A Chat with Dan Wagner, Senior Project Superintendent at The Boldt Company

Collaboration + sheer determination = training ground for success

By Chris Maday Schmidt

Dan Wagner is senior project superintendent at The Boldt Company, where he’s worked more than two decades. Based out of the Sacramento, California office, he’s a seasoned leader who guides the field operations team to fulfill the overall project goals. In addition, he’s been on ground zero for The Boldt Company’s most massive healthcare projects. Join Construction Superintendent as Wagner shares how he played a part in helping to create safer workspaces, the ins and outs of some of the most memorable healthcare projects in his career, his take on the worker shortage and more.

(Q) What drew you to a career in construction? 

I worked in residential construction when I lived in Houston in the 1980s, then I returned to Wisconsin where I went to school for a short time. My brother Joe Wagner was working with The Boldt Company and recommended that I get into commercial construction. I joined the Carpenters Union and worked for a couple different construction companies in Wisconsin and eventually joined Boldt, working in Milwaukee.

(Q) Talk about your journey to superintendent.

In the 1990s we were extremely busy, and we were working on so many different projects in size, type and complexity, that we needed people to step up and take on leadership roles. I was a foreman on a medical office building project for Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center. We built several buildings on campus, but the largest and most complex was the cardiac tower in the early 2000s. In addition, we were involved with many renovations and expansions on the campus. It was great training and work, a combination of ground up to renovation. I look back over my career and understand how fortunate I was, in that there is no better training than being involved with both major facets of building construction. I learned how the end users function in new buildings, especially healthcare. I learned how to build in an active hospital environment in nearly every department or area of a hospital. The Boldt Company leaders gained trust in my abilities, and they saw I had leadership qualities, and then I was tapped as a superintendent.

(Q) While building at the Wisconsin Institutes for Medical Research over the years, what have been a couple major complications you have encountered? How were they resolved?

WIMR was a very large, multi-phased project as part of the University of Wisconsin-School of Medicine and Public Health.  Boldt built Phase I & II and the final phase has not yet been scheduled.

Phase I was the east tower (eight stories) and the base of the center tower (two stories). We had an extreme challenge with dewatering for the large excavation of the site. The site is located very close to Lake Mendota and when excavating for the foundations, there was a tremendous amount of dewatering needed. We ended up drilling deep wells about 40 feet down to lower the water level sitewide over the large excavation expanse of the construction site.

In Phase II, we were building a vertical expansion on a two-story building that housed the research facility’s vivarium. While we were building the eight-story addition, there were medical research projects that had been ongoing for years, not simply months or even weeks, and we were told the animals were affected by noise and vibration. Part of the mitigation effort to minimize noise and vibration from construction was working collaboratively with a University of Wisconsin Civil Engineering professor. He set up instrumentation to get a baseline to better understand what noise and vibrations existed. The instrumentation remained in place for the duration of the project and we documented results monthly. We then developed methods to mitigate any disturbances due to the construction project.

We worked with UW School of Medicine and public health researchers to coordinate activities that we could manage with many of their experiments that were of a shorter duration.

One example was when we had to remove the tower crane base; we used a chemical method to expand the concrete base and aid in its break up, rather than just relying on jackhammering to break it out. In this case we worked with our excavating contractor to develop a solution, but it’s normal for Boldt to collaborate with the best in the business to arrive at the optimum solutions.

(Q) On Sutter’s California Pacific Medical Center project, I understand the hospital comprised an entire city block in downtown San Francisco. Walk us through the specific challenges with a project of this scope. How were these challenges mitigated?

The Sutter Healthcare CPMC Van Ness Campus was a massive project. We were challenged with what in the industry is known as a “zero lot line,” in which there was absolutely no room for material lay down, staging or deliveries.

We arranged with the city of San Francisco to close off one lane on three of the four streets around our site. The fourth street is Van Ness Avenue, also Hwy. 101, one of the busiest in California. This was a large enough project where we could leapfrog some staging as we built; however, that inherently has inefficiencies and waste, such as double handling of material and impeding more efficient flow of work. We used a “just in time” logistical approach with material delivery to reduce the impact to the project.

In order to facilitate JIT logistics, we used extensive prefabrication and staging/kitting at a remote location. We leased a warehouse and the space around it for this purpose. The location was on Treasure Island, an actual island in San Francisco Bay that was about 30 miles from the jobsite, between San Francisco and Oakland.

We staged material for the site at Treasure Island and trucked components and materials to the jobsite when we were ready to load and install. This was especially critical and effective for materials arriving via common carrier from a greater distance, as opposed to a contractor’s local yard. Trying to marry JIT with a common carrier coming from another state is very difficult at best, and very disruptive to the logistics for a large project with little room to maneuver.

As an example, the entire glazing system was fabricated in Ohio, and then shipped to our facility on Treasure Island where we would store and re-kit for JIT delivery and installation. This gave us greater flexibility and staging on the project; one delay in shipping or traffic across multiple states could disrupt the entire project.

(Q) As The Boldt Company works to flatten the curve for re-opening and creating safer workspaces, you played a huge part into turning a paper health screening process into a smartphone-based system. Talk a little about how this transpired. How has it made your life easier? 

The change in the process from paper to digital has made work onsite so much easier. The biggest concern is we wanted a no-touch process with minimum human interaction. The virtual system accomplishes that; it does not get much better, our guys love it and it makes our safety managers’ lives so much easier without managing paper. Also, documentation is streamlined and very lean.

(Q) With nearly three decades of experience in the industry, what one project stands out as the most memorable? Why?

The Sutter California Pacific Medical Center – Van Ness Hospital in San Francisco was the most incredible project I have ever been a part of building. The sheer size of the project, 12 stories and 1 million square feet was challenging. The project had a huge workforce with up to 250 people in the project office – a collaboration between the owner, architects, trade partners and inspectors, including OSHPD. At its peak, the project site had 700-800 skilled tradespeople working.

Between the office and the field personnel, it afforded me the opportunity of working with an extremely talented, bright and diverse community. I have developed many friendships from the project.

But the most challenging project was the cardiac tower at Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center in Milwaukee. We built a monster 12-story building over an existing parking ramp that had to stay open to serve the hospital campus. Simply put, we built a building on stilts—enormous caissons sunk through and around the perimeter of the parking ramp were designed to distribute and transfer the weight of the building.

We broke down and then reassembled a 100 ton drilling rig to hoist up on top of the parking ramp in order to drill the caissons 100 feet deep down to bedrock. This required us to cut open parts of the post tension deck and shore the entire ramp up and down to transfer the weight of the rig. We never shut down the ramp during construction; we also did extensive modifications on the ramp to release exhaust fumes from vehicles. I was so fortunate to work on this project because every other one pales in its complexity. The Boldt field leadership and supervision that was developed during that project is the backbone of an entire operating group, including my brother Joe Wagner, who is now a general superintendent. We self-performed the majority of work and there was no better training ground than that project in terms of complexity, an incredibly rapid schedule and sheer determination by all that were part of it.

(Q) What has been the biggest change you’ve seen take place in the industry over the years?

Process. The level of planning in a construction project has gone up tenfold, which is one of the pluses — the number of people involved from multiple trades and collaboration are great. Safety has come more to the forefront and there is no question it has improved through better tracking, technology, prevention and creating a safety culture. Companies and clients are realizing how critical safety culture is to a well-run company.

(Q) Have you been involved in any type of mentoring opportunities? What advice would you give to someone interested in a career in construction?

I have been involved in mentoring, advising and sharing experiences with our team members. If you are going to work as blue-collar worker, then there is nothing better than the skilled trades in construction. I’ve worked in factories, but there’s nothing better than construction because of the variety, the challenge and the benefits. It is very rewarding both personally and financially. Although we have people in the industry today coming in with advanced degrees, coming through the trades was a big advantage. There is nothing like physically doing the work yourself to learn and appreciate the field; however, one can enter and succeed coming from all walks of life and avenues.

(Q) As a liaison working with the community, do you have a particular strategy in how you approach the first meeting when dealing w/addressing disruptions and community communication?

It is always about having the right people in the room, listening attentively and then fostering consensus on a path forward. Sometimes we think this is done in one meeting, but the reality is multiple meetings are needed to build a culture of collaboration. Laying out a game plan that places the community first and presenting it to them to gain their buy in is the best approach.

(Q) What is your take on the worker shortage—any thoughts on how to recruit more skilled workers to the employment pool?

It is a challenge; you must treat people right and not just listen to their concerns, but act on them.

The adage is never truer “Actions speak louder than words,” especially with those in the field. Also, offer incentives and lunches to show appreciation.  At Boldt, we really try to focus on the unique culture of our company and on each project. It is important that our workers come to a project and know they are valued.

We hold all sorts of events like celebration dinners and safety milestones, plus we give extras like T-shirts, tools and lunches. It is all about building a team culture and getting the pulse of the job with CSIs.

Our company has a long history of workforce development and we have built regional relationships with universities, technical schools and even high schools to encourage young people to enter the trades. We regularly employ interns throughout the company and work with unions to provide training and opportunity for skilled trades.

(Q) Share a favorite pastime when you are not managing construction projects.

Travel, but I have not done enough! I am into watching sports and, over the last 10 years, I’ve followed my favorite teams, attending many games, including on the road. Since I’m a Wisconsin boy, I follow the Packers, Badgers, Brewers, Bucks, but I also follow my adopted teams in California including the 49ers, Rams and Chargers. I am a huge beer connoisseur and have sampled thousands of different beers and visited many breweries across the country. Hopefully in the fall of 2021 Covid-19 will be largely behind us as I plan on attending Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany with several beer-drinking friends!