.925 --> 01:08:37.260
They have QC and QA people that are out there constantly

01:08:37.260 --> 01:08:40.870
monitoring all of those environmental things

01:08:40.870 --> 01:08:43.525
in addition to the status of the work.

01:08:43.525 --> 01:08:48.790
Thank you.

01:08:48.790 --> 01:09:04.150
[inaudible] [NOISE] Is there

01:09:04.150 --> 01:09:06.070
a limit to that at some point? [inaudible]

01:09:06.070 --> 01:09:09.160
Well, it's a tremendous tool for contractors.

01:09:09.160 --> 01:09:11.500
The Spearin Doctrine basically says,

01:09:11.500 --> 01:09:13.870
as long as you can prove that you

01:09:13.870 --> 01:09:17.410
were following the plans and specs,

01:09:17.410 --> 01:09:19.480
you are not going to be responsible and it

01:09:19.480 --> 01:09:20.350
doesn't make any difference to

01:09:20.350 --> 01:09:21.955
the magnitude of the problem.

01:09:21.955 --> 01:09:25.870
So if there's a bridge collapse or if there

01:09:25.870 --> 01:09:29.680
is something that's really

01:09:29.680 --> 01:09:34.190
catastrophic in terms of expense,

01:09:36.270 --> 01:09:39.430
they can't do something that's obviously they

01:09:39.430 --> 01:09:41.935
see a problem and they realize.

01:09:41.935 --> 01:09:44.500
Like on the parking garage,

01:09:44.500 --> 01:09:46.390
the contractor recognized that if

01:09:46.390 --> 01:09:48.400
they had kept excavating that site,

01:09:48.400 --> 01:09:50.470
something bad was going to happen.

01:09:50.470 --> 01:09:53.575
[LAUGHTER] So they can't just keep going saying, "Well,

01:09:53.575 --> 01:09:58.570
I know it's inevitable that this is going to happen,

01:09:58.570 --> 01:09:59.845
but I've got to schedule.

01:09:59.845 --> 01:10:02.800
So damn the torpedoes,

01:10:02.800 --> 01:10:05.815
we're going to keep pushing ahead." You can't do that.

01:10:05.815 --> 01:10:09.490
But barring that, if you're following the plans and

01:10:09.490 --> 01:10:11.230
specs in good faith and

01:10:11.230 --> 01:10:13.450
doing what you're responsible to do,

01:10:13.450 --> 01:10:16.300
then the consequences of following those plans and

01:10:16.300 --> 01:10:20.360
specs are not going to fall on the contractor.

01:10:22.290 --> 01:10:24.640
Any other questions? Yes.

01:10:24.640 --> 01:10:27.415
[inaudible] provided, I guess,

01:10:27.415 --> 01:10:29.080
towards the standard of care for but it's

01:10:29.080 --> 01:10:31.330
like they provided above

01:10:31.330 --> 01:10:33.340
the standard or a really good

01:10:33.340 --> 01:10:36.310
engineering attempt would have been successful,

01:10:36.310 --> 01:10:47.440
what's the motivation to go above and beyond [inaudible]

01:10:47.440 --> 01:10:50.005
You'll see that sometimes in

01:10:50.005 --> 01:10:52.900
construction documents where particularly

01:10:52.900 --> 01:10:54.970
now that we've gone into the design-build thing,

01:10:54.970 --> 01:11:00.610
or contractors will say to their engineer,

01:11:00.610 --> 01:11:02.695
now partner or subcontractor,

01:11:02.695 --> 01:11:07.870
that you are agreeing contractually to exercise

01:11:07.870 --> 01:11:11.380
the very best practices

01:11:11.380 --> 01:11:13.180
without regard to the standard care,

01:11:13.180 --> 01:11:16.930
whatever the most conservative,

01:11:16.930 --> 01:11:18.640
if you want to call it that.

01:11:18.640 --> 01:11:20.500
They want belt in suspenders.

01:11:20.500 --> 01:11:21.880
They want assurance that you're not

01:11:21.880 --> 01:11:25.975
just pitching to the average,

01:11:25.975 --> 01:11:29.350
but you're contractually binding

01:11:29.350 --> 01:11:31.465
yourself to something higher than that.

01:11:31.465 --> 01:11:35.320
That's got really [inaudible]

01:11:35.320 --> 01:11:37.915
implications for designers who agree to that,

01:11:37.915 --> 01:11:39.970
because their errors and omissions,

01:11:39.970 --> 01:11:45.790
insurance policy covers [inaudible] the standard of care.

01:11:45.790 --> 01:11:47.890
If they took on an additional risk

01:11:47.890 --> 01:11:50.710
to hold themselves to a higher standard,

01:11:50.710 --> 01:11:54.025
their insurance [inaudible] "We never agreed to that.

01:11:54.025 --> 01:11:56.935
We didn't agree to ensure you that you are now going to

01:11:56.935 --> 01:12:01.190
produce a [inaudible] plans and specifications."

01:12:02.940 --> 01:12:06.520
These are cutting-edge considerations

01:12:06.520 --> 01:12:07.570
that we're trying to work through

01:12:07.570 --> 01:12:11.575
now as design-build becomes more of an issue.

01:12:11.575 --> 01:12:16.410
There's more pressure [inaudible] a higher degree of

01:12:16.410 --> 01:12:18.240
performance and a higher degree

01:12:18.240 --> 01:12:22.120
[inaudible] from the design community.

01:12:23.330 --> 01:12:26.550
Okay. Good. I have a couple of things for

01:12:26.550 --> 01:12:29.410
Brian to thank him for his visit here,

01:12:29.410 --> 01:12:31.840
a hat from Blacksburg that I'm sure you're going to wear

01:12:31.840 --> 01:12:34.420
in Charlottesville [LAUGHTER] to see his daughter.

01:12:34.420 --> 01:12:39.220
I'll wear it proudly. Thank you.

01:12:39.220 --> 01:12:41.350
[inaudible]

01:12:41.350 --> 01:12:42.520
Well, thank you very much.

01:12:42.520 --> 01:12:44.140
[OVERLAPPING] Well, thank you.

01:12:44.140 --> 01:12:52.000
[APPLAUSE] I appreciate that. [APPLAUSE]