By Sean O’Keefe
In the late 1940s, five civic-minded mothers in California’s Central Valley recognized the need for local pediatric care and formed a small but tenacious organization to help raise money. Three years later, a 42-bed hospital dedicated to pediatric care opened as Valley Children’s Hospital in Fresno. In the nearly 70 years since, Valley Children’s Healthcare has grown to be one of the largest pediatric healthcare networks in the country serving Central Valley children and families across approximately 45,000 square miles. Vice President, Jessie Hudgins, has been with Valley Children’s Healthcare for some 23 years and understands the importance of building the organization’s image and attitude into everything they do.
“Being a pediatric healthcare provider, we are focused on helping children heal,” says Hudgins, who has been the vice president of construction for 12 years. He and a team of five project managers oversee design and construction services at the hospital and 28 supporting facilities stretching from Modesto to Bakersfield. “My role is to help translate Valley Children’s Healthcare’s commitment to children and their families into every aspect of the facilities we design, build, and maintain. That includes everything from child-sized accommodations that encourage play and distraction from aliments to ensuring we maximize return on investment through material durability and operational efficiency.”
DESIGN-BUILD
Hudgins finds that engaging the Design-Build contracting methodology is one reliable key to success in completing approximately 100 facility improvement projects a year. In choosing a turn-key delivery solution, Hudgins concentrates the onus for design of each commission on the chosen contractor, while his team manages the big-picture expectations for execution and operations.
“Valley Children’s Healthcare is quite a large organization, with a lot of facilities and lots of active work going on concurrently,” he continues. “My team is committed to creating consistency in process, performance, and outcomes so the tangible results are reliably positive user experiences for the people we serve.”
Asked about the decision-making criteria connecting the choices his team makes in addressing the ever-advancing requirements of pediatric care, Hudgins is confidently concise.
“Performance is number one,” he shares. “How a material or product holds up over time, its ability to fight the spread of infection, cleanability, durability, ongoing maintenance, and lifecycle considerations shape our selections.”
ENGAGED TEAM
Hudgins applies a similar sense of focus to selecting the design-build teams engaged to complete the robust annual work program required to maintain Valley Children’s presence on the leading edge of pediatric care. He typically solicits strong design-build contractors in Central California and draws on positive relationships with a dozen or so healthcare architects. Among them, Quiring General, LLC has become a trusted resource and recently completed a series of prominent projects entailing two new specialty care clinics of approximately 52,000 square feet each and revitalizing the landscape on the hospital’s main campus. Stevan Garcia has been Quiring’s project manager responsible for delivering each of the three commissions and shares Hudgin’s commitment to quality.
“Going beyond the sticks and bricks, we build what matters,” says Garcia of the firm, which was founded in 1947 and has become a Central Valley fixture in healthcare, senior living, and multi-family housing construction. “In the case of Valley Children’s Healthcare and many other local clients, what matters most are the people and communities we serve.”
SOUPS TO NUTS
As a hands-on project leader, Garcia describes his role in the recent series of design-build projects for Valley Children’s Healthcare as soup-to-nuts. His participation stretches from early engagement with architects on design concepts through construction implementation and into warranty management. The integrated focus from start-to-finish gives Garcia an appreciation for the building process that goes well beyond what and deep into the why of every decision made.
“The time spent with the client and consultants before construction in a design-build delivery allows us to work through the finer points of every detail,” continues Garcia. “Understanding the staff, what they do, how they do it, and their workloads builds vital relationships that shape situation-specific solutions. Everyone in our community relies on Valley Children’s Healthcare when our children’s health is at stake when families are most vulnerable. They hold a special place in our hearts and it’s very easy to get behind their mission.”
Garcia reveals that Quiring’s commitment to meeting premium expectations extends to every facet of the work his team has done for Valley Children’s Healthcare. From the architecture and execution to site work and aesthetics, attention to detail makes a difference in the finished product. Scrutinizing materials and project partners is paramount to achieving premium performance.
EXPERT CRAFTSMANSHIP
When it came to the hardscape scope for decorative concrete on the recent projects, Garcia and Quiring turned to Heritage Bomanite, a Central Valley concrete contractor that installs high-quality Bomanite products. Known as the first name in decorative and specialty concrete, Bomanite invigorated the market in the mid-1950s by inventing the process of stamping concrete. Today, Bomanite materials are installed by a select group of Licensed Contractors like Heritage Bomanite who apply local know-how to premium products to achieve excellence.
“The site work concrete scope on these projects called for a unique combination of materials and craftsmanship that isn’t easy to achieve,” says Garcia. “It was very important in the design process to determine an exact mix of aggregates, custom colors, and joint patterns to complement architectural aesthetics. Heritage Bomanite played a big part in getting it right.”
Through their sample development program, Heritage Bomanite helped Quiring and the design team select a completely customized concrete package that included two hues of grey, heavy-etched Sandscape concrete, and Bomanite Revealed glass exposed aggregate concrete. Used to add a whimsical flair and vibrant color to the exterior of each site, the blue glass used in Revealed exposed aggregate concrete was matched from the giraffe in the Valley Children’s Healthcare logo. The ability to create brand-centric decorative concrete solutions is only part of what distinguishes Bomanite contractors in Garcia’s mind.
CLOSING THOUGHT
“Heritage Bomanite has become a great partner to us, both at Valley Children’s Healthcare and beyond,” continues Garcia. “From the creativity in the sample selection program, the thoroughness of their estimates, and their meticulous installation process everything felt completely custom. Our client didn’t want standard grey broom-finished concrete. It’s great knowing that the Bomanite line of products can help our clients build their brand into virtually any decorative concrete solution they can imagine.”
About the author:
Sean O’Keefe has more than 20 years of experience articulating the complexities, challenges, and camaraderie of construction and design. He writes Built Environment stories for owners, architects, contractors, and product manufacturers. He can be reached at sean@sokpr.com.
Modern Contractor Solutions, September 2020
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