Q&A with Lynn Walker, Superintendent at Brasfield & Gorrie

Technology, sustainability and leaving your mark

By Chris Schmidt

In this issue, Construction Superintendent talks with Lynn Walker, a superintendent at  Brasfield & Gorrie with nearly 30 years of experience in the industry. Over the course of his career, Walker has managed 4.2-million self-performed man hours. Here he gives insight into the changes he’s seen in the past three decades, recent challenges, such as the ones faced on the $184-million Omni Nashville Hotel in Tennessee and how he envisions the future role of the superintendent.

(Q) How did your career in the construction industry and your path to superintendent begin?

I was always drawn toward construction, so when I got out of the Army, I thought it would be something where I could work outdoors and wouldn”t have to do a lot of paperwork. However, as my career progressed, there’s a lot more paperwork.

(Q) What has been the most significant change you”ve seen in the industry over the past three decades?

Technology. When I first started, you would submit a question to an architect and it might go through the mail, and then faxes or sketches could be exchanged. With technology, you can now carry all of your drawings on an iPad out into the field or access with a mobile hotspot on your cell phone. Things have changed a great deal about the immediate delivery [of information]—you have it right there with you. And you get answers from your design group a lot faster.

Having it all at your fingertips is a dual-edged sword, however. Since people have instant access to you, they expect instant results. Some things still take time.

(Q) What are the specific challenges that you incurred on the recently completed Omni Hotel project and how did you overcome them?

There were several logistical challenges. When building in an urban area, storage areas are very limited—in fact, none—and on this job this was exacerbated by the fact that, while we were working, they were also building the Nashville Convention Center directly across the street to our west. Korean Veterans Boulevard was being rebuilt on our southern flank and other surface streets serving the project were being repaved simultaneously. Our access was in a constant state of construction. But every Tuesday and Friday we met with the contractors next door, the city and the street contractors to take pulse and plan and make sure we could all accomplish what we needed to. In the end, everybody finished on time and this job finished on budget and early, so it was a success for all involved.

Other opportunities and challenges we saw were the logistics of getting the frame built in the time allowed. One big advantage was that Brasfield & Gorrie self-performed the concrete frame, expediting our own schedule needs by incorporating design changes immediately.

(Q) How has the movement toward sustainability affected you most significantly on the jobsite?

This [the Omni Hotel] is a LEED Silver project. We partnered with Waste Management and were able to sort and have a recycled value for a lot of the construction debris and trash that came off the job. The reuse of water, recycling water systems, getting down to the mechanical side and selection of materials—were also driven by the LEED requirements and were factored in to the approval process.

(Q) How do you enforce the paramount importance of safety with your team on a daily basis?

We have several different programs that I feel are effective. One is that any employee can stop what he’s doing and ask for a safety review or a safety stand down. We also have a morning crew meeting where we go over a job hazard analysis and review the hazards of the task we”re about to start and make a plan to remove those hazards. When we begin a new task with the crew, we conduct another jobsite analysis or a job task analysis and, through engineering, either eliminate or reduce the hazards for that task. There’s nothing more important to me than the safety of my employees.

(Q) In your career, what has been the most rewarding project you”ve led and why?

To be honest, the fort that I built for my grandsons. However, both the 1075 [Peachtree*] and this one [Omni] were completed ahead of schedule and under budget, so there’s satisfaction that comes with that. But I”d say the most rewarding thing is helping the younger people who come into the industry avoid making the mistakes you made when you were young, and seeing them make a mark in their own careers.

(Q) How do you create cohesion with your team and bring everybody together?

I think it’s important that everybody understands their role is important, and also to set clear definitions of what you expect them to do, and give them the responsibility and the room to operate. I see myself as more of a mentor—a cheerleader.

(Q) How do you envision the role of the superintendent changing in the next 10, 20 and 30 years?

As firms move toward more of a construction-management type approach, you have to be more technology savvy or you”ll be left behind. You”ll need to become or remain astute at cloud-based information and computer animation. For example, I think BIM will be incorporated into a lot more work than mechanical and structural. We already use it for crane placement, and it’s a tool that I think has unlimited possibilities. At the same time, the actual way the work is done hasn”t overwhelmingly changed—you still have to drive nails. But, all the way from the structure through the finishes, you”re still leaving your signature on your work.

*Editor’s note: 1075 Peachtree was a mixed-use project consisting of a 38-story office building, a 40-story hotel/condo tower and a 14-level parking garage. The office tower is LEED Silver certified.