Five Steps for Effective Change from Elisabeth Kubler-Ross' Five Stages of Grief

First, a little backstory: OHM has been hosting a series of Lunch & Learn workshops on the topic, Reengineering Municipal Government. These workshops involve a panel of speakers from different areas of government, along with a few policy and economic experts thrown in the mix. Each workshop session has included different speakers to bring a wide range of advice and experience to attendees.

Except for one constant. Charlie Fleetham, president of Project Innovations, a management and consulting firm for government and business, has been a speaker at every Reengineering Municipal Government workshop. Why the same guy, over and over? Because Charlie's message relating the decline of manufacturing in southeast Michigan to the Five Stages of Grief makes a lot of sense to municipal leaders in the midst of an economic revolution.

In Fleetham's talk, A Region Coping with Transitions, he says that what is happening in the region (the rust belt), is a death. It's the death of a way of life, of a 100 year period of economic prosperity. A period that is not likely to return anytime soon. Fleetham advocates that leaders use psychology to help colleagues, staff members and citizens move through the grieving process. "Humans have to react to change in an orderly fashion - first feeling, then thinking and finally acting. We've been short-circuiting the feeling process."

Fleetham recommends that municipal leaders follow five steps to effective change:

1. It's psychology stupid. If you don't understand the psychology of change, your job as a leader gets even tougher, if not impossible.

2. Job 1 is naming the challenge - it's a Long Emergency or an Economic Hurricane or a Fiscal Pandemic. People need an emotional hanger for their fears. Please note: one thing it is not is a "structural change."

3. Hope is a necessary poison! Give too much hope and you feed a fantasy...give too little hope and you feed depression.

4. It's a big lifeboat, but some people are going to try to throw you off in the panic. Build your team and defend it!

5. When it comes to saving money, we are all elephant hunters now. Don't get caught squirrel hunting!

Here's a graphic that explains the stages of grief.

Reengineering Municipal Government - Five Stages to Effective Change

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i3D Antecedent Moisture Model: Why it Pays (in Savings!) to Think Outside the Sliderule

In today's post we're sharing a bit about a unique hydrologic modeling methodology, the i3D Antecedent Moisture Model. This is more than just another tweak to the EPA's software - this is a whole new way of thinking.

i3D is the marriage of traditional hydrologic modeling with technology borrowed from aerospace engineering. The idea was sparked when Robert Czachorski, a civil engineer, and his college roommate, Tobin Van Pelt, an aerospace engineer, were talking about the challenges of predicting how sewer systems would function in wet weather situations. The result was like the old Reese's Peanut Butter cup commercial - two great ideas that worked great together.

Fast forward nearly ten years and the i3D modeling method is helping to save communities hundreds of millions of dollars. In one project alone, the director of Wayne County's Department of Environment credited i3D with saving Michigan taxpayers $170 million dollars. Here's more of that story, which also turned into an American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) National Finalist Project. Here's a short slidedeck on the project.

i3D Antecedent Moisture Model-An Advanced Method for Sewer System Rehabilitation and Sizing

View more presentations from OHM Advancing Communities.

Wayne County, Michigan was faced with the challenge of complying with a new, stricter Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) policy to control sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs) in its North Huron Valley/Rouge Valley (NHV/RV) interceptor system. The County retained Orchard, Hiltz & McCliment, Inc. (OHM) to develop an antecedent moisture model of the Middle Rouge Branch of the NHV/RV system, demonstrate that the model accurately reflects observed flows in the system based on historic rainfall records, and then use the model to perform a frequency analysis to size a regional transport/storage tunnel.

OHM the i3D Antecedent Moisture (AM) Model to perform the hydrologic modeling. i3D is a continuous model developed from system identification theory from aerospace engineering that closely matches observed flow data over time. The accuracy of the model created a high level of confidence in the frequency analysis for SSOs and served as the basis for recommending improvements to control wet weather SSOs. The use of the AM model, combined with a frequency analysis for sizing improvements, eliminated the need to select a design storm event based on “average” conditions, reducing many of the conservatisms that are frequently included in event models such as the capture coefficient and seasonal effects.

Previous modeling of the NHV/RV system recommened large capital improvement costs to make the system compliant with the MDEQ SSO Policy. Using the new technologies, including the i3D AM model and frequency analysis, OHM determined that the required system improvements – a relief/storage tunnel – could be scaled down significantly. The Final Engineering Report recommended an effective tunnel size of 6.4 MG, at an anticipated cost of $95 million – a savings of $175 million over the size recommended by the previous event model. This created a breakthrough between the local communities and the MDEQ who were in conflict over the sizing. Most importantly, the public health of more than 500,000 people will be protected while simultaneously cost effectively decreasing sanitary sewer overflows in the system.

Advancing Communities by Advancing Transportation

OHM's super-smart Steve Loveland (that's him on the far left) was recently elected to the Board of Directors for the Institute of Transportation Engineers, Michigan Section. ITE is a professional organization that provides technical education to the broad transportation community.

Steve is a licensed professional engineer *and* a professional traffic operations engineer. By day, he's a project engineer in OHM's Traffic Group. And when he's not playing on the OHM underground Halo team, he's working on traffic operations studies, traffic impact studies, site plan reviews for municipalities, crash analyses, and traffic data collection and analyses.

Congrats to Steve Loveland!

Popular Science Names Diverging Diamond Interchange Best of 2009

Popular Science magazine recently named the Diverging Diamond Interchange to its Best of What's New 2009 list. The innovative interchange design is credited with improving safety and relieving congestion by eliminating risky left turns. Experts say that the design can improve traffic flow by 60%.

The very first DDI built in the United States opened in 2009 in Springfield, Missouri at the I-44/Kansas Expressway interchange. Missouri Department of Transportation is so enamoured by the design's results that it has another under construction and several in the planning stages.

OHM traffic engineer Steve Dearing commented on the new interchange design in a recent article in the Kansas City Star.

Dearing, a traffic engineer who has studied the design will be explaining the DDI and other innovative traffic solutions at a national webinar sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Want to see a diverging diamond interchange in action? Visit our website for more information on how a DDI works and watch a video.

GPS and Potholes: Crowdsourcing Municipal Maintenance

We think this post from Maddock Douglas about how GPS can make local government more efficient is really interesting. How else can cash strapped local goverments use technology and the power of the crowd to "do more with less"?

Future Trends: Crowdsourcing Municipal Maintenance
December 29, 2009 (11:12 AM) by Michelle Oldham

Let’s say you’re driving home from work when all of a sudden your front left tire drops into a massive pothole causing you to swerve right. Luckily, there are no cars in the right lane, but regardless you’ve narrowly avoided an accident, and with good reason, you’re upset.

So what?

Well, a few years ago, you might have complained to your friend in the passenger seat and just kept on driving. But now, people have the power to report local issues with the click of a few buttons and the power of GPS.

Read more at: http://www.maddockdouglas.com/future-trends-crowdsourcing-municipal-maintenance

Jonathan Kramer, OHM VP Named to Crain's 40 Under 40 List

Young, smart and fast - that's OHM's Vice President of Operations, Jonathan Kramer. At the tender age of 36, he's made history as the youngest person to be elected to the board of directors for OHM.

Crain's recognized Kramer for his achievements and his ambition. Kramer graduated from high school at 16, graduated from college at 20. This year, 2009, marks 20 years of employment with OHM. We're so much the better for it, Jon.

Improve Energy Efficiency & Get Some Green from Uncle Sam

A study recently released by consulting giant McKinsey estimates that an investment of $520 billion in energy-saving improvements could produce $1.2 trillion in savings on energy bills through 2020. According to the study, "if carried out over the next decade," the program "could cut the country's projected energy use in 2020 by about 23 percent." New York Times (7/30, B3, Galbraith)

Half a trillion dollars may be a staggering sum, but the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, passed in February, included $10 to $15 billion in spending on energy efficiency.

Some of the spending goes to the US Department of Energy (DOE), which issues Energy Efficiency and Conservation Community Development Block Grants (EECBG) to encourage investments in energy efficiency and conservation. The EECBG program is designed to assist US cities, counties, states, territories and Indian tribes in a number of initiatives, including reducing the total energy use of the eligible entities, and improve energy efficiency in the transportation, building and other sectors. The program includes a competitive grant component. Since OHM is focused solely on public use infrastructure and facilities, we'll list grant-eligible activities in that sector:

-Development of an energy efficiency and conservation strategy;

-Building energy audits and retrofits, including weatherization;

-Financial incentive programs for energy efficiency such as energy savings performance contracting, on-bill financing, and revolving loan funds;

-Installation of distributed energy technologies including combined heat and power and district heating and cooling systems;

-Installation of energy efficient traffic signals and street lighting; and

-Installation of renewable energy technologies on government buildings.

OHM is one of the DOE's certified Technical Energy Analysis(TEA)consultants. Tracie Williams, PE, describes the energy audit as the first step in increasing energy efficiency in a building. "The audit is like your benchmark; it tells you where you are currently, and what effect various changes could have on your energy usage."

The energy audit starts with an analysis of the building's existing energy costs, including infrastructure sytems and the envelope of the building.

Next is a report of existing conditions.

The third component of the audit is a list of energy usage improvements, which includes the improvement's cost to prioritize investment dollars.

The final piece of the audit lists the improvements with their associated payback period.

An audit may be necessary to pursue EECBG grants. We'll provide more information in future communications. In the meantime, contact OHM for any questions about energy audits or measures to increase efficiency and reduce costs.