Joe Mellencamp, president, came to the company in 1987, four years after Beacon was founded (it’s a part of Setzer Corp.). The company’s annual volume back then perhaps neared $3 million. By the late 1990s, Beacon had grown to $14-$16 million a year, with 80 electricians. Now, the annual gross volume is over $40 million.

In 1999, Mellencamp hired Warnemunde. “My background was working in the field. I learned how to estimate long-hand, for another firm,” Warnemunde remembered. “Coming here jump-started my career.

“Over the years, we moved from the old DOS-based McCormick system I found when I got here on up to the 12000. If you look at it over that period, from 1999 to today, I can probably estimate three times the amount of work now that I was able to do then.

“That’s thanks to the McCormick program. It has really streamlined my ability to take-off jobs. And as a result, Beacon has been able to bid more work, and be successful in winning more work.”

In 2009, according to company figures, Beacon was the winning bidder on about 30% of the large electrical construction projects on which it bid. That’s fairly unusual for tough times, with so many competitors; but the company picks it spots, including pursuing work for Ohio school systems.

“Beacon basically has the opportunity to get every job, with our size and capabilities,” Warnemunde claimed. “The educational system has been very good to us. It’s at the point now where, I think, we’ve done something like 120 schools.”

With the company handling everything from standard electrical work and lighting to sound, security, and life safety, Warnemunde has created 200 or more special assemblies using the McCormick software, he guessed.

“I’ve used other systems, too,” he said, naming a few of McCormick’s competitors. “I have found that I just love McCormick’s system. It makes it so easy for me to do this work, to build in technology, phone systems, firm alarms – and whatever else a full-array contractor like Beacon does.”

In a large, growing company, training is important. Warnemunde noted that Mellencamp (by the way, he is the older brother of John Cougar Mellencamp, the musician) believes in training. As a result, several Beacon employees have made the journey to Chandler, AZ, to learn the ins and out of the McCormick software.

“We’ve figured out that our people get the best benefit from the classes there if they first use the software here for a few weeks,” Warnemunde said. “They use it, and they come to figure out what they need to learn. Then we send them to Arizona, and they come back here with a great deal of additional knowledge.”

Warnemunde himself, as the company’s prime estimator, has journeyed to Arizona a number of times, for the McCormick Systems Users’ Conference. “We are always trying to add to what we do with the system. I estimate that I only use 20% of what’s in there.”

One place where Beacon is working to expand its application of what it already has is in project management. Warnemunde explained that while McCormick’s software is already used in change-order management, there’s more out there for Beacon:

“Our project managers use it for change orders. They do the estimate with the McCormick software, then export it, download it, and put it in Excel. That’s how they submit it because, the way things are now, the general contractors or construction managers require extensive back-up from us on a change.

“Now, we’re going a step further. McCormick has cost codes built in. We use those codes – which probably cover at least 80% of what we do – to track jobs more efficiently.

“So before, when I gave the estimate to the project manager, he had to go in and figure out the cost codes. But with the McCormick software, they’re getting it from our estimates – with 80% of the job already cost-coded.

“This saves the project managers a lot of time in setting up the job, from an accounting standpoint. We’re working right now on getting it to be seamless, from the McCormick estimating software to the project management software we use.”

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 "We've gotten a very strong reception from our customers on the introduction of the new 'hand' estimating classes," President Todd McCormick noted, roughly one month after these new educational offerings were introduced in this newsletter.

"We had one large electrical contractor bring our instructor in for a 2-day on-site Basic Estimating, followed by a one-day refresher on the McCormick software. The demand for this kind of basic approach to estimating seems to be even higher than we had thought."

If you missed the details of this new McCormick educational effort, see the May 1, 2010 newsletter, accessible from the "News" tab on www.mccormicksys.com.

McCormick Systems has added a 2-day by Estimating-by-Hand training class for Aug. 12-13 in Chandler, AZ. Call 800-444-4890 for more information!

 q       When picking up paper plans, make sure to roll them with the printing side out, allowing them to lay flat on your desk.

q       All the copies of paper plans and specifications should be checked in. Note the number of copies of the plans and specifications, bid due date, plan deposit amount if refundable . . . or this would be a good time to add a non-refundable deposit to the Bid Summary.

    Note any addendas, including the addenda number and date, and the contacts (architect, engineer, owner, general contractor, etc.). This should be done on a sheet or chart that is available to all involved.

q       Distribute the plans and specifications to the estimators involved, keeping a list of who has which plans and specifications, etc and when their part is due.

q       If the plans and specifications are in a digital format, do we have the capability to either print them or read the digital format?

If the digital plans are available and in the AutoCAD format and you have AutoCAD, they can be taken off easily using McCormick’s CAD Estimating program?

If the digital plans are not available in the AutoCAD format but are available in .tiff, .pdf, .ipg, .cpc, .cal, .plt, .pln, .osp, .dwf, etc format, the OST and McCormick’s OSE programs will make the takeoff a snap.

q       If the plans and specifications are in a digital format, archive a copy of the file and only delete it if there is no chance that you will need them again.

Browsing a press release, I came across a subhed on a DC-DC converter. What the heck is it? Here's the spiel (and here's the whole release):

A DC to DC converter is an electronic circuit which converts a source of direct current (DC) from one voltage level to another. This is particularly important in hybrid and electric vehicles because the battery cell voltage varies with state of charge which would cause vehicle performance to vary with battery state of charge without a DC-DC converter to maintain the voltage level.

Conversely, generator charging voltage varies with speed and would, without a converter, present a variable charging voltage to the battery that would affect battery life and limit the practical speed range in which regenerative charging was possible.

Switched DC to DC converters convert one DC voltage level to another, by storing the input energy temporarily in inductors and capacitors and then releasing that energy to the output at a different voltage. Physically small inductors and capacitors can be used by operating at high switching frequencies, and high efficiencies are possible when using high power, high frequency  devices such as insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs). A switched DC to DC converter regulates the output voltage, presenting a constant voltage to the output device (e.g. a traction motor drive).

While most DC-DC converters work in one direction only, hybrid and electric vehicles require bi-directional control to recover energy from regenerative braking. Bi-directional DC-DC conversion provides a constant supply voltage to the traction system, stepping up the battery voltage during motoring operation, and providing a controlled charging current to the battery during regenerative braking.

Story here.

I get a bit tired of electricity being blamed for absolutely everything, so I asked Paul Rosenberg, a friend who also is a forensics expert (he wrote a column on electrical court cases for Rexel's POWER OUTLET magazine for most of that publication's life. I was the mag's editor).

Paul, whaddya think of this? His e-mailed response (sight unseen, of course -- I didn't hire him to go to Utah!):

Being immediately adjacent to a substation brings an arc into the realm of possibility, but it would require very unusual circumstances. Substations are very carefully designed and installed - precisely to avoid things like this - and arcs require something on the order of 30kV per centimeter. That means a 300kV voltage (fairly high for a substation) would only generate a 10 centimeter arc.

So... something very odd could have happened at the substation to have caused this, but it is highly unlikely. I'd say that an idiot with a firearm is a more likely scenario.