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BUSINESS NEWS BRIDGE DESIGNER, ALEX RANDELL, E.I. RECOGNIZED FOR HIS AWARD-WINNING RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION ON POST-TENSIONED GROUT ISSUES Bridge design and construction engineering firm, Finley Engineering Group (#2 Best Firm Structural for 2016) is proud to congratulate Alex Randell, E.I., bridge designer at Finley, Marcelino Aguirre, and Trey Hamilton on winning the 2017 Post- Tensioning Institute Kenneth B. Bondy Award for the Most Meritorious Technical Paper on the “Effects of Low Reactivity Fillers on the Performance of Post-Tensioned Grout.” The PTI Technical Advisory Board presents awards annually to individuals who have made a significant contribution to the PTI body of knowledge. This award was presented at the 2017 PTI Convention Awards Dinner. This study was initiated by the Florida Department of Transportation because of the issue of post-tensioning tendon corrosion. The research team was tasked with studying, reproducing, and determining the cause of soft grout. After an exhaustive study, the team isolated the issue and provided recommendations for improving the performance of PT grouts. FDOT has recently revised its post-tensioning policy and has specified the use of wax to fill all

external tendons and selected internal tendons. Randell completed this research during his graduate studies at the University of Florida and he is an ASBI Certified Grouting Technician Training PTI Level II. For the past three years, he has worked at Finley on projects including the Bayonne Bridge Navigational Clearance Program Approaches in New York, the I-49 Segment K Phase 2 Interchange in Louisiana, and the Road 1 Motza Bridge in Israel. FLUOR SELECTED BY MARATHON FOR CONTRACT AT TWO TEXAS REFINERIES: PROJECT TO ACHIEVE U.S. EPA TIER 3 GASOLINE SULFUR STANDARDS Fluor Corporation announced that it was selected by a division of Marathon Petroleum Corporation to execute the engineering and procurement scope for a major reconfiguration at Marathon’s Galveston Bay and Texas City, Texas refineries. Fluor will book the undisclosed contract value into backlog in the first quarter of 2017. “Fluor continues to provide sustaining capital services at five Marathon sites across the United States, and has supported the Texas City and Galveston Bay operations since 2013,” said Mark Fields, president of Fluor’s energy and chemicals business in the

Americas. “Having previously executed the initial studies and early engineering for these projects, we are proud to progress them through the engineering and procurement phase.” The reconfiguration will create a more efficient operation, allowing the two refineries to achieve updated U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Tier 3 gasoline sulfur standards. The scope includes a new unit, modernization of several existing units, and modifications to the utilities and offsites to support the scheduled process changes and refinery connections. Fluor is also performing the front-end engineering and design work for Marathon’s South Texas Asset Repositioning program. Fluor is a global engineering, procurement, fabrication, construction, and maintenance company that designs, builds, and maintains capital-efficient facilities for its clients on six continents. For more than a century, Fluor has served its clients by delivering innovative and integrated solutions across the globe. With headquarters in Irving, Texas, Fluor ranks 155 on the Fortune 500 list with revenue of $19 billion in 2016 and has more than 60,000 employees worldwide.

inform our actions, but they can also cause us to make bad choices. If you have a strategic plan and have taken a direction as a company that you believe in, stay the course. It’s all too easy to look to a single instance – losing a job to a competitor, for example – and react suddenly and erratically. “Lower the fees! We charge too much!” Have you worked to differentiate your business as the lowest cost provider? If so, then perhaps you do need to lower the fees. If your strategy is to differentiate with expertise, however, focus next time on selling that knowledge. It is challenging to find the line between innovation and context that helps us move forward and upward on one side, and on the other, keeping our heads down and focusing on what drives our company’s success. Being a good consumer of external perspective is an art, not a science. As my opening paragraph pointed out, y’all are more than equipped for the task. JAMIE CLAIRE KISER is Zweig Group’s director of consulting. Contact her at jkiser@zweiggroup.com. “Outside perspectives can inform our actions, but they can also cause us to make bad choices. If you have a strategic plan and have taken a direction as a company that you believe in, stay the course.”

JAMIE CLAIRE KISER, from page 3

cross horizontal perspectives as well. Hearing the challenges that PMs in 25-person architecture firms face versus PMs in 450-person engineering firms face – and listening to these PMs speak to each other about their common problems and solutions – is fascinating. ❚ ❚ New hires are one of the demographics that I always request to include as part of our on-site strategic planning interview process. New hires – not necessarily brand new graduates, just people who are new to the firm – have not only seen how other firms operate, but, importantly, they’ve chosen our firm. They’ve invested their careers and their talents and their enthusiasm into our company – and knowing as much as we can about how we look to these people and how we can har- ness their energy is a worthwhile endeavor. Take a new hire to lunch after they’ve worked at your firm for a month and ask them why they took the job, how reality has lined up with ex- pectations, and what they think this firm could do, and you’ll be blown away by their feedback. “Being a good consumer of external perspective is an art, not a science. As my opening paragraph pointed out, y’all are more than equipped for the task.” The counterpoint to my urge to look to the outside is that we cannot allow ourselves to be distracted from our strategy by external noise. Outside perspectives can

THE ZWEIG LETTER June 5, 2017, ISSUE 1203

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