A Month in Review – Team Hub @ APM Steam

Here are some of the highlights from April 2021 as told by the Sales Team . . .

Jim Krochune: Here is an excellent example of good communication between Sales and the Field in regards to setting up a heat loss analysis for Northern Westchester.

Northern Westchester Hospital – Northwell Health – HEX Cleaning – 2020
4/16/2021 job note from Jeff Czerniak

Things went much better today. We cleaned 2 HEX’S with a 2 hour run time without issue.

I spoke with Jim Delitta, the director of engineering. He mentioned a need for insulation jackets for their PRV stations and asked if that is something that APM can help with. What a serendipitous situation that I am involved in conducting some of the initial walk through’s for the insulation jacket insensitive program that APM is diving into. Had I not been assigned these walk through’s or not had a lengthy conversation with Jim Krochune about this initiative, my response would probably have been that as far as I’m aware, we only provide jackets of various standard sizes to cover steam traps.

I discussed this initiative with Jim Delitta and sited the example of St John’s university, where they will run a $250,000 insulation jacket project and the utility company insensitive is about 80%. The expected savings on energy costs is about $100k per year, and the coverings have a life span of about 10 years. This means that for around a $50k upfront cost to the facility, they will see a $1,000,000 savings in energy costs over 10 years. Before I finished that last statement, Jim Delitta was on his computer emailing Jim Krochune to express Northern Westchester’s interest in pursuing this opportunity. The director of engineering does not have buying authority, but he certainly has voice and a seat at the table with those who do.

Nice work Jeff and Jim!

Chip Goudreau: Bristol Community College Customer Feedback

I had a call with Karen Parker (Dir of Facilities at BCC) at 11am to get feedback on APM and to see if she would provide us with a customer testimonial. I’m sharing this with the people on this email because I think at times, we hear too much about the things that go wrong. We need to remember that a lot goes right if we take the right approach and thrive on learning from our mistakes. This may sound like a love fest, but this is almost verbatim how she stated things to me.

She said Hayston and Jonathan are both awesome and her experience with us and our sub for the duct/vent/coil cleaning projects has been stellar. Apparently, the last time this was done, the sub did not do such a great job. They are shocked at how filthy the images are coming back from the pre and post-cleaning… She said the same related to steam trap surveys and repairs.

Here’s some specific feedback I wanted to share with everyone:

Excellent communication from sales, scheduling and project management for all projects (STS, I&R, Duct/Vent, HEX, etc).
The D&V workers are keeping their masks on and they have revied zero complaints about this (they expected complaints from their staff on-site, and were worried that guys would be taking their masks off on occasion which would trigger complaints).
She wants us to do more work and values being able to use 25a.S14 procurement to avoid bidding projects. She was not aware of that until recently, and now that she understands it, plans to take advantage of it with us as much as possible.
Appreciative of our efforts to secure utility funding. This is a huge deal since they don’t always have the budget to pay for 100% of maintenance-related costs.
Extremely happy with the time Jonathan is spending on site and he has helped them immensely to understand things that their staff did not know or was not aware of within their own system (she reference the HEX cleanings). Jonathan takes the time to explain things and they fully trust his advice and training.
Very pleased with Hayston & our sales process. Quick turnaround times, willing to modify quotes quickly, great communication. Not a pushy salesperson – she feels like Hayston cares about them as a customer.
She is due April 25th. And trusts us to keep things rolling forward in her absence (which says a lot).

I prompted her to offer any complaint or suggestion for improvements and she had nothing.

Her boss is equally impressed. She said that she’s going to ask that person to draft the customer testimonial (has a higher-level title). I emailed her a reminder per her request and hopefully, I see something come back before she goes on maternity leave.

I asked her about other community colleges and if they ever meet or have a way to communicate with one another. She said she will send me information about MAFMA and the contact there (https://www.mass.gov/service-details/mafma). She said they allow vendors to present their services. With the funding coming down from the feds for these state facilities, I’d like to get in front of as many people as possible here in MA since they can also use 25aS14 and no-bid work where we can claim energy savings. Hayston and Sean – we need to jump on this. It could open the door to a lot of work for HEX cleanings and duct/vent/coil cleanings. This group encompasses all state-level facility professionals from what I am reading. Perhaps we can covey our success at BCC across the board here in MA.

Thank you!

Great job Eric Hayston, Jonathan Davis, and everyone involved!

Chip Goudreau: Northwell Health Customer Feedback Call

I just hung up with Haneef at Northwell Health to discuss how APM is doing and to see if he would do some co-marketing. Northwell operates 23 hospitals in NY (and we have worked with them all with direction from Haneef).

Essentially, he said that we are incredibly valuable to Northwell. He receives feedback (good) from our efforts with the various facility directors and is appreciative of Jim being so attentive to help meet their needs and goals. He had nothing bad to say and is very happy with APM overall.

The spreadsheet we have been updating for Haneff for all past, current and upcoming projects is extremely important to him and it is being sent up the chain from their Energy Steering Committee to the Executive team. Andres, I believe Haneef would be very excited to see a demo of the new retool web tool you are working on. We should discuss setting up a day/time to walk him through that for feedback.
The missing component for Northwell is therms saved and carbon reduction. Steam losses are not helpful. We need to think about how to capture therms saved for every project we do in SF and to be able to include that in the Retool website project so we can report on that data.
Cost savings is equally important, but it has to be tied to the est. reduction in Natural Gas, not Steam Losses which is too vague for them to use. I believe they have provided the cost per therm for each facility, so this dollar value can be calculated in the spreadsheet we keep for them.
He wants to get moving on a summary overview of what we have accomplished (by year or for the past couple of years) that highlights therms saved, Carbon reduction, cost savings, etc. Ricardo, I’m thinking infographics with some content may be ideal. I told Haneef I would put together a rough draft and have it to him by Tue (he was very pleased with such a quick turnaround so I’ll make it happen). With everything that’s happened to NYC with Covid and the increased interest in energy/carbon reduction, he is looking for help on this front (which will ultimately help him in his role with Northwell). Our ability to secure incentives is huge and he wants that to be part of the messaging.

Jim, can you direct me to the spreadsheet we are maintaining for Northwell. The data in that is essentially what I will use to create this marketing piece for Haneef. I’d like to create a version that we can use as well when marketing what we can do with individual hospitals or hospital groups. With data included, it should be very impressive.Haneef is interested in what other areas we can help him with where we can replicate what we do with traps, insulation, hex cleanings, etc. I think if we can do it (in-house or with a sub), capture energy/cost savings, and obtain incentives… he would use APM without hesitation.

Northwell Marketing piece

This is wonderful feedback from such a valuable customer! Lets keep pushing to get Haneef what he needs to keep using APM!

Chip Goudreau: St. Anne’s Hospital, Fall River – Customer Feedback Call

I spoke with Clem Beaulieu earlier this morning from St. Anne’s Hospital in Fall River. They are part of Steward Health Care which I believe has 38 hospitals in the US. Clem has been at this hospital for 29 years and from what I see in SF, we have Closed Won Opps dating back to 2014. We’ve completed annual surveys and repairs, HEX cleaning, HEX bundle replacement, jackets, and pipe insulation here for Clem. This hospital has 240 beds, all private rooms.

Clem said that the way in which the utility company has the incentives set up, doing this annually is a no-brainer. The fact that APM handles the incentive paperwork as part of the process makes his life easy (got the sense there’s no way he could do it w/o APM).
They had staff reductions a few years back and he was promoted from 2nd shift boiler operator to Lead Plant Engineering. It looks like we were just doing surveys, then we started picking up installs in 2018. Sounded like the staff reduction put that in play for us.
He is interested in the Retool website solution to view data. Andres, here’s another one to demo to and gain feedback. Let’s discuss.
He’s done a lot of customer testimonial stuff for us and the utility in the past. I may send him a Q&A sheet with my notes to see if we can use that in some way since we already have other items from him in the past.
He mentioned that there was an issue with a HEX project (not sure if cleaning or bundle replacement) where something went wrong. He said Hayston (and others?) took him out to lunch. He said we did not have to do that but the fact we did says a lot about APM. He said the owner (Ricardo) had insisted this happen, so much appreciation.
He said that we need to be talking to Ron Doncaster, VP of Corp Facilities and Real Estate, as well as Scott Keegan (who, if I recall was a contact we had here and he moved to TX). Jim/Hayston, can you guys make sure we are on that?
He told me that he has a meeting with Rise Engineering in the next 2 weeks to talk about parking lot lighting upgrades to LED. This made me think about how we can help him understand bundling projects to increase his incentive. I asked him if he was familiar with that concept and he said no, but if there’s a way to increase incentives, he’s all ears. Hayston, let’s discuss.
He wanted to revisit a conversation from the past he had with Hayston about APM doing chiller tube cleanings. Energy savings? Incentive? Hayston, I’m sure you have some history around this so let’s discuss… Chiller maintenance is a repeatable business and offers a pretty big opportunity across the board to expand into, but I’m not sure if we have the experience in-house to delve into that area. I believe he said they installed a new chiller, so now they need to make sure it’s being maintained properly. Will the utilities provide $$ towards ongoing maintenance that drives energy reduction? https://www.facilitiesnet.com/hvac/article/Chillers-Ensuring-Energy-Efficiency–17370

Ultimately, he said that he uses us because Hunter has become familiar with the facility and remembers what happened in past years. Hunter knows where to go and what to do, is able to identify problems quickly and he trusts Hunter (and APM) quite a bit (to point our issues and make recommendations beyond the STS/repairs). He said our techs are always polite, professional, and have a good work ethic.

He’s happy with communication on all fronts (sales, scheduling, techs, etc.). No negative feedback.

Thank you Hunter for representing APM! Everyone involved has done a great job representing our company values here!

Sid Khanna: Matt Hydock – Penn Medicine

“Matt was instrumental in me obtaining large orders at Penn Medicine for the month. He has built rapport with the customer to the point where they have been calling him off hours for his input on issues at their facility. I was able to obtain an order for ~$130k in heat exchanger cleaning by educating the customer on its value and having Matt build confidence in his expertise in the field. He will be going back onsite to complete the projects.”

Thank you for your hard work and commitment Matt!

Sid Khanna: Diane Keefe – Bid for Union Public Schools

Diane was a great help in generating the bid for Union Public Schools. I worked with her very closely over the last week and a half to make sure our process was streamlined. I also feel that she and I have built a better understanding on how APM needs to approach bids in the future. The bid was finished on time and it was mainly due to her efforts. APM will know if we have the project by end of next week. Project size is ~$220k.

Great work Diane!

Sid Khanna: Courtney Meaney – Laptop Replacement

Courtney was very diligent in helping me resolve an issue with my laptop over the last two months. There were many problems in dealing with our IT department and she made sure each one was addressed. She even planned for contingencies in case there were potential issues down the road. The result was I now have a fully operational new laptop. Hopefully we can improve our process in dealing with IT support as well.

Happy we got the problem fixed Sid!

Brett Houlihan & Mark Martella: First two surveys completed at the City of Chicago buildings:

City Hall:

The first two surveys we sold to the City of Chicago were completed in the beginning of April to mark the beginning of a successful partnership with the city. They did not come without challenges however! To start, the weather had been warming up in Chicago to the mid-70’s and was spelling disaster before we even started. This caused the surveys at the City Hall building to be cancelled in the first week of April. However, with Brett and Mark constantly communicating with the customer and Michelle being very flexible and creative with the schedule we were able to push this to the following week when temps returned to the 30’s and 40’s to make it happen.

On top of that David Glasetter arrived onsite and none of the thermostatic radiator traps were calling for heat due to the building being stuck at an ambient temp of 75 degrees. David made good relationships with the engineers onsite and was able to get many of them to help him capture as many traps as they could to make the project well worth the trip out there. Mark also arrived onsite for much of the survey to help and provided lunch for all the guys. That went a long way with strengthening the relationships in an otherwise tense environment. Mark was also able to convince the site contact to have us back onsite next week with Thermaxx for a heat loss survey as well.

3015 W 31^st ST.

Jason Jimenez was able to travel onsite on a last minute’s notice to complete this survey in the four days allotted. Even though there were some challenges at first, he worked through them and got great remarks from the site contact at this location as well.

Both of these projects together made for a great first step with the City of Chicago to continue doing business with them in the future.

The results:

A new and strong relationship with a key account
10-day install project at City Hall
5-day install at w 31^st St.
Opportunity for a heat loss survey

Great job to the Chicago Sales team and to David and Jason for their exceptional work!

Mark Martella: First visit to APM Home Base!

I traveled to corporate for official training. Learned a ton in the field with Sean, Hayston and Honan.

It was nice to finally meet you in person Mark!

Sean Keleher: UMASS Lowell for the Win!

After 8 years of pushing UMASS Lowell to work with us, I was finally able to get them to move forward with us on a full campus steam trap survey. They’ve used our competition in the past and haven’t been very receptive until recently, so this is a big win.

Way to go Sean!