Blog

By Michael Ginalski With the new Buffalo Bills stadium being built in Orchard Park as well as other large scale infrastructure projects across New York State, a hot topic being discussed by both owners and construction companies is the challenge of staffing up construction projects. A rural school district recently conducted interviews of construction management […]

By April Brisbois Have you ever thought about starting a career, learning a new trade, creating the dream job meant just for you? Have you ever had the great career, the dream job, the comfortably-reliably learned trade and been forced to reassess those ideals? This is what happened to me and how I ended up […]

By Jeff Makela As we ease out of the COVID pandemic, the construction industry is experiencing a deficit of workers and this trend is posing a serious challenge for construction companies. People working in the trades are asking the million dollar question, “where did everyone go?” Speculation includes a wave of retirements, career changes, COVID-19 […]

By Michael Ginalski School districts in New York State are passing successful referendum packages at a rapid rate. With these project votes, communities are sending a message to districts that they trust them to be good stewards of their tax dollars while also trusting that they will maintain quality school facilities for their children. With […]

By Ryan Bettis In an article that appeared in the March 28, 2022 issue of McKinsey & Company’s “Bridging the labor mismatch in US construction”, U.S. based construction projects are short-staffed today, and the problem is set to get worse over the next ten years. There is a critical need for available manpower to fill […]

By Eric Hadlock  Recently I had the opportunity to spend an afternoon with a gentleman who had expressed an interest in a career change to construction safety. This man had spent significant time in another field very different from the construction industry. He stated that he was looking for a new challenge in his life […]

By Michael Ginalski The aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic has changed America in many unforeseen ways. With that in mind, it has also jettisoned the economy into difficulties that no one could have predicted prior to the onset of the pandemic. This has definitely included the world of K-12 school construction. School districts across the […]

By Michael Ginalski At Welliver, we are working with a number of school districts, both large and small across the Southern Tier, on the planning and implementation of various projects including Energy Performance Contracts (EPC) that will help to move schools to a more healthy, cost effective environment. Districts are working diligently to create healthier, […]

By Daniel A. Traina, EIT Anyone working in the construction industry or who has been given the responsibility to facilitate a construction project, has experienced a great deal of volatility and extreme price increases in the last two years. More recently, in the past six months, this trend has continued and in some areas even […]

by Ron Gillespie I’d like to devote this discussion to a topic recently covered at the meeting of the Southern Finger Lakes Chapter, NYS School Facilities Association held at Welliver’s corporate offices in March. The topic of the presentation was Construction Management: Expectations and Considerations related to K12 capital projects. I’d like to call out […]

By John Owens We are inundated with technology on a daily basis. We should take a moment to think about how technology has changed the way we deliver services in the construction industry. It is an important activity for any industry to be retrospective while having a forward view of how changes and advancements in […]

By Michael Ginalski Kids can learn anywhere. COVID proved it! While COVID-19 devastated the world in many ways, the pandemic also provided great opportunity for change and provided the impetus to rethink what the 21st century learning environment can look like. Prior to the pandemic, there had been a growing movement towards creating more flexible […]

By Daniel A. Traina, EIT Pre-construction planning is the process of creating a ‘road map’ of a construction project before onsite work actually begins. A comprehensive pre-construction plan includes many aspects such as cost estimating, market research, scheduling, risk analysis, and site logistics. Time spent pre-planning before mobilizing pays dividends later. A project with a […]

By Michael Ginalski School districts in New York State are required to continually plan for the maintenance of their facilities through the utilization of the Building Condition Survey (BCS) every five years. In spite of this however, most districts have so many needs that the vast majority of needs far exceeds a district’s ability to […]

By Michael Ginalski It is often said that crisis creates opportunity. Another thing that crisis definitely creates is a bright shining light on inequities across society. The last 18 months of the coronavirus have demonstrated that State and Federal lawmakers must make a financial commitment to address the long standing facilities inequities that our rural schools […]

By Dale Partridge As construction companies, we find ourselves not only being committed to our client’s success but also committed to the safety and welfare of our employees and the entire worksite. When we look back at the past 12 to 16 months, we see that a critical new emphasis was placed on safety and […]

By Michael Ginalski In this multi-media world of the 21st century, we are bombarded with references associated with how to be a leader and what constitutes great leadership. One thing that is certain is the ‘quality’ of leadership is the differentiator between success and failure, regardless of the endeavor. When thinking about leading an actual […]

By Michael Ginalski School Superintendents are often faced with significant facilities challenges at some point in their careers. Imagine this scenario – a district has two 100 year old middle schools, which were designed for high schools when Woodrow Wilson was the President and became middle schools later because of a district consolidation in the […]

By Steven Morse, Project Manager K-12 schools across New York State have been taking on a lot more outside threats than usual.  Currently, containing COVID-19 is at the forefront. Aside from COVID, schools have been continuing to explore and implement ways to make their buildings and campuses safer. To effectively learn, students need to feel […]

By Michael Ginalski A retired NFL coach by the name of Bill Parcells once said “you don’t get any medals for trying” and that phrase holds true in planning for a successful school referendum. To achieve support from a community, Superintendents and Boards of Education must recognize that the idea of “trying hard” isn’t enough. […]

by Doug Bailey, CHC, PMP Patients come first. With hospital expansions and renovations on the rise, many healthcare facilities are challenged with protecting their occupants. Working in construction for the healthcare industry, you quickly realize that the focus is always on the patients. They are the reason why we set up and monitor infection control […]

by Ron Gillespie Your school district has the results of your Building Condition Survey and a capital improvements project has been deemed necessary. The district has prepared a five-year plan and identified facilities needing renovation or replacement. Now what? Do you need a Construction Manager (CM) or a Clerk of the Works for your upcoming […]

by Drew Bloss, Project Manager Innovation and technological advances within the construction industry are changing the way in which we work on a daily basis, and are helping us as construction professionals to produce stellar projects in an unprecedently efficient manner. I’m currently working on the North Campus Residential Expansion (NCRE) project at Cornell University […]

by Dale Partridge Every business is now faced with the challenges of these unprecedented times. We as employers in the construction industry must move forward to the re-opening of our businesses – to complete our projects on time and bring our employees back to work all while complying with New York State guidelines and ensuring […]

By Max Venuti, LEED® AP As we move forward through these uncertain times, the overwhelming theme is to continue social distancing and follow the directives issued by State and Local governments. An updated executive order was issued by Governor Cuomo’s office this past Friday morning 3/27 at 9:15 am – https://esd.ny.gov/guidance-executive-order-2026. Within the executive order, […]

by Ron Gillespie As you are aware, the New York State Education Department (NYSED) requires all public school districts and Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) in New York to complete a Building Condition Survey (BCS) for occupied public school buildings every five years. In late 2019, changes in the New York State Education Law […]

by Andrew Gimbar, Jr., PE, LEED® AP Welliver employees come to work each day to construct buildings. Our efforts typically support customers in organizations whose jobs are not directly related to construction but rather, in manufacturing, education, medical care, retail sales, wholesale, warehouse storage, etc. Subject to dynamic influences, the facilities in which they work […]

by Estella Swartout Welliver is a victor of collaboration with disadvantaged, minority, and women owned companies (D/MWBE). As a general contractor and construction manager, Welliver is cognizant of D/MWBE and Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) requirements in all bidding situations. We are seeing an increase in requests to meet the D/MWBE goals. In these situations, Welliver […]

by David Collins, EIT When it came to choosing my area of study for college, the choice seemed very difficult because I was being asked to pick what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Some classes in high school gave me an idea of what I wanted to do. I ultimately […]

By: Jason Edsall, CM-LEAN Lean Construction is a bottom up approach which results in collaborative team commitment, a production planning system, management of workflow, and building reliability. We take a proactive stance to make work happen by removing constraints ahead of time as much as possible. The end result of the production planning system is […]

By: Nick Robertson, PMP, CM-LEAN The construction industry is constantly evolving to become more efficient, hurdle barriers, and conform to increasingly stringent safety and code regulations. Over the course of the next 3 to 5 years and potentially beyond, the industry will need to adapt again. This time the lack of qualified manpower will become […]

By: Dale Partridge, Director of Safety Quite often the construction company is faced with changes in policy or procedure for a variety of different reasons. There are many things that affect the way that a change is implemented. When faced with these changes, it is very important to balance communication to your employees while satisfying […]