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Television Commercials: Telephone (1970) Three TV commercials; one set in St. Louis, Missouri, another on Mount Washington, New Hampshire, and a quick review of telephone history. Internet ArchiveFiber -based Distance Learning in Oklahoma The 21st Century made an early arrival in Oklahoma with the completion of a distance learning project at Southwestern Oklahoma State University in Weatherford, Oklahoma. Through the use of fiber optics, Southwestern Oklahoma State University, the 500-student university in Weatherford chose a fiber network to enable its Tele-Learning Center to handle full-motion interactive video, audio and data communications with its affiliate campus 60 miles west at its sister campus at Sayre, who can now share resources and make classes available to students at both locations. Optical fiber was not considered initially since it was almost nonexistent in that part of the state—until Dobson installed a 245-mile fiber backbone from Oklahoma City to Amarillo, Texas. Part of this backbone passed Weatherford and Sayre. For the university project, two fiber spurs were constructed from the backbone network. Dobson Fiber Company, as a fiber-based facilities provider between Oklahoma City and Amarillo, with strong ties to western Oklahoma. Dobson Fiber Company and AT&T Network Systems entered into a partnership on this project. Each party would play a specific role. Dobson Fiber Company would be responsible for the fiber construction from its backbone facility to each campus, the design and deployment of the classroom equipment, and the ongoing network maintenance. With the selection of the AT&T/Dobson solution, the University received a fiber network from campus to campus. As a result, both campus libraries share resources and all voice traffic between the two sites is transported over the fiber network, eliminating toll charges previously incurred by the University. Construction of the network began in August. 1993. From the fiber backbone, there was approximately two miles of construction at Sayre and three miles at Weatherford. Sayre was the least difficult of the two spurs in constucting. By using private right-of-way, the fiber was placed using the direct bury method. Total construction time was approximately two weeks and there were no significant problems encountered. The construction at Weatherford presented the typical problems of placing fiber in an urban environment. While construction progressed towards the campus, H.E. Johnmeyer came up with an alternative to placing the fiber in the right-of-way along the city streets. He proposed that the fiber be placed in the storm sewer running down the middle of the street, the length being approximately 3500 feet in this medium. Dobson never had used storm sewers for this purpose but found the idea practical. Aerial installation was ruled out; cable strung between poles was vulnerable to ice storms, car accidents or vandalism. The storm sewer was the only existing path not requiring additional construction. When officials at Southwestern Oklahoma State University approached Dobson Fiber to upgrade campus communications to optical fiber, little did anyone suspect storm sewers would play a major role in the installation. The storm sewer crossed directly through the heart of Weatherford's business district to the campus. The storm sewer, on the average, was sixty inches in diameter and made of ribbed steel. Built within the last 25 years, Weatherford storm sewers were made of steel and in excellent condition. The selected section was less than five years old. Surprisingly, little debris and standing water had accumulated on the tunnel's bottom. Nor was there much evidence of rodent infestation. Another plus: the storm sewer's ribbed construction could provide a handy slot for fitting and securing the cable. Installing cable in the storm sewer would avoid construction costs and disruptions to traffic and work schedules. Possible backhoe fade also would be eliminated. Should the cable fail, it easily could be cut at both ends, removed and replaced with new fiber—without any extra construction. Next question: How to secure the cable? Hanging it from the sewer's top or sides was considered, but with space limited, engineers feared anyone entering the sewer could be injured. Also, steel grating had been installed across the street at various points above the drain, exposing the cable to possible vandalism. Instead, the cable was placed within a 1.25" corrugated duct and secured to the storm sewer's bottom center. Corrugated duct fit better into existing tunnel ribbing, decreasing the chance of random movement. Cable was fastened every 20 feet to the steel drain with BM-80 straps, or clamps. These were secured by a low-velocity, power-actuated gun that fired pin fasteners through the clamps into the tunnel. The innerduct was installed first. An installer walked through the storm sewer with a pull cord attached to one end of the duct. moving the duct through the tunnel and into the ribbed groove. The duct was pulled in two separate 1600-foot lengths to provide an easy pull for the entire length (3373 feet). Fiber then was attached to the pull cord and pulled through the duct. The two sections of duct were joined to create one continuous length. It is expected that over time the duct will be covered with a layer of silt, which should provide additional stabilization. Installers were equipped with head-mounted and handheld flashlights. Safety equipment monitored the tunnel for toxic or combustible gases. A gas blower used at ground level from one manhole to the next moved fresh air into the tunnel. In addition, installers carried a sensor to detect harmful levels of gases such as methane and carbon dioxide. The precaution paid off — the sensor indicated toxic gases both installation days. A third safety measure: installers carried oxygen tanks, masks and kits. The tank could supply an hour of oxygen. and the kit provided another five minutes for any recovery needs. These two units will be used during future maintenance inspections. Although only one person worked within the storm sewer at a time, at least one person was stationed at each open manhole above the installer. At the installation's end, metal storm sewer material was cut away from the storm sewer exit, allowing the inner cable duct to be routed securely into a direct burial application to the university campus. (The cable exit opening will be covered with a hinged grate lid to prevent entry by humans or animals.) After exiting the storm sewer, the cable was buried along a sidewalk near the university and across a campus lawn into the library basement, where the Tele-Learning Center is located. The entire installation, including end terminations, took three days. The fiber network eventually will link the school with Oklahoma City, junior colleges, high schools and vocational technical schools across western Oklahoma. The Tele-Learning Center has 25 computers to search library databases and handle applications such as distance learning between Weatherford and Sayre. This installation did not save money. While using the storm sewer avoided construction costs of conventional cable burial, savings were offset by extra costs of safety equipment, installing and fastening innerduct and the special cutting work required at the storm sewer entrance and exit. Weatherford residents, however, enjoyed one positive side effect: They were spared inconvenient construction delays in one of the city's busiest sections. The project was completed in October, 1993. The University began using the system during spring semester and currently it is in use 8 hours each day. While everyone is happy with the system, the University views this as the first step in providing distance learning in western Oklahoma. Sending fiber down the drain america's network July 15,1994

A Few Of The Places We've Been And Some Of The Things We've Done

JCS can bring you the ability to make things happen... to meet deadlines... to build and supervise a team... to get results. With the experience needed to complete projects on time, on budget and with the desired results; the know how to effectively create a plan, implement it, monitor its progress and deliver what was promised; the savvy to guide a project from bid to a bottom-line result? With nearly forty years in the construction game, traveling anywhere, from South Carolina to New Mexico - from Michigan to Alabama, we've plowed fiber, copper or coax in 30 states and bid in 37.

The heavy and highway contracting firm tends to be less subject to bankruptcy than the residential contractor or the commercial building contractor. Perhaps this is due in part to the fact that heavy and highway work (sometimes categorized as public works construction) tends to be more stable as to volume as a function of time. In addition, because of the high equipment investment needed to operate, the heavy and highway contractor tends to be a large firm with a relatively sound financial structure.

Within the classifications of residential, commercial, and heavv and highway contractors is a class of contractors referred to as speciality contractors or subcontractors. These types of firms continue to be founded by craftsmen and highly skilled individuals. Typically, the subcontractor is small as to the number of employees and its volume of work. Subcontractors normally have relatively low overhead but are highly dependent on labor and labor productivity. Competition tends to be high and profit margins vary depending on the type of speciality work performed.

Unlike the general contractor, the subcontractor is normally only responsible for his own work. As such, the management skills needed to coordinate the skills of several labor crafts or flows of several types of materials are not vital to the subcontractor's profit on a project or its financial stability. What is needed is an ability to perform a highly skilled type of work and to be able to obtain high productivity while carrying out the work.

The size of the firm and the annual volume of work it undertakes are constrained by the resources available to the firm and its bonding capacity. Perhaps the best measure as to the size of a firm is its bonding capacity. Since the firm is required to submit a bond to the owner before undertaking a project, its bonding capacity limits the size of projects it can undertake and thus plays a role in the annual volume of work the firm performs.

More often than not, the construction firm starts as a small firm. One classification system used classifies a small firm as a firm doing less than one million dollars of work volume annually. The break point between a middle or average sized firm and a large firm can be thought of as an annual work volume of twenty million dollars. Whereas some of the approximately 800,000 existing construction firms started as small firms and have increased their bonding capacity enough to be classified as medium or large firms, many other firms have continued to operate as small firms. Not every firm can or should substantially increase its size or annual volume of work. Many a firm has gone bankrupt trying to carry out its objective of joining the "top 400" firms.

The larger firm does have certain advantages in regard to the construction industry. Foremost among these advantages is the fact that on a percentage basis, the overhead per dollar value of work performed is less than that for the smaller firm. This is evidenced by comparison of income statements for the small and large firms. This ability to operate with a lower percentage overhead results in the larger firm being more competitive and being able to obtain a somewhat higher profit margin. Since the larger contractor can always take on projects that are less than its bonding capacity, it often is in a position to pick and choose from available projects rather than to have to seek to be low bidder on each and every project. The size of the firm relative to its capital structure may also result in the large firm being somewhat less sensitive to economic slowdowns than is the smaller firm.

The small firm is not without its advantages. Normally, it does not have the management problems that are characteristic of a firm that is large and increasing in size. In addition, the rewards of operating successfully are received by the owner and not shared with stockholders or investors as is typical in the case of the large firm. Naturally, the reverse is also true in regard to losses the firm might absorb. However the small firm, because of its relativelv low dollar operating overhead, may be in a position to "shut down the shop" during a slowdown. Many a residential home building contractor has seen it fit to being a carpenter for another firm during an economic slowdown only to return to the home building business when the economy recovered.

In general, the size of the firm is not dictated alone by its technical skills. Its growth has to be accompanied by growth in management skills and changes in its financial makeup. While not always the case, a bonding company will consider all three factors of technical skills, management ability, and financial soundness in increasing or decreasing a firm's bonding capacity.

Yet another decision to be made in regard to the type of work the firm is to perform, concerns itself with the degree of responsibility the firm is to enter into with the project owner. In the past its decision was limited to a decision to be a general contractor or a subcontractor. However, the construction industry has witnessed some dramatic contractor-owner relationship changes in the past decade. As such, the question as to the contractor relationship to the owner must recognize the following types of relationships.

1. General Contractor
2. Subcontractor
3. "Spec Builder"
4. Developer
5. Design-Build Contractor
6. Construction Manager

The general contractor and subcontractor relationships to the owner are the traditional builder-owner relationship in the construction industry. Typically, the general contractor has a contract with the owner for constructing the entire project in question.

Construction, the Third Way: Managing Cooperation and Competition in Construction This book describes current best practice in managing construction. It is based on case studies of leading practice responding to demands from customers that construction match the value and quality that international competition is forcing on their own businesses. The case studies show that major customers now partner with construction firms to find more efficient ways of working.

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