Expanding Its Horizon

As has been the case in our history CMI has had the ability to adapt itself to take on new challenges. From a piping perspective we started doing our own HVAC wet side back in 1984 to compliment the already hard charging Sheet Metal department. Since then the piping group has grown to 17 foremen running a work force of about 95. Two years ago Phil Zlatunich came over to CMI from an established plumbing firm bringing his 30 years of experience of bidding and running plumbing work, giving CMI an instant plumbing presence and rounding out the wet side department. There are currently four foremen dedicated to plumbing exclusively, Eric Anderson (UCSC Humanities and Library), Ward Woropay (Foothill College Expansion), Greg Levesque (Kaiser Cancer Center) and Jim DeNegri (ISRG), Phil together with Rick Giusti are more than busy bidding and running plumbing that CMI would have previously excluded from our scope. This extra dimension really completes our bids providing the whole package.

Another area that has been addressed is our ability to do special projects such as equipment change outs and system updating, Greg Pomi is heading up that effort, taking on the Project Manager role, streamlining a process that has previously been awkward to non-existent. We now have a way to address the customers' needs quite effectively. Greg's knowledge of systems and background in piping make him a natural for this position.

Taking on the managing of piping personnel is Chris Blackstone. Having been with CMI for 10 years running projects like Kaiser MOB in Santa Clara, and the Community Hospital of Monterey, he enjoys a good challenge. As Superintendent Chris will be directing a cast of foremen who themselves will be facing some challenging and unique projects that are moving into the construction phase. Jobs like 301 Mission (Marty Byrne), 300 Spear (Tom Smith), The Intercontinental Hotel, Stanford Varian (Tim Pierce), 1st & Howard Building 1, Kaiser Hospital Vallejo (John Corso & Mike Walls) and Kaiser Hospital Vacaville (Steve McCall & new to CMI Rodney Blackmon) to name a few. On the jobs that require welded systems (Kaiser Vallejo & Vacaville) we have outfitted a satellite facility in Benecia to be able to prefab complicated welded segments, holding the site welding to a minimum. Phil Zlatunich, Greg Levesque, Jon Richardson, Chris Blackstone, and Steve Zlatunich have all contributed to the layout of the facility, which became functional at the end of April. With all systems "Go" Rick Morgan along with Jon and newcomers Rich Brever and Len Garriott are planning to pump out the metal.
The upcoming year promises to be challenging and we are ready.