Inside This IssueUsing Our Situational Awareness...........................2Lake Forrest Hospital.............................................3Nelson Power Plant................................................4Village of Lena........................................................5Pearl Valley Eggs...................................................52015 Featured Photos..........................................6-7Cleveland Hotel Update........................................8

Crane Fleet...........................................................9Effingham Bridge..................................................9Northwestern University: Kellogg.........................10Helm Group’s Building Program...........................11Technology Update...............................................11EEO/ Harassment Policy.......................................12United Way Donation............................................12

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5 I-88 Tollway RehabilitationThis February, Civil Structures Freeport joint ventured with William Charles Construction and Rock Road Companies to be the successful low bidder of a $50.4 million contract on the I-88 Tollway.

The project starts at IL 251 and stretches 9 miles west on I-88. Civil received the notice to proceed on April 30th which allowed Civil’s portion of the work to start on May 20th. Civil’s work will be complete by the end of October, and the project has a final completion date of November 13th, 2015.

The project consists of 4 new mainline bridge superstructures with new approach and transition approach pavements and substructure modifications. The mainline bridges are 6-beam single span bridges. Each 75,000 pound beam had to be moved, the old concrete removed from the top of the beam, and then moved back to the abutment seats to be re-used for the new superstructure. New piling was driven at each of 16 approach pavement bents. While the existing beams were removed, the slope walls were removed and replaced and the abutment seats replaced.

In addition to the mainline bridges, there was also a 290 foot long design-build retaining wall on the project. An overpass bridge at Ashton Road required complete superstructure replacement with concrete I-beams and

deck. There were minor repairs required on 12 other bridges and box culverts along the tollway.

All of this work is required to be completed in 23 weeks— complicated by having to be done in staged construction. In order to meet the completion date, the crews removed

1,900 CY of concrete, poured 2,350 CY of new concrete spread over 170 individual concrete pours, and installed 500,000 pounds of rebar.

Arik Toepfer, Carpenter Foreman, stepped up to the plate as the project superintendent to lead the charge on this fast-paced project. Arik successfully coordinated the efforts of a crew that averaged 35 men & women per day while choreographing the movement of approximately 11 excavators, 4 cranes, and many other pieces of equipment and materials.

Arik was joined by multiple foremen from each trade along with a dedicated and hard working group that has worked long hours and 6 days a week the entire season.

Civil faced many challenges during this project which include an historic amount of rain during stage one, night work to demolish and erect the beams over I-88 traffic, and tight site conditions which made access to work difficult.

Civil excels at the complicated projects and this project was no exception. Everyone that participated in the project did an outstanding job.

Using Our Situational Awareness

2

Brian Helm,Helm Group CEO

I’d like to take some time to write about one of the characteris-tics of our employees that I think makes us very unique and suc-cessful. Industrial psychologists call it Situational Awareness. In layman’s terms, we know what is going on around us and can adapt to changing situations quickly. The full definition of Situ-ational Awareness is that it is the ability to identify, process, and comprehend the critical elements of information about what is happening around you.

Have you ever noticed in a spy movie that the hero seems to recognize a situation that at the time doesn’t seem important, but then changes his or her behavior because of the situation? Think Bourne Identity, James Bond, even Batman. In each mov-ie, the character is aware of things going on that most people would miss. When some of these things become important (like the person in the corner pulling a weapon), the character has already anticipated it and is able to preempt the danger. It is one of those habits that the military and law enforcement try to teach their soldiers and officers. A policeman notes the make and model of a car before the driver has done anything wrong in anticipation of a future potential issue. If there is a prob-lem, he already has the data because of his Situational Aware-ness. Some people call it, “Reading the room.” Others just call it, “Paying attention.”

At the Helm Group, our high Situational Awareness makes us successful in at least three separate elements of our work. The first is in how we deal with customers. At times, we can work with customers that might have a different interpretation of the project specifications that we might. We also work for people that just want to trust that we will do the right thing on a proj-ect. Our ability to recognize each of these extremes and every-thing in between is important. I think we adapt to these differ-ent styles better than anyone and that is why our employees are so well-respected and liked by our customers. Each customer is different and we are able to react to their style because we spot

it early and change our approach as needed.

The second way we use our Situ-ational Awareness is in safety. We look for ways we might get hurt be-fore an incident occurs. We observe how drivers are facing the sun as they enter our work zone so that we maintain an extra buffer zone. We note a roofing crew working above us so that we can be ready in case they drop anything off the side of the building. We spot the fire extin-guisher in a fab shop before there is ever a fire. We watch the new em-ployee’s attitude when explaining our PPE policy.

Thirdly, we use out Situational Awareness to understand a proj-ect better than anyone else. Even when we are not contractu-ally in charge of a scope, we have studied the entire project well enough to be able to be an expert on whatever questions come up. We understand the plans and specifications inside and out because knowing the project helps us react to new situ-ations that come up. Our strength is that we use our Situational Awareness to understand the entire situation, even though we may only need to react to a small part of it.

There are probably many more ways that our Situational Aware-ness helps us. In construction, we certainly get into unique situ-ations every day. Most of us enjoy our work because every day is different. The only way we survive and thrive in our non-routine environment is to have high Situational Awareness. We gather data, analyze the data, and store it away so that we can react more quickly when the data becomes important.

Project Backlog(Millions)

Experience Modification RatingEMR is the measure of the cost of our accidents and is used as a future

predictor of risk. An EMR of 1.0 is the industry average.

$0

$40

$80

$120

$160

$200

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

$174

$114$124

$157

$199

0.30

0.40

0.50

0.60

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

0.60

0.52 0.53

0.47 0.46

3Fall 2015

For the Past 10 Years, Mechanical has been working for Northwestern Medicine at their Streeterville, Glenview, Central Dupage, and Delnor campuses and this year started work on two major projects at the Lake Forest campus. Lake Forest Hospital was an independent hospital when Northwestern acquired it in January 2010. Since then, the second largest medical group in Illinois has been planning an extensive renovation to the Lake Forest Campus.

Mechanical’s first project at Lake Forrest was a large design-assist project to add on to the Central Energy Plant. Mechanical, led by Project Manager Ryan Blackman, is the prime contractor and carries the architect and MEP engineering under its umbrella as well as all of the trade contractors. The new chilled water, steam, electrical, and emergency power systems will feed the existing South campus as well as a new North campus. The new equipment will be located in a 10,000 square-foot addition to an existing energy plant. Unlike most Mechanical commercial projects where the general contractor takes the lead role, on this project, Mechanical is handling all contracts, scheduling, and meetings with the owner.

Coordination of the energy plant work is especially tough because of the other construction projects going on at the campus. Much of the work is through existing roads and parking areas and maintaining the flow of patient and doctor traffic has been extremely important to everyone involved. There is also a medical helicopter pad immediately next to the new addition, which requires careful coordination with hospital staff. Substantial completion of the central plant work is scheduled for June of 2016 so that chilled water can be supplied for the new North campus construction.

The other major project that Mechanical has at Lake Forest Hospital is the HVAC piping portion of the North campus facility. Here, Mike Williams leads the team installing all of the hot water, chilled water, and medical gas systems on the project. Turner Construction is the construction manager and, unlike most projects, they decided to split the sheet metal scope out from the HVAC piping and medical gas scopes. The new 450,000 square-foot building will contain the latest medical equipment for patients in the Lake Forest area. Completion of the North building is scheduled for June 2017 and the project is progressing nicely.

Ryan and Mike, along with Tyler Bauch and Mike Sorley have all worked closely to make sure Mechanical keeps the project moving well. There are a lot of people to please on the project, most importantly the owner’s staff and the public that are on the campus daily.

As with all major projects, coordination is the key to success. Mechanical led the CAD coordination on both projects and kept all trades on task. CAD Manager Scott Nobis knows that if the CAD schedule falls behind, it is extremely difficult to pick up the lost time. Unlike on-site construction where everyone can see what is installed and what isn’t, CAD progress requires commitments from all stakeholders that they will make progress between the weekly coordination meetings. When someone falls behind schedule, it is usually Mechanical’s job to get the trade contractor back on track. Among the CAD detailers involved at Lake Forest are Scott, Wyatt Hays, Chuck Lintner, Danyel Mashaw, Janet Wehrenberg, and Sean Edwards.

Lake Forrest Hospital Energy Plant and Bed Tower

4

Civil, Mechanical Collaborate at Nelson Power PlantIt was the type of call that nobody likes to make at noon on a Friday. A power plant had a broken underground pipe, the plant was down, and the facility would lose $200,000 per day until it was back online. On June 19, Invenergy made that call to Mechanical’s Service Division. The Nelson Energy Plant, owned by Invenergy, is a 600 megawatt natural gas fired turbine plant that provides enough energy to power 500,000 homes. The plant was in an emergency shutdown situation and needed to be back online quickly.

Mechanical crews mobilized immediately and found the rup-tured fiberglass pipe, but realized that the repair would not be easy. The break was at the edge of the plant’s foundation and the break had forced high pressure water under the founda-tion. There were two immediate problems. The first was that access to the broken pipe to make the repair would require ex-

tensive support of the excavation. The broken pipe was below other active utility lines including a high pressure gas line. A sloped excavation would be impossible. The second problem was that there was a fear of undermining the foundation. The location of the break would require exposing the pipe under the foundation.

Mechanical’s Service Department quickly enlisted the help of Civil Roads/Underground division to help with the excavation and Civil Structures division to help with the temporary shoring of the foundation. Crews worked long hours Friday, Saturday,

and Sunday to support the foundation, make safe access to the pipe, and make the repairs all while dodging severe thunder-storms. The team effort allowed the plant to get back online and provide much needed electricity to the region.

By using the many areas of expertise within the Helm Group, the crews were able to provide a fast emergency response solution that exceeded the customer’s expectations. The successful col-laboration of Mechanical Service, Mechanical Construction, Civil Structures, Civil Roads, and the Saw Shop was a huge benefit during the shutdown.

Civil Supervisors Andy Spencer and Scott Lehman worked beside Mechanical Service Supervisor Justin Lindeman, Foreman Mike McGlinn, and Safety Manager Shawn Meier to meet the custom-er’s needs in this joint effort.

Fall 2015 5

Civil: Village of Lena Project Improves Downtown

The new system improves reliability and limits the chance of problems due to cold weather or pipes bursting. Dur-ing the excavation of the old water main system, coal chutes were uncovered that had to be filled in to install the new water mains. Despite this unexpected find, the job was completed successfully by the early completion dead-line of August 1, just in time for the 2015 Lena Fall Festival.

This summer, Civil provided some needed improvements to downtown Lena. Starting in early May, the $2.1 million dol-lar project improved downtown Lena’s infrastructure with new sidewalks and driveways, new and improved lighting, and updated water mains. Led by Civil jobsite Foreman Kevin Powers, over 32,000 square feet of sidewalk and driveways were removed and replaced along with 4,400 feet of curb and new hot mix asphalt. The new water mains and compo-nents replaced the existing mains that date back 100 years.

Mechanical, Civil at Pearl Valley EggsBeginning in early 2015, Mechanical and Civil performed work at Pearl Valley Eggs in Pearl City, a local community business looking to expand. Mechanical installed new boiler rooms and converted the facility from LP to natural gas. New water mains were installed as well as sanitary force mains. New mezzanines provided enhanced employee access and new gates and lad-ders were also installed.

Civil improved the roads at the facility, adding access for Class 3 trucks. They built vehicle wash stations and paved previously gravel driveways around the facility, creating better access for employees and vehicles traveling to and from the facility. Work at the facility continues as all the driveways will be paved. Crews are expected to remain at the facility through the end of the year.

6

2015 Helm Group Projects

Lake Forrest Hospital Freeport Fab Shop: Infilco Valve Racks

US 20 Rockford Beam Setting

I-88 Near Rochelle

US 20 Rock River Bridge

Village Of Lena

Fall 2015 7

Year in Review

Aerial View of Dwyer Quarry

Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital

Rockford Sheet Metal Fab Shop

Cleveland Hilton Hotel

Freeport, IL: Krape Park

Cleveland Hilton Hotel

Cleveland Hilton Hotel

8

Since September 2013, Mechanical has been working on the construction of the new Downtown Cleveland Hilton Hotel. This new out-of-the-ground hotel will connect to the convention center that Mechanical built in 2012. The hotel is owned by Cuyahoga County and will be operated by Hilton.

At 350 feet tall, the building has 33 total floors and will hold two ballrooms, 600 guest rooms, a restaurant on the 2nd floor, and a bar on the top floor. There are 11 total AHUs, 21 pumps, 7 shell & tube heat exchangers, and 4 plate and frame heat exchang-ers. There are a total of 625 vertical fan coil units to serve all of the guest rooms. Mechanical also installed three snow melt areas at the separate hotel entrances. Due to small access to the basement, the two basement air handlers had to be lowered by crane through 6 floors of an elevator shaft. There are a total of 97 pipe risers vertically in the guest room tower.

The new hotel has many features. Floors 1-5 serve as the lob-by, restaurant, ballrooms, meeting rooms, and offices. The 6th floor holds a fitness center, and a stainless steel swimming pool. Floors 6-32 hold all of the guest rooms, and the Skybar on level 32. There are mechanical rooms in the basement and penthouse. The heating and chilled water are split into high and

low zones to separate most of the podium from the guest room floors.

Mechanical’s work at the hotel is a joint venture with Coleman Spohn Corporation, which is a local Cleveland mechanical con-tractor. Previously, Mechanical partnered with Coleman Spohn on the adjacent Cleveland Convention Center. All trade labor on the project is provided through Coleman Spohn, which included 34 pipefitters on the project this summer. Mechanical has pro-vided project management, CAD, and accounting resources.

Currently the job is on budget and on schedule with approxi-mately 80% of the work complete. All of the pumps and 7 of 11 AHU’s have been installed. The project has been fast tracked in order to be open for the Republican National Convention being held in Cleveland in August 2016. It will have a direct under-ground link to the existing convention center. Work begins in the penthouse mechanical room this October and guest rooms will be completed this November.

9Fall 2015

Civil at the Crossroads of Opportunity: Effingham Downstate, Effingham, Illinois calls itself the ‘Crossroads of Op-portunity’ because interstates 57 and 70 intersect in the small town. I-57 is the main route between Chicago and St. Louis and I-70 runs from Utah to Maryland. It is here that you can find Civil’s crews working hard to rebuild this major interchange.

In Effingham, the two interstates merge for 6 miles, cross over the Canadian-National Railway track and U.S. Route 45, and then split. The purpose of the reconstruction is to add a third lane in each direction on this section of highway that carries 38,000 vehicles per day. The $165 million total project was awarded in multiple phases so that the funding could be spread out and so that the size of each project was more manageable. On the fourth and final stage, Civil is the structures contractor for Mc-Carthy Improvements. McCarthy is the prime contractor on this $63 million phase.

Civil’s portion of the project includes the demo and replacement of two 380 feet long bridges on 57/70 over the railroad and Route 45. Each of these new bridges has 2 spans with 73” plate girders. In addition to the mainline bridges, there are 3 other bridges that the crews will be repairing. Repairs include bearing replacements, expansion joint replacement, earthquake retrofit and miscellaneous concrete repairs.

With a travel time of almost 4 hours to Civil’s closest office in Moline, one of the Effingham project’s biggest challenges was getting labor to the project. Project Manager Mike Chiavario and General Superintendent Terry Watts lead the project. Key foremen that travel from the Quad Cities area are, Alan Tynan, Nick Flogel, Barry Nelson, Brian Willets, Tony Martinez and Josh Wing. The project is on track to be completed in June of 2016.

Heavy Lifting at the Helm Group Getting our work done, especially in the Civil Structures business group, requires a lot of heavy lifting. The di-versity of our structures work requires a fleet of 17 cranes. These include 9 track mounted or “crawler” cranes and 8 rubber tire cranes. We own cranes from 5 different decades be-ginning in the 70’s and ranging up to our 2 newest 110 ton Link Belt crawl-er cranes which were purchased new in 2011 and 2014. Our cranes range in load capacity from 15 to 110 tons and we typically put together boom lengths of up to 150 ft.

The majority of our fleet is made up of late model, fully hydraulic cranes. These units are quieter and more friendly to operate than our older “friction rigs.” The newer cranes are equipped with load moment indica-

tors (LMI’s) which are basically on-board computers. The LMI senses load radius, boom angle and length as well as the weight of the item to be hoisted and performs all the necessary calcula-tions to insure that the pick is safe for the crane. They can also be programed for barge use on waterways where they incorporate a safety factor to account for barge “list.”

In addition to hoisting and placing loads like bridge beams, our cranes are used with some specialty attachments for driving various types of piling. Sheet piling is used in cofferdams and H-piling is used in permanent applications on structures. Our Piling attachments in-clude diesel pile hammers and hydrau-lic operated vibratory sheeting drivers/extractors which have their own power packs.

10

Northwestern University Kellogg ExpansionNorthwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management is consistently ranked as one of the top 10 business schools in the U.S. Students come to the Evanston campus from all over the world to learn the latest management techniques. As part of Northwestern’s building program, they are investing in a new marquis classroom building for Kellogg. At 415,000 square-feet, the facility will house not only the full-time MBA program, but also the Department of Economics. Mechanical was selected as the HVAC and plumbing contractor for this facility and is making nice progress toward a late 2016 completion date.

The Kellogg facility is actually 4 separate buildings that are tied together with steel bridges at the floors. One of the challenges that the crews faced during the early portions of the project was that there was no skip hoist on any of the buildings and the inter-connecting bridges were one of the last phases to be installed. Moving materials to each work area required exten-

sive planning and equipment because of the separate buildings. Not only were material deliveries more difficult, but tools and even crews were physically separated from the other work ar-eas. Pipefitter foreman Mike Kozak, Sheet metal foreman Jason Perz, and plumbing foreman Brian Maher overcame these logis-tical challenges by staging the work to minimize the disruption caused by the different work areas.

Adding to the challenges, the facility sits right on the shore of Lake Michigan. The lake will provide a nice backdrop for the completed building, but wind and freezing rain off of the lake against the steel and concrete buildings made work conditions particularly tough. The term “cooler by the lake” was definitely the case.

On the piping side of the project, over 100,000 feet of in-floor radiant tubing was installed in addition to radiant ceilings that provide heating and cooling for the rooms. The radiant ceilings are a European system that have been one of the biggest man-agement challenges on the project.

Project Executive Ted Mora along with Project Engineer Chris Gill have spent countless hours learning about these panels and working with the manufacturer, engineer, and owner to install a workable system.

The ventilation system on the project is also unique. Each of the buildings has separate air handling equipment and many areas have not only overhead ductwork, but also duct under the raised floors. The design cost per square foot on a classroom building like Kellogg is very high because of the extensive system. Duct riser installation could have been a challenge, but after careful planning, the team was able to set the risers using the construc-tion manager’s tower crane.

The crews are definitely firing on all cylinders. The job is moving along rapidly and most of the toughest areas have been com-pleted. There is still a lot of work remaining, but the project team is pushing through to the end and there is no doubt the project will be very successful.

11Fall 2015

New Technology Highlights Company ProjectsHelm Group and companies gained a new perspective this summer by purchasing a remote control flying camera. Some-times called a drone or quad-copter, the new technology pro-vides the company with an aerial view of jobsites that can then be used for planning, marketing, or to get an eagle’s eye view of the progress on the ground.

Videos taken using this new machine are available on the new Helm Group Youtube channel and Facebook page. Recently featured projects are bridge construction on Highway 20 in

Rockford, Dwyer Quarry in Freeport, and the Morgan Street Bridge in downtown Rockford.

Be sure to check out what’s new with Helm Group on Youtube, follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook. Also coming soon, Helm Group and companies will have a newly renovated and mo-bile responsive website, formatted for screens of various sizes. These new advancements will help highlight company achieve-ments and showcase our project capacities online.

Helm Group’s Building Program

The Helm Group has its own building program underway. In 2014, Mechanical opened a new sheet metal fabrication shop in Rockford. The shop has 38,000 square-feet of space includ-ing 4,000 square-feet of offices and 30 employees work in the shop.

In June 2015, Mechanical moved their Chicago operations into a 14,000 square-foot office space in west suburban Westmont. The office space was designed for Mechanical and replaces the Hillside building office. The new Westmont office has large

open collaboration areas where teams can review project plans and details. There are also 3 conference rooms plus a BIM room where teams can work on coordinating building models on 3 large screens.

In early 2016, the Helm Group will begin building a Technology Center on its Freeport campus. The Tech Center will contain the IT infrastructure that is currently in the basement of the Civil building. All of Mechanical’s 14 Freeport-based CAD Techs will move into the new building and there will be space for future expansion of this department. There will also be a large BIM room that will have teleconference capabilities for collaboration meetings.

PRSRT STDU.S. Postage

PAIDRockford, IL

Permit No. 781

P.O. Box 7502283 US 20 BR EFreeport, IL 61032

United Way Donation Thank you to all employees that donated two hours of pay to the

United Way and it’s member agencies in October. Employees donated $43,106

and the Helm Group matched this amount for a total donation of $86,212.

Harassment Policy

It is the policy of the Helm Group to provide a workplace free from unlawful and improper harassment of em-ployees by employees or agents of Helm Group or by its customers and vendors. It is the responsibility of ev-ery employee to cooperate in reaching this goal. Harassment is considered a serious act of misconduct and may subject an employee to disciplinary action including immediate discharge. As used in this policy, the term “harass-ment” includes sexual and racial harassment, as well as harassment based on any other protected classification.

Equal Employment Opportunity Policy

It is the policy of the Helm Group to ensure that all employees and applicants have an equal opportunity for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability or reprisal. All employees are entitled to work in an environment free from harassment. All employees are encouraged to actively recruit and sup-port a diverse workforce, including women and minorities. Encourage interested applicants to apply in our main office.