Colorado State Students And Hensel Phelps Renovate Center For Troubled Youth
Wednesday, November 26, 1997
EDITORS NOTE: A ribbon cutting ceremony will be held at 4
p.m. Dec. 4 at the Turning Point Center, 614 Mathews St.,
Fort Collins.
FORT COLLINS--Colorado State University construction
management students and Hensel Phelps Construction Co. have
completed a $205,000 community service project to renovate a
treatment center for troubled children and adolescents.
Using volunteer labor and donated equipment and supplies,
students in the Construction Management Club were assisted by
Hensel Phelps in a project which added 2,200 square feet to the
Turning Point Center and renovated a portion of the existing
facility. Students provided more than 4,000 hours of volunteer
labor over a two-year period, bringing the project to completion
ahead of schedule and under budget.
"For Turning Point, the physical facility is vital because
it becomes a home for our clients," said Amy Berkner, president
of Turning Point. "This renovation will not only make our work
significantly easier and better, it will help in providing our
clients and staff with a sense of community."
Turning Point Center provides outpatient and residential
treatment for children and adolescents who are experiencing
family, behavior, emotional, educational, legal, or drug and
alcohol problems.
The additional space will be used for a dining room, recreation
room, bedrooms, dayrooms and classrooms.
"We owe a lot to the construction industry and community who
pulled together to donate supplies, equipment and labor," said
Jason Conrad, a student intern on the project. "We had a really
great turnout during the school year, but because of the scale of
the project, it was a challenge to hold it together. That's where
Hensel Phelps came in. They helped us organize."
Hensel Phelps assigned a superintendent to the project and
provided coordination and management, while students did most of
the labor and solicited help from engineers, subcontractors,
material suppliers, faculty members and individual and corporate
donors.
"The construction industry is proud to be a part of the
community on a project like this," said Jerry Pault, operation
manager of Hensel Phelps. "This was an opportunity to do
something special and give back to the community. Industry is
interested in giving students a chance to learn beyond the
classroom. This project accomplished that with a good cause as a
beneficiary."
Going into the project, Turning Point committed $60,000 from
their budget toward the renovation, which cost about $205,000.
Colorado State students and Hensel Phelps committed their time
and solicited equipment, supplies and labor. Students set a goal
to cut Turning Point's expenditures in half, and because of the
successful solicitation of donations and volunteer labor, they
met the goal, reducing Turning Point's contribution to $30,000.
The project emerged as part of a 50-year anniversary
celebration of Colorado State's construction management program.
When Larry Grosse, department head of manufacturing technology
and construction management at Colorado State, first heard of the
scope of the project, he thought it was too ambitious for
students to take on. Grosse said he changed his mind when he
learned that Hensel Phelps wanted to back the project, and that
students had set up a formal structure, including assigned
positions for foremen and budgeting, marketing and accounting
departments.
"The project gave us real-world experience and the
volunteers from Hensel Phelps gave us technical advice and taught
us proper, safe procedures," said Ryan Haverland, student project
manager. "There were days when kids from Tuning Point came to
work along side us, and our motivation also came from knowing how
the end result would benefit them. Those kids are fighting an
uphill battle, and it's great that we could help them."
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