HPM Hires Senior Project Manager: Chandler Creel
Chandler Creel is the new senior project manager at HPM. Chandler joins HPM’s Atlanta location as the management firm expands into the pharmaceutical and life sciences industries. Lab Design spoke to Chandler about kick-off meetings, lab shutdowns, and the challenges of life science work.
Q: Can you please briefly explain what a lab shutdown project entails? How does a lab/life sciences shutdown differ from other industries, such as commercial or residential?
A: The two primary differences between a life sciences shutdown and commercial/residential projects fall under:
1) economies of scale
2) room for error
My last shutdown project was for a global life science company in Georgia that operates 24/7, 365 days a year, including Christmas. The unit in which I worked turns a profit (not revenue) of $1.6 million every single day. Contrast that number with my last commercial project, a 28-floor apartment building in Atlanta, which has a revenue (not profit) of $500k/month, or $17k/day. Even if the profit margin was 50 percent, the pharmaceutical manufacturer’s profits are 200x that of the apartment high-rise.
Secondly, the room for error for each industry is substantially different. If a light fixture or a dishwasher in an apartment doesn’t work, at worst, that’s the only apartment that can’t be rented out. In the life sciences world, not only must every piece of equipment, valve, and control signal be working perfectly, but every piece of material must have the proper documentation approved by the FDA or EPA. I’ve been on a project where the contractor lost the material certificate for a 10-foot piece of stainless pipe. We were working on the weekend, which meant the supplier wasn’t available. Despite the piece of pipe being perfectly fine, we had to cut it out and reinstall a new piece, which included two orbital welds, taking another internal borescope video, and passivating the entire system for a second time. Plus, we had to document all those steps for a second time. While it may seem extreme, when you consider that the product flowing through that pipe will eventually flow directly into someone’s veins, it makes sense.
Q: What are some strategies you use to build trust within your team or with a client?
A: In every kick-off meeting I lead, I always start by looking at each of the superintendents and saying something to the effect of, “My goal on this project is to make your lives easier. I want to help ensure your people have what they need to do their work as best and safely as possible. If we can do that, the success of this project will take care of itself.”
I also genuinely care about and like getting to know everyone working on my projects, from the project executives to the people sweeping the floors. “Leadership is not about being in charge. Leadership is about taking care of those in your charge.” – Simon Sinek. It sounds simple, but asking questions and actually listening to the answers goes a long way — both on a professional and personal level. I asked about their most significant concerns for the project. I ask about other projects they’ve worked on, what worked well, and what they would like to see performed better. I ask about what they do outside work, their interests, and their families. I love getting to know the people with whom I work. It makes for better working relationships and can be a joy to hear people’s stories. I now get a whole hog from a mechanical superintendent every Fall, and I learned that one of my electrical foremen is one of the largest fainting goat brokers/breeders in the Southeast!
Q: During your kickoff meetings for a new project, what questions do you typically ask project stakeholders?
A: I sit down with the stakeholders and ask various questions to understand their conditions of satisfaction. These conditions are typically unwritten items that are most important to the client, and asking why these items are essential creates conversations that can develop into strategies to save time and money. For example, I managed a shutdown project for a gummy manufacturer, and the client was adamant about working 12 hours a day for 14 days straight. I asked why, and he said he had a regulatory testing agent scheduled for the Monday after the shutdown. After understanding his condition of satisfaction was the deadline, not the working hours, I asked if he would be open to lessening our work hours if I could prove we’d still meet the deadline. I also explained how removing some overtime and weekend work could save him money. He said he’d be open to the idea, so I got buy-in from the contractors and we adjusted the working hours. We started out working 12 hours each day, got way ahead of schedule, and the contractors were able to take a day off during the shutdown. The second week, we reduced our working hours to 10 and still finished a day early. A happy client, and happy contractors. It was a win all around and all it took was a good conversation.
Q: What are some of the most common challenges you encounter in life sciences work, and how do you overcome them?
A: One of the most common and unique challenges in the life science world is completing construction work (an inherently dirty process) inside an operating clean space. On my last project, we had to demo a spare room inside an ISO 8 clean space. Getting access to the ISO 8 space is a process in and of itself, which involves a full day of training and changing into scrubs and a clean suit before entering the ISO 8 airlock. Then, we were required to install two layers of airtight temporary seals around the space we needed to demo. After the client accepted this setup, the work could finally begin. I’ve done concrete demos, excavations, MEP, flooring, and clean panel renovations. All tools and materials had to be wiped down with alcohol before entering, and all demolished materials were required to be enclosed in plastic bags before being taken out through the clean space. Executing construction work inside of a clean space can be a hassle and requires significant coordination and attention to detail, but it makes the work interesting.
Q: You mentioned that “Life sciences projects are of the highest quality and often have immovable deadlines”—How do you deal with an approaching deadline if something unexpected happens during the project?
A: If? A better question is what to do WHEN something happens because something unexpected always happens! Ideally, as the project deadline approaches, the project team has been working together for a while, so they trust each other and are practiced in the execution processes. Often, a high-functioning team will solve a problem independently, coordinate with the relevant parties, and let me know afterward. A telltale sign of a team that needs some work is when another project manager, superintendent, or foreman comes to me with a problem, dumps it on my desk, and walks away. A good sign of a well-functioning team is when I get a call and a superintendent explains the problem they encountered, what options were evaluated, which solution they think is the best path forward, who they consulted from a stakeholder perspective, and then finally asks, “Good to proceed?” Developing those types of relationships does take time and intention, but saves so much time and headache when problems arise.
Q: What’s something you wish people knew about your job?
A: Every project on which I’ve worked in life sciences has been drastically different from all the others — everything from vitamin gummies and pill manufacturing to rabies research and cutting-edge gene therapies. I certainly apply some lessons learned, but ultimately, success in my work isn’t about knowing the solution to every problem encountered. It’s about having the ability to analyze the problem fully and create a solution to every problem I encounter. Nine times out of ten, those solutions require leaning on someone else for their expertise, experience, and/or execution of work. And hopefully, when I call on someone, I’ve proven that I care, and they can trust me.
