Opening of Bids - Demolition of South Bend Medical Foundation Proj No. 123-076 - Walsh Construction

Home Browse Search

May 28, 2024 | Page 5South Bend Medical Foundation Demolition | City of South Bend 4. REFERENCE LETTERS September 13, 2023 Greetings, My name is Helen Sookradge, and I am an Infection Preventionist with the Beacon Health System, more specifically, with Memorial Hospital. I have been in Infection Prevention over ten years. In April 2022, a new demolition and rebuild of our 6th Floor started. We had no idea the turn of events that we would encounter along the way. Having to work in phases to restructure the plumbing system for the 6th floor to align with both floors 5 and 7, and the coordination with Facilities for the numerous water shutdowns, uncounted, resulted in a total of 24 PCRAs or Pre-Construction Risk Assessments and 24 ICRA permits that were issued. I have to say that this is more permits for one project than I have ever had to issue in my career to date. This project quickly became extremely complicated, this team with their subcontractors had to sister in the new plumbing with the old. A great undertaking at best. Walsh always kept me apprised of the timelines, with new drawings as the actual phasing diagrams changed multiple times weekly, and at times daily. Walsh had excellent communication both via email and voice calls including text messaging as quick communication was needed at times to either change an existing permit phase number, or to update and extend current permits. I must say it is not always a pleasure to work with individuals under such pressure situations. However, that was not the case with Walsh. They always communicated in a calm and precise manner. If Walsh did not have the answers needed, they would seek out the answer and return that to me quickly. Recently, another Walsh project has come about as a result of the Tower Project in which, due to the excellent working relationship I had on the 6th Floor project with Walsh, I reached out to Don Gee, Director Projects and Construction here at Memorial Hospital to ask if Walsh could be involved on this 3HV renovation project. I was fortunate that Don was able to make this happen. I had said to Don at one point, “I do not know what strings you pulled, but I am happy that you could make this happen.” I have to say that Walsh is an asset and has made my job as an RN, in Infection Prevention a joy in a potentially frenzied situation in the continuously changing project that the 6th Floor project became. I want to say that I am truly grateful to have the opportunity to work with such a caliber of company as Walsh. I know the project will be handled appropriately, and corrections made immediately. Thank you. Respectfully, Helen Sookradge Helen Sookradge, Infection Preventionist