CLICK HERE to view a slideshow of images from this year's Catalyst Blitz Build.
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Building Safe Havens
Student, faculty, and community volunteers take on the most ambitious Construction Management project yet
By Marion Harmon
Torrential rain. Fifty-mile-an-hour winds. Power outages. Freezing temperatures. Sound like the setting for a disaster movie? Actually, this was the scene for this year’s Catalyst Blitz Build, where 160 California State University, Chico students spent nine days in January building two transitional living houses in Chico for domestic violence victims.
“The power outage resulted in our advisors sending students for generators to power nail guns, table saws, lights, and most important, the coffee,” says Nikki Kantor, assistant student project manager for the Blitz Build. “The rain sent me running around to the Salvation Army, the Dollar Store, and Walmart searching for ponchos to keep the volunteers dry. The cold weather was expected, seeing as it was the end of January, but it just added to the miserable conditions. We overcame every challenge that was thrown at us, and on top of that, we even finished on time!”
What enabled them to finish the project on time were the nearly 15,000 hours in double shifts put in by the construction management, concrete industry management, and civil engineering students; faculty and industry advisors; and 43 subcontractors. This massive cooperative effort was the latest in a series of construction projects performed by CSU, Chico students for their Annual Winter Community Service Project. The Blitz Build united Catalyst Domestic Violence Services, the University, the local construction industry, and the greater community.
“It has been a wonderful partnership with the University and the city of Chico,” says Catalyst Domestic Violence Services Executive Director Anastacia Snyder. “Having transitional housing as a component of our program has been a dream of ours, and to be able to work with the students and the city of Chico to realize that dream for our clients is exciting.”
They also had help from other campus departments, including 740 hours of cooking by 40 nutrition and food science students, and from volunteers from throughout the community. About 60 students from Northwest Lineman College in Oroville volunteered to erect utility poles for the homes at the site.
“We didn’t make a single request from the community that was not fulfilled,” notes faculty advisor James O’Bannon. “A good example was when the power went out, and in 20 minutes, we had half a dozen generators on site. We just had to make a few phone calls and people showed up.”
Numerous other local and national entities provided support in the form of materials, financial contributions, and sweat equity. The Chico Association of Realtors donated $12,000 for tools and food to feed workers, and the Chico Noon Rotary Club helped prepare and serve food at the final celebration for the build. The Foor Foundation donated $10,000 for site control, transportation, tools, and materials. The Chico Redevelopment Agency is helping Catalyst with $550,000 to support the construction of homes developed for transitional housing.
The Annual Winter Community Service Project has become a CSU, Chico tradition. For three years in a row starting in 2006, students traveled to New Orleans to help with rebuilding efforts after Hurricane Katrina. Last January, more than 100 students constructed storage sheds for survivors of the Concow fire. This year’s efforts were split between adding sleeping rooms to the Torres Shelter in Chico during the fall 2009 semester, and building the two Catalyst transitional units in January.
Originally the plan had been for the addition of rooms to the Torres Shelter to be the community service project during the 2010 winter break. “The Torres Shelter didn’t have enough sleeping rooms, so they needed a build-out,” says David Shirah, faculty advisor. “Unfortunately, at winter break, it would have been too late. With the economic times, the weather, they actually needed it early on, so we decided we’ll just do the addition during the fall semester.”
This left the need for another project during the winter break in January, so the Catalyst housing project was added. This has been the most ambitious community service project taken on by the construction management department so far. “Doing one winter break project normally takes nine months of preparation, so taking on two projects in one year is something we’ve never done before,” says Shirah. “Torres Shelter took a lot of planning and as much time as the community service week in January. Students are really to be commended because they saw a need to be fulfilled and said ‘we’ll do both.’ ”
The planning for both projects started in May 2009. “The Catalyst Blitz Build was a very planning-intensive project, but it was great because it opened students’ eyes to what you really have to deal with in the industry,” says student project manager Christina Pantera.
Initially the plan for the Catalyst project was to build one housing unit, but so many students showed up for the first meeting that they decided to try to build two units. Faculty and industry advisors were doubtful that they could pull it off in such little time—barely over a week. But everyone involved was determined to make it work.
“I personally thought from the start it was too ambitious of a project, not knowing the skill level of the students who were going to show up,” says industry advisor Pat Conroy. “I voted for a project that would have been a lot easier, but the students wanted this one, so we went with it. And it turned out to be a really good project. It took a lot of hours to keep it going, but the students really stepped up.”
The students doing the work were put into teams, with each team including skilled and unskilled labor. “The students did a skills survey,” says Shirah. “They asked students what their skill sets are so they could put them in teams. We didn’t have more than one journeyman on a team. We were not going to forsake students that were unskilled in basic construction techniques and just put skilled people together for the sake of getting an aspect of the project done.”
Developing some trade skills will help the students during their management careers, says O’Bannon. “They don’t have to be skilled welders or skilled concrete finishers, but once they understand that this does take a special skill, then they can better appreciate and supervise their team,” he says.
Kantor says the project helped her realize her educational goals in several ways. “Outside of directly relating to my major,” she says. “I learned human resource skills by managing and coordinating hundreds of volunteers. I also learned public relations by working with local businesses organizing fundraisers and with the media regarding publicity.”
The learning behind the projects had many different facets. “As student project manager, I was lucky enough to go to a couple of the planning meetings with the city,” says Pantera. “To be able to see that side of a construction project is really neat, because we saw it all the way through planning. We know how they got the financing, how to deal with all the bureaucratic part of it. It was a great learning process because now I have that in my toolbox of things I know. It’s a great thing to go out to industry and to be able to say I have that experience.”
Even though the idea was to come in on schedule, speed was not the first priority, says Shirah. “I think Dr. O’Bannon put it well—we’re doing a blitz build, but we’re not about schedule, we’re not about time,” explains Shirah. “The first thing that we’re about is learning.”
The units were built to meet stringent environmental building requirements under Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) specifications—the goal is to achieve gold LEED certification, possibly the first gold for a residential unit in Chico, says Shirah. Each of the 840-square-foot houses has craftsman-style touches on the exterior and a large front porch. Inside are two bedrooms, one bath, and an open living area with a kitchen and dining space. Four students from the College of Business furnished the rooms. The houses will fill a vital need in helping victims of domestic violence become self-sufficient and rebuild life skills.
Many of the good feelings that came out of the project were not just the cause but also the sense of community that formed during the planning and building. “Although it was a lot of work for everyone involved, it was a great opportunity to bring the community and the college together for a common cause,” says Kantor. “The students learned construction skills, gained management experience, and formed lasting relationships with each other. Construction Management feels like a family to some of us, and a great deal of that is due to the hours we spend together on community service projects such as the Blitz Build.”
With so many volunteers, the biggest challenge during the planning stage was communication, notes Kantor. “We had so many smart and amazing advisors with great ideas that it was at times difficult to bring all the ideas together and decide which should be implemented for the current situation,” she says. “We also had many involved students on the leadership team, each contributing to different aspects of the project, so we had to coordinate between the students and advisors as well.”
Faculty advisors Shirah and O’Bannon and an industry advisory board made up of local builders Gage Chrysler from Modern Building Inc., Pat Conroy of Conroy Construction Inc., and Howard Slater of Slater & Son Inc. also logged in hundreds of hours during the nine months, including meeting every Tuesday at 6:30 am in O’Bannon’s office and meeting with the 20-student leadership team. Conroy, who once took an estimating class from O’Bannon, was impressed with the way the students handled the challenges that came their way.
“It rained a lot. The wind was incredible. It blew our tent down, and they never got deterred,” says Conroy. “Some of them worked two shifts soaking wet. You couldn’t get them to quit at 11 o’clock at night. You had to unplug the lights or they would just keep going. You had to make them go home. I was really impressed with how hard the students worked and just how driven they are.”
Student leaders had to coordinate each volunteer who came on and off the site, notes Pantera. “We had logistics paperwork that had to be done for every single person no matter who they were,” she says. “We had safety meetings every single shift. We’d have a tailgate meeting at the beginning of the shift, and then we’d have everybody eat and get on the site and start going. There was a lot of prepping to get to the point where we could be organized enough to run shifts like that.”
Shirah points out that the project had a perfect safety record. “The students were responsible for safety and having a safety plan,” says Shirah. “To their credit, they had no injuries, which is quite amazing considering that they were doing a blitz build 16 hours a day in such poor conditions.”
Once the project was finished, there was a celebration attended by many members of the build team and the community. “When Anastacia spoke at our celebration barbecue, she talked about the difference the students are going to make in so many lives; there wasn’t a dry eye among the students,” says Shirah. “There’s no doubt that the students know that they’ve made a difference in people’s lives.”
Along with the impact that the Blitz Build had on the students, the most gratifying aspect of the project was helping Catalyst turn their vision of transitional housing into reality, says Kantor. “Catalyst wanted a place where victims of domestic violence could live for a more substantial period of time after the shelter so they could save money for their own place,” she says. “I think these homes will give families in this circumstance the opportunity they deserve to leave their situation and start over. I am honored to be a part of that.”.
Multimedia Links
To view videos of the Catalyst Blitz Build, including a time-lapse movie of the entire construction project, go to The Best of Chico State at www.csuchico.edu/best-of-csuchico/construction.shtml. Images from both projects can be found at www.csuchico.edu/pub/inside/09_12_10/blitzphotos.shtml.
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