Scofield Reprint: FRM Criticisim

To the Editors:

More than a year ago in the Nov 2, 2001 issue of the Review President Dye wrote the following:
“I have commissioned a study of the Environmental Studies Center’s design and construction records in order to learn exactly how and why the energy systems in the building were designed as they were. This study is being conducted by the firm of Facilities Resource Management (FRM), which currently manages Oberlin’s physical plant. Once this study is complete, I will communicate its findings to the campus and to the larger Oberlin community, as well as to the many others who have taken an interest in this building.”
This study was completed last winter and the report forwarded to the President. Despite several requests I have not been given access to this report nor have its findings been communicated to the Oberlin Community. (My own summer Oberlin Alumni magazine article was based entirely on my own research.)
When President Dye commissioned this study I questioned her decision to assign the task to Michael Bolanos of FRM/Aramark due to his obvious conflict of interest. The problem is that Mr. Bolanos advised the President with regard to this project through the latter part of its design phase and FRM has managed the College Construction Office ever since. Even before officially taking over management of College Facilities and the Office of Facilities Planning on July 1, 1998, FRM billed the College $54,000 for Mr. Bolanos’ work on the project. FRM managed the August 1998 value engineering process that resulted in the elimination of key building features. The decision to undertake the final mechanical redesign, the redesign process itself, the signing of construction contracts, and the entire construction project all took place on FRM’s watch.
In view of my recent criticism of FRM I thought it might be useful to examine FRM’s role in the Lewis Center project. When President Dye, on Sept. 16, 1998 asked the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees to increase the budget from $6.11 to $6.61M to cover the cost associated with mechanical system design changes it was Mr. Bolanos who assured board members that the design team had finally gotten the design right, that it met the stated energy criteria, and that there would be no more changes. Not only was Mr. Bolanos incorrect, but engineers had not even produced blueprints for the new mechanical design; these would not be provided for another six weeks! What was in hand, however, was a Sept. 7, 1998 memo from the engineers outlining their intended design. The memo explicitly stated the key design flaw that would haunt this project, the incorporation of a tempered-water (rather than geothermal) heat pump system. [For more information regarding the design history please see my article in the Summer 2002 Oberlin College Alumni Magazine, on the web at http://www.oberlin.edu/~alummag/oamcurrent/oam_summer2002/feat_enviro4.htm.]
On Nov. 4, 1998 following completion of the mechanical drawings, the architect, at the College’s request, instructed their engineers to forward these to FRM (c/o Michael Bolanos), presumably so that FRM would use their engineering expertise to advise the College. No available evidence suggests that FRM’s experts detected any problems or provided useful advice. Yet all of the mechanical design flaws that have now been identified were clearly present in those drawings (electric boilers, wrong heat pumps, and an inefficient design for the main air-handler).
For years the College’s physical plant has turned to outside consultants for engineering assistance and project management, services now contracted to FRM. Prior to 1998-9 these services were often contracted to Fuller and Associates, a Columbus engineering firm. (Fuller, for instance, was hired to comment on the Lewis Center mechanical design in the summer of 1997. His firm provided a detailed analysis of that earlier design which identified major flaws.) It is regrettable that FRM, rather than Fuller, was asked to comment on the final design. But with FRM managing our facilities and construction office, it is FRM who decides to whom such contracts should be let. In this role as gatekeeper FRM has managed to funnel extensive College work to itself, greatly enhancing their annual revenue over the $900,000 they charge Oberlin for routine operations. In the 2001-2 fiscal year FRM has billed the College $1,700,000 for its services, nearly double its basic fee.

–John H. Scofield
Chair of Department of Physics & Astronomy