The First Facility Management Blog

Just for fun, here’s a great way to end the day (in honor of one of my favorite holidays, Halloween). Check out this link.

See what it did to FacilityBlog?

In an effort to redeem FacilityBlog for its widely criticized (but tongue in cheek) Friday Funny last week, we are providing these REAL safety tips in honor of the holiday. This advice comes from P-3 Recycling.

•Instruct your children not to eat any treats until they bring them home to be examined by you.

•Halloween style flashlights make a great addition to your child’s costume and can add extra safety to a dark night, helping to make your child more visible while trick or treating. You can find ghosts, skulls, and many more designs at low prices. Be sure to use long lasting batteries. Tie or sew glow-sticks to your children’s costume so they can be seen more easily in the dark. You can also use reflective tape.

•If you have porch steps, make sure they are easy to navigate for your trick or treat guests. Use jack-o-lanterns to light the stairs. Put a high intensity glow stick inside for light. If you are having a yard haunt for the neighborhood to see, it’s a good idea to check with your insurance company to make sure your home owners insurance covers you should there be an accident. You may want extra coverage for the occasion.

•Make sure that any store bought costume is fire retardant. Nylon and other materials used to make mass produced Halloween costumes is highly flammable. Those made out of vinyl can be particularly hazardous.

•Make sure you set a time that your kids should be home if they go trick or treating with a group or are at a party. Make sure they know how important it is for them to be home on time or to call home if there is a problem. Better yet, buy a set of walkie-talkies. Let your children know not to cut through back alleys and fields when out trick or treating. Make sure they know to stay in populated places and don’t go off the beaten track.

•Tell them to stay in well lit areas and make sure they carry a flash light of some kind. If you and your child are going out trick or treating with a group, make your child’s costume is a unique one so you can spot him/her easily in a crowded area. If there’s something eye catching about a costume or what is being carried, you can find them easily in any crowd.

•If you have a particularly gruesome yard haunt set up, make sure you have warning signs up so that those with a weak stomach can be forewarned. Also, consider setting up a less gruesome one for the younger kids to enjoy!


Isn’t it hard enough dealing with the living in your facilities? For some facility managers, haunted happenings plague buildings, scaring occupants and disrupting business.

In the Lincoln County Court in North Carolina, security personnel believe they may have caught the image of a ghost on CCTV. Looking carefully at the image, it appears to be a person writing on a notepad. This story was reported last December on Metro.Co.Uk.

Forbes reports the story of another haunted office. Emily Lambert writes:

“Gloria McCary, a deputy district attorney in Socorro, N.M., says that her former office had a ghost. She says she and some of her colleagues heard noises and voices they couldn’t explain. Once when preparing for a felony trial, McCary heard a chair and files being moved in the office next door–but no one was there. Another time she heard typing coming from a keyboard that wasn’t being used.”

Visit the Forbes Web site to read the rest of this story.

Not many people would associate office spaces with ghostly activity. Hotels, on the other hand, are notorious for paranormal occurrences. Forbes examines this trend. Writer Christina Valhouli explains:

“Perhaps these ghosts are the spirits of guests who liked room service so much they never wanted to leave, or the remnants of a rendezvous gone bad.”

The magazine’s Web site offers a list of the most famous haunted accommodations.

Finally, for those who want a chance to spend a creepy night or two in a haunted hotel, there is an entire Web site that caters to this type of adventurous guest. Visit HauntedAccomodations.com for more information.

Today’s Weird Wednesday article offers an odd bit of office calisthenics. This introduction comes from the Museum of Hoaxes Web site, which confirms its validity.

Below is an e-mail that’s going around. It makes a claim that seems dubious at first, but upon experimentation, it appears to be true.

There must be a scientific explanation for this phenomenon. The question is: does it hold true for everyone? And is it possible to counteract this reflex through force of will?

How smart is your right foot? Just try this. It will boggle your mind.

While no one is watching you (they will think you are a bit odd) and while you are sitting at your desk in front of your computer, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles.

While doing this, draw the number ‘6′ in the air with your right hand. Your foot will change direction, and there’s nothing you can do about it!

Before the day is done, you will probably try again to see if you can outsmart your foot—but you can’t. The behavior is pre-programmed In your brain.

Many thanks to Stephanie Cooper for sending today’s Weird Wednesday post.

Sloan Valve Company has been awarded a 2007 Green Power Leadership Award by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for its purchase of clean, renewable energy to offset 100% of the electricity used at its Franklin Park, Ill., headquarters and manufacturing facility.

The EPA presented Sloan with the Green Power Purchaser Award as part of a national competition that recognizes the leading market-based deployments of renewable energy technologies. The Green Power awards ceremony was conducted Oct. 22 in Philadelphia.

Jim Allen, manager of Sloan’s water-efficiency division and a LEED-accredited professional, accepted the award on Sloan’s behalf. “Our renewable energy purchase is part of an overall strategy to transform Sloan into the Greenest Plumbing Company in the world,” said Allen.

Sloan Valve Company’s purchase of 20 million kilowatt-hours of green power is a unique commitment coming from a family owned plumbing equipment manufacturer. The company is one of the leading manufacturers of water efficient plumbing systems, driven by a mission of conservation that has been in place since the company’s founding more than 100 years ago. The firm has a long-standing commitment to green building and is an industry leader in developing sustainable products and technologies, such as waterfree urinals and solar-powered faucets.

Sloan Valve Company has helped advance the overall market for green power by showing other manufacturers how they can be an integral part of green building efforts. The company recently supplied the Chicago Center for Green Technology with water-efficient plumbing fixtures to support the center’s goal of helping professionals and homeowners learn about the cost savings and environmental benefits of green technologies. Sloan labels its products with a visible “made with renewable energy” seal.

Moreover, about 89% of a Sloan Flushometer is made from semi-red brass casting alloy, 99% of which is from recycled sources, and is then packaged in a carton made of highly recycled material. In addition to purchasing wind-energy credits, Sloan is undergoing a lighting retrofit program that will further reduce Sloan’s carbon footprint, while saving the company thousands of dollars and improving lighting within the facility.

“America is shifting to a ‘green culture’ with more and more businesses understanding that environmental responsibility is everyone’s responsibility,” said Marcus Peacock, EPA’s Deputy Administrator, who commended Sloan “for making a long-term commitment to protecting the environment by purchasing green power.”

Sloan Valve Company is the world’s leading manufacturer of water-efficient plumbing systems and has been in operation since 1906. Headquartered in Franklin Park, Illinois, the family-owned company manufactures plumbing products and accessories for commercial, industrial and institutional markets worldwide.

CoreNet Global, an international association of workplace and corporate real estate executives, and Jones Lang LaSalle, a real estate service provider, queried more than 2,300 attendees of CoreNet Global Summits on four continents in recent months, with 414 responding. After analyzing the responses, the two groups learned that a large majority of companies around the world view sustainability as critical to their business and are willing to pay a premium to help their companies become more sustainable.

At CoreNet Global Summits in London, Melbourne, Denver and Singapore, 414 industry professionals took the survey called, “Sustainability Perceptions and Trends in the Corporate Real Estate Industry.” Over 2,300 were queried for an 18% response rate.

CoreNet Global and Jones Lang LaSalle found that, for 79% of respondents, sustainability is a near-term business issue that’s important today, or will be in the next one to two years.

“As a result of this survey, it’s crystal clear to us that a focus on sustainability has become important to the Fortune 500 and similar companies around the world,” says Eric Bowles vice president and director of research for CoreNet Global.

“These findings reinforce what we are hearing from clients every day: more and more companies are recognizing the business case for sustainability, and their corporate real estate departments are charged with making it happen to a large extent,” said Ben Breslau, vice president, director of occupier research at Jones Lang LaSalle.

According to the survey, most companies are willing to pay for sustainable real estate solutions. Among the findings–77% are willing to pay a premium for sustainability, while 22% expect to pay the same.

There was a gap between what sustainable real estate solutions actually cost and the perception of what they will cost. Studies indicate that designing buildings energy efficiently, or building them to LEED certification will cost about 1% to 5% more than conventional construction, and the incremental cost is falling.

A large proportion of respondents thought sustainable designs were more expensive that they really are, with respondents’ perceptions varying widely–
* 52% say premiums will be 5% or more to build in a sustainable manner.
* 22% of them believe green buildings will cost 10% more than conventional building.
* 38% said sustainable buildings will cost 1% to 5% more.
* 1% say it’s actually less expensive.
* 8% said those buildings will cost the same.

Despite the opportunity to apply techniques to make buildings more environmentally friendly, respondents to the CoreNet Global/Jones Lang LaSalle survey found obstacles to sustainability that have hindered widespread adoption–
* 17% said that there is good, or widely available, sustainable real estate solutions in markets where their companies need to locate offices.
* 42% reported patchiness and said the supply chain is good in some markets but not others.
* 41% view overall availability as limited or minimal.

The intensity of sustainable views varies from continent to continent. According to the results:
* 61% of respondents in Europe feel sustainability is a critical business now.
* 53% feel that way in Australia.
* The survey also noted that 44% of respondents who attended the Denver Global Summit feel that sustainability is critical now.

“We have passed the tipping point for sustainability, and the question is no longer about whether sustainable design should be considered. The question will be, how do you explain why you chose not to have a sustainable design,” says Bowles of CoreNet Global.

“Sustainability is not a passing fad. It’s a business imperative from Australia to Hong Kong and from the U.S. to Germany,” adds Jones Lang LaSalle’s Breslau.

About CoreNet Global
CoreNet Global members manage US $1.2 trillion in worldwide corporate assets consisting of owned and leased office, industrial and other space. With 7,000 members representing large corporations around the world, CoreNet Global operates in five global regions: Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America and North America, including Canada.

About Jones Lang LaSalle
Jones Lang LaSalle has approximately 160 offices worldwide and operates in more than 450 cities in over 50 countries. With 2006 revenue of over $2.0 billion, the company provides comprehensive integrated real estate and investment management expertise on a local, regional and global level to owner, occupier and investor clients. Jones Lang LaSalle is an industry leader in property and corporate facility management services, with a portfolio of over 1.0 billion square feet worldwide.

Glare, noise level, and cold drafts during winter months were top concerns of building occupants surveyed in an Australian study regarding indoor environmental quality (IEQ) in office buildings. Results of the survey were shared at ASHRAE’s IAQ 2007: Healthy and Sustainable Buildings conference earlier this month.

Occupants of two new buildings in Melbourne were asked about their satisfaction with design features and IEQ including temperature, airflow, air contaminants, sound pressure level, view, lighting, and workspace configuration. Researchers at the University of Melbourne found that the occupants’ complaints dealt with areas related to building operation processes, lack of personal control, and noise level.

“The study confirms that it is useful for understanding how design and environmental quality design features impact occupants,” Maxwell Ashibuogu Chiazor, a doctoral student at the University of Melbourne, said. “The study shows that well-being and physiological discomfort are the two factors that account for occupants’ reactions to design and environmental quality. This information is useful for decisions about workplace configuration and building energy efficient design features.”

In an effort to help protect U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq, the American Society of Safety Engineers‘ (ASSE) Heart of America Chapter teamed up with former chapter president and past Region V Safety Professional of the Year (SPY) award winner Scott Gilmore, CSP, to purchase and donate 150 flame-resistant (FR) t-shirts for the soldiers of the 35th Engineer Brigade of the Missouri National Guard.

Gilmore is a safety engineer with Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies, LLC and has done extensive research on the safety benefits of FR clothing. The Heart of America chapter sent the donated FR t-shirts to Brigadier General Michael Pace along with the supporting safety data and safety tips Scott gathered for these FR garments. The 35th Engineer Brigade was deployed to Iraq last month.

“In the terrible event one of these soldiers is involved in any exposure to flame,” Scott said, “these shirts can save pain, suffering, and the individual’s life. We deeply care, like all Americans, about the safety of our service men and women and hope that any help, no matter how small or large, can make a positive difference in the lives of these brave men and women.”

“This project further demonstrates the commitment of safety professionals to protecting people and the difference one person can make,” Chapter President Shelly Killingsworth said. “The Heart of America Chapter of ASSE is proud to support Scott’s efforts and our men and women in uniform.”

Today, New Jersey’s Governor Jon S. Corzine and New Jersey US Senator Robert Menendez will attend an awards ceremony honoring the “First Net Zero Electric” commercial building in the U.S: the headquarters of Ferreira Construction in Branchburg, NJ. The officials are joining to acknowledge Ferreira’s “green” accomplishments and award the company the NJ Clean Energy Award for its leadership in renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Ferreira has partnered with government and industry (Live Data Systems and Sensicast Systems) to accomplish the goal of building a 42,000 square foot “Smart” building (employing 100 people) that generates more electricity from a renewable energy source than it consumes. While there are prior examples of Net Zero Electric residences, this is the first commercial building of its kind in the entire U.S. This building actually produces surplus electricity that is pushed out to the grid to share with other businesses across the state.

Essential to the building’s “green” nature is its renewable energy source — a 223-kwh Photovoltaic solar energy system that covers virtually the entire roof with solar panels. Ferreira’s solar hot water system produces all of the building’s hot water needs. The system is so efficient that during last summer’s 100-degree heat wave, Ferreira’s offices enjoyed indoor temperatures of 72 to 74 degrees while still selling surplus power back to the regional electricity grid each day.

The efficiency, condition and power production of this large PV solar system is monitored by a wireless sensor networking system from Sensicast Systems.

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) estimates that the building sector is responsible for 65% of total electricity consumption for almost half of all greenhouse-gas emissions in the US.

“As more Green buildings such as the Ferreira facility are built and managed with energy monitoring solutions similar to SensiNet, there can be a dramatic reduction in the levels of greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, this deployment is proof positive that SensiNet can help Green-minded corporations to run sustainable operations while simultaneously helping their bottom line,” said Gary Ambrosino, CEO of Sensicast.

“We’re excited to be on the leading edge of the PV solar wave. Sensicast is the first wireless sensor company to implement string and panel level monitoring for PV systems that ensures maximum efficiency and low maintenance costs–both of which are fundamental to generating a high rate of return on long duration Power Purchase Agreements,” said Ambrosino.

Sensicast is supporting Ferreira’s educational program with the Newark Public Schools (Newark, NJ) and Liberty Science Center (Jersey City, NJ) to teach children about renewable energy, and inspire global stewardship and interest in working in sustainable industries. This program may be extended nationally, with talks underway in Maryland, California, and with the U.S. Dept. of Energy.

The International Facility Management Association (IFMA) Foundation, a nonprofit aimed at promoting research and educational opportunities for the advancement of facility management, and Grainger, a distributor of facilities maintenance supplies to businesses and institutions, joined forces to help the New Orleans Fire Department (NOFD) get back on their feet. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina rendered more than 20 of New Orleans’ 33 fire stations inoperable, with many still uninhabitable today and in need of repair.

The IFMA Foundation held its Volunteer Rebuild Project benefiting the NOFD on Saturday, October 27 when more than 130 volunteers spent the day cleaning, painting, and repairing six local fire stations damaged by Katrina. To help kick off the project, the IFMA Foundation received support from Grainger, which made a $20,000 contribution to the Friends of the NOFD, a nonprofit arm of the NOFD, to help fund the Volunteer Rebuild Project.

“We are committed to ensuring a brighter future for the city of New Orleans,” said Dave Smetana, regional branch services vice president, Grainger. “Getting our local first responders back up and running is critical if we are to achieve this goal. We’ve been a proud member of this community for nearly 70 years. The Grainger team, along with our friends at the IFMA Foundation, are proud to help the New Orleans Fire Department get much needed assistance.”

“Our intentions had very humble beginnings,” said IFMA Foundation executive director Will Rub. “We were merely looking for an opportunity for our attendees to do their part to help New Orleans. We never anticipated that the enthusiasm would grow to the extent that it has. Grainger’s donation, along with all of our generous supporters, underscores the continued commitment that the facility management industry has to the rebuilding of the city.”

Bank of the West provided transportation, food and a monetary donation to the NOFD. Sebesta Blomberg and Associates and Allied Barton also contributed to this project.

About the IFMA Foundation
Established in 1990 as a nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation and separate entity from the International Facility Management Association (IFMA), the IFMA Foundation works for the public good to promote priority research and educational opportunities for the advancement of facility management. The IFMA Foundation is supported by the generosity of the FM community, including IFMA members, chapters, councils, corporate sponsors and private contributors who are united by the belief that education and research improve the FM profession. The IFMA Foundation awards more than $70,000 in scholarships annually.