Highway Farty is Open - Dan Galvin is the Man!

St. Louis, MO - The busiest stretch of interstate highway in the state of Missouri runs east and west right through the gut of St. Louis. Its official designation is I-64 but most of us here in St. Louis refer to it as Highway 40, which is its older U.S. highway number. Combine that with our city's speech inflection and it ends up being called Highway Farty.

There’s a 12 mile stretch of the highway starting at Spoede Road out west in St. Louis County running east into the City of St. Louis, to a point just past Kingshighway, that had deteriorated dramatically. The constant repairs and alterations needed to maintain this stretch of road were no longer effective, There was even an intersection with I-170, an interstate feeder highway, that was a bottleneck. We all knew that the whole thing needed to be replaced including all of the street interchanges, and we believed that it would be a project with hellish consequences.

For years, even decades, the project kept getting deferred, but eventually everyone knew what needed to be done. A plan to replace this 12 mile stretch of Highway 40 was put into motion. The big question was how it would be done and how long would it take. Several plans were proposed ranging from about 5 years all the way up to 10 or 11 years. Each plan had a different scheme of lane closures and even closing the entire eastbound half for a few years and then the westbound half for a few years. Whichever plan would emerge it all sounded like a doomsday scenario for the city.

Confession time - I was in the camp that this would be a disaster of horrendous proportions.

Then something totally unexpected happened. Someone proposed the idea of closing the highway down completely in two halves, the western half first, then the eastern half devoting all of the project’s resources on each half ripping up the old highway and rebuilding it from scratch including all of the interchanges. This would require traffic to be rerouted to arterial streets and several other highways. The biggest plus was that MODOT (the Missouri Department of Transportation) and the contractors determined the entire project could be done in only two years. It sounded outrageous but this is the plan that was chosen.

The vast majority of the public opinions were that this was going to be the biggest nightmare that this region had ever seen. There would be gridlock, congestion, accidents and it would be a huge mess and we would surely not survive it. Eventually MODOT officials would have to taken out and hung for suggesting such an outlandish idea.

But this was the plan that stuck, the contracts were awarded and everything was set in motion. Early on January 2, 2008 the western half of Highway 40 (or as it was being touted "The New I-64") was closed and work began.

Surprisingly, and much to the dismay of the multiple television camera crews waiting at the western closure between I-270 and Spoede Road, there was not the huge congestion or predicted chaos. It all went rather smoothly. Hmmmm.

The work on the western half went very well and a few days before New Years Eve 2008 it was reopened ahead of schedule and below budget. The eastern half was then closed almost immediately and the work on it began. Again all went very well and on December 7^th, 2009 the entire highway was reopened to traffic, again ahead of schedule and under budget.

It has been a huge success! The highway is magnificent and the entire community and its people performed very well indeed. Of course there were a few bumps but nothing major and all was handled well. This is something that we as a city can be proud of. We did the impossible and did so with patience, intelligence and a bit of panache.

There are concrete (Pun intended) lessons to be learned from the New I-64 (Highway Farty) project that can be applied to every business.

Boldness - The idea of shutting the highway down was an absolutely bold and outrageous idea. It not only came from left field but way out past left field. When the idea was floated you could hear the entire city asking, "You want to do what?" The result was that the region paid very close attention. Some (including me) maybe had a gruesome interest, like slowing down to look at an accident. But most people had their minds tweaked enough that we all gave this project genuine front of mind awareness.

Well planned and executed - Any endeavor of this magnitude had to have an incredible plan. It is said that success is no accident. The builders had a great plan and it was executed perfectly. There was also a very high amount or effort made to tightly coordinate all of the different entities involved in the project such as county and local governments, road and street departments; police, emergency and fire departments; and various private interests.

Well trained people - I heard that the entire crew on the project from office people and designers to the actual field workers numbered only about 450. I would think that ten times that many people would have been needed to get a project of this magnitude done. These people were obviously highly skilled and motivated professionals that were allowed to do what they do best: BUILD.

Financial incentives - The project was completed $11,000,000 under budget and since it was completed ahead of schedule the contracting team got an incentive of $5,000,000. Money well spent in my opinion. Almost always people will improve performance when they have a financial incentive to do so.

Adaptability – The building team (the contractors, MODOT, county and local roads departments) made necessary changes on the fly as warranted. For instance, part of the plan was an extensive re-timing of a large number of arterial road intersection traffic lights. They made changes to these intersections as was needed throughout the project. This improved traffic flow greatly.

Marketing and Promotion – This is where Dan Galvin comes into the picture. He was the public information contact for the build team and an employee of the prime contractor, Granite Construction Co. and he became the face and voice of the project. He was charming, charismatic, empathetic and highly skilled. He was everywhere! For almost a full year prior to the start of the project he, representing the build team, went on a full court press to make the public aware of what was going to happen and how commuters and residents along the route (like me) could and should respond. And during the build itself he was always available letting us know what was going on with the project. He even became somewhat of a celebrity in the city. He, along with representatives of MODOT, coordinated all of the public information including a very detailed and informative website, advertising, public promotions, media coverage – the works.

In summary…

Be bold and imaginative. Get peoples attention.

Build a great plan and execute it.

Get the skills you and your people need to do the job, and then trust yourself and your people to do it.

Reinforce positive performance with financial rewards

Be flexible and be ready to tweak, change or otherwise alter what you are doing to meet new needs and challenges.

Get the word out, whether it is through marketing, advertising, promotion or personal appeal. Get people involved!

These are the qualities that made the New I-64 project a success.

These same qualities can make you business a success, too.

Grapevine, Rain, Bloomington and More Rain

I have recently finished up a quick two week jaunt to attend and exhibit at two different expos in the HVACR industry.

The first was at the regional expo of the North Texas Chapter of the ACCA (Air Conditioning Contractors Association) held in Grapevine TX. My wife Kathy accompanied me on this trip leaving St. Louis on October 21. We drove. The trip was very fast and very uneventful taking the interstate only route down Interstate 44 all the way from St. Louis to Oklahoma City, then down I-35 almost directly on top of Grapevine, which is a fascinating town that is part of the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex. The only drag on the trip down was the weather: gray to OKC, then rain all the way down to Grapevine. And the rain stayed with us the entire time down there. As a matter of fact the rain was cold and the entire locale was at best, dreary.

Grapevine, irregardless of the weather, is a very cool place. It is an example of urban renewal on a sensible scale. The main drag through town is completely fresh with architecture that is either very good refurbs of old buildings or new construction keeping with the old town theme. That is combined with a very built up shopping, buisness, transportation and residential surrounding community. It all works very well together.

The expo itself was a decent enough affair. There were two other software companies there but we were the only company offering business development services with software as one of the keystone pieces. Attendance was light. There was a technical school exhibiting and I guess they put the word out that their students should come in and check things out. That is fine, but there were way too many of them and they sucked some of the air out the event. For the investment I would have like to see more businesses there. I would seriously have to consider the advisability of attending another one unless I could get the booth comped in exchange for me conducting a break out session.

We returned to St. Louis on Friday with some sunshine and since we took the traditional eastern route from Plano up through Oklahoma we got to see all of the indian casinos. What is with that anyway?

The next week I ran solo to Bloomington MN to exhibit at the international RSES (Residential Service Engineer Society) convention. The drive on that Wednesday was uneventful, except for, you guessed it, it rained. And of course it rained the entire time up there.

This event was much more to my liking as an exhibitor. Many more owners and executive level attendees and I represented the only software and business development vendor there. (I received a very nice complement that I was the only exhibitor there for the owners. Nice.) I was very pleased with the level of contact made there. As a matter of fact, in talking to some of the regional directors that attended I have secured one of these quid pro quo exhibition for booth arrangements with one region already, and I am confident that I will be able to make other similar arrangements. A big thumbs up.

On a side note, the Mall of America was situated almost exactly between my hotel, a very nice Quality Inn, and the Hilton Hotel that was the site of the convention. I did pull into one of the mall garages, parked, went in and promptly got lost. Wow, that place is huge and way too over the top for me. The only thing that saved me was that I noted that a "Barbi" Store (as in the doll) was by my entrance. I finally had to go a map and find that store again for me to find my way back to my car again. Strange but true.

I would like to make a business related note, maybe more in tune with some of the hvac people I talked to in Texas. There was I think a much greater ignorance (and I don't mean that as a slur) of the importance of proper business practices and standards, operational proficiency and marketing prowess. This is in contrast to the people at the RSES event whom were very willing, even eager to talk about ways that could improve how they conducted their businesses operationally. I think part of the reason was that while each convention did have segments on marketing neither of them had any programs on how to run a business, but the attendees at the RSES convention were more owners that have stepped out of their trucks and were actually managing their businesses on a daily basis. And I think that this is one of the biggest challenges that the service industry has, as well I came to understand this as a consultant with AirTime500. Most of these people are technicians and they need to learn being a manager is as important a job function as being a technician, and there is a huge need for business practices training, even of the most elementary kind.

More later.

As I see it

My name is Darrell Grob and welcome to my blog for my website www.smartbusinessnow.com.

There are several reasons for starting this website. And to explain some of these reasons requires a little background.

I have been a business person for over 30 years and I, like most others, have had my ups and downs, but mostly ups. My greatest accomplishments came in the area of business development for companies that I have worked for as well as for myself as an entrepreneur. I have built some very successful businesses from scratch, as I am doing once again. I have also taken some detours along the way that (I don't like to admit this) has diverted me from even greater successes. But as I look back I can see that for the most part these tangents were necessary for the situations that were presenting themselves at the time.

So here I am with a life time full of knowledge, experience and evidence of success. It is time to pass this on to the greatest number of people. Oh, and by the way, make a good living at it, too.

One of the most important moves that I have made to start this new adventure is to team up with Smart Service, an absolutely awesome software application specifically designed for the service industry. The ownership and staff of the company is top notch and I am very excited to be involved with them. Smart Service is a tight, neat package that takes the guesswork out of managing a service c0mpany.

One of the most important things about running a successful business is have a firm grip on the numbers and to use this information productively to make the business move along in as smooth a fashion as possible. Actually, I am uncompromising about information management, numbers and key performance indicators.

Well, I don't want to prolong this too much at this point. More to come.