“The Expertise of Many, The Power of One” is the philosophy behind P1 Group, and St. Joseph Pipefitter Journeyman Aaron White is one associate who has truly embraced this concept during his employment.

Aaron started his career as an electrician and was hired at P1 shortly after the opening of the St. Joseph, MO, division in 2012.

There’s nothing better than that extra-fresh smell in the air near waterfalls, beaches, and immediately following a thunderstorm. But what you’re actually experiencing are the effects of an ion-rich environment naturally having cleaned the air, giving it that inexplicable “fresh” smell.

As part of the Healthy Buildings initiative, P1 Group continues to provide customers with options to create healthier spaces within their facilities by concentrating on ventilation, air purification, and surface cleaning.

When that circuit breaker goes out and the cost of all-new gear replacement is not an option, P1 Group has a convenient circuit breaker rebuild service that could save customers thousands of dollars.

Electrical Preventative Maintenance (EPM) Manager Jeff Gardner says circuit breaker shipping and rebuilding is a service not commonly offered by many companies. P1 Group is able to offer it after hiring Electrical Service Technician Nate Boettcher, who is particularly skilled at this type of rebuild.

This is the time of year some people might question their decision to live in Las Vegas, NV.

“When I got up this morning at 5 a.m. for a walk, it was already 96 degrees,” P1 Group Office Manager Catalina (Cat) De Leon told us at the time of this interview in late July.

P1 Group has been serving the healthcare community both locally and nationally with single-source facility solutions for many years, and our recent work on the Saint Luke’s East Hospital Flex Capacity Expansion is no exception. The SLE Expansion project will address the hospital’s need for growth by expanding the emergency department. It includes a small renovation of the ER waiting room, but the bulk of the job is the construction of additional ER patient rooms.

P1 is putting virtual design and construction, fabrication, and mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and technologies construction (MEPT) capabilities to work, all while navigating new safety mandates and challenges due to COVID-19. Although P1 has done MEPT projects before, this will be the first MEPT project in the Kansas City metro area. The project has only been underway about five months, but Senior Project Manager Eric Affolter has already noticed a difference in the efficiency with which the project is progressing. “Having all trades within the company working together has really increased the level of communication and efficiency you just can’t get when you work with multiple entities,” Eric said. “Especially with all the COVID-19 guidelines we are now required to follow.” The SLE Expansion project is scheduled for completion in April of 2021.

Kaolin Silo Modifications at Central Plains

What do you do when your 500-ton capacity silo needs to be modified from a tapered, oval shape to “true round”? It’s not something most of us will ever face, but it’s exactly the type of challenge P1 Group Millwrights are highly trained to solve.

When Central Plains Cement in Sugar Creek, MO, needed to change the shape of its 500-ton capacity silo to accommodate a new material, P1 Group was chosen as the prime contractor to design, fabricate, and execute the modifications of the silo and also allow the install of a new 34,000 lb. flange-mounted rotary feeder.

Due to COVID-19, P1 Group was not able to have our typical summer intern program, but we are excited to introduce you to the following students who have joined our Lenexa and Las Vegas offices for the summer. Here’s a little bit about who’s getting some hands-on experience at P1 this summer!

NINA ZEPEDA
UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS, MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

You don’t have to be a an HVAC expert to guess that increasing your building’s intake of fresh outside air is beneficial during a pandemic like COVID-19.

P1 Group values safety above all, and in order to follow CDC interim guidelines, has increased outside air (OA) rates during the pandemic at the company headquarters in Lenexa. In addition, P1 Group offers this service to customers as part of our Healthy Buildings initiative which includes options for UV-C treatment and surface sanitization as well.

With warm weather on the doorstep, attention is turning toward that time-honored tradition of the summer vacation. We plan, save money, look forward to new scenery and time with our family, and just plain relaxing. But with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that has impacted the entire globe, many are opting not to travel this summer.

When physical travel isn’t desirable, our age of technology puts that vacation “virtually” at your fingertips.  

There’s just something about electrical things that appeals to P1 Group Electrical Preventative Maintenance Manager Jeff Gardner.

Jeff says he originally became an electrician because enjoys working with his hands. He finds great satisfaction in doing something tangible, so it is no surprise he also spends his leisure time in an equally fulfilling manner.

When Chart Industries called upon P1 Group as a trusted ESP (Engineered Systems Partner) to do the LN2 (liquid nitrogen) installation/replacement at Aisin Light Metals, Project Manager Nick Lawless knew there would be challenges.

Through the ESP Program, Chart helps P1 Group by bringing regional opportunities to our attention. In turn, P1 Group supports Chart by promoting their product and sharing opportunities with them as well.

The most challenging components of this project were:

• Measuring new piping while the equipment was in use and the new components were not in place
• Installing a new system while existing system was running, with limited down time

Overall, P1 Group installed 400 feet of new rigid piping and final connection hoses.

“In order to replace the system, I had to go out and field measure for new components being added while the equipment was up and running,” Nick explained.

Nick said that besides the equipment being in use while he was measuring, new sub-coolers were being added at a later date and were not yet in place, forcing the team to “best guess” final valve locations.

The team had to be nimble as well. During installation, the equipment was still up and running, producing parts. As each piece of equipment came off line, new piping was installed, requiring P1 Group to work quickly in between those production intervals.

Nick says Brock and Trace went the extra mile to ensure the success of such a challenging project.

“Not only were Brock and Trace able to make sense of the layout as I had intended, they had to make some on-the-fly adjustments to some pretty unforgiving piping,” Nick said.

“Since the system is engineered to order and it takes 4-6 weeks to produce, they had to be innovative in making the new system fit while the old system was still in play,” he explained. “While working safely, they had to crawl all over the equipment to place hangers and coordinate limited downtime for the more difficult-to-reach locations.”

“We did a similar project at Honeywell, but this was the first time we were called upon for an ESP installation outside of the Kansas City Metro area,” he added.

This meant the team was in an area with limited resources (compared to a metro area like Kansas City) and had to overcome obstacles in procuring parts installation.

In addition, Nick noted there was no way to make field alterations once the pipe was fabricated by Chart, leaving little room for error.

Stepping in to work while production is in full-swing and getting the job done right is what P1 Group is known for, and the Aisin Metals project was no exception.

“Brock and Trace really brought this one home for us,” Nick said. “Working right up until Christmas, away from their families, they put a nice big bow on the entire package.”

P1 Group was recently featured in The Fabricator magazine for our streamlined processes and innovations in fabrication, particularly our new WM-36 3D pipe cutting system.

"Sometimes meetings and proper scheduling can take you only so far in a fabricating operation. As business grows, maintaining that correct balance of flexibility and on-time delivery gets tougher if the same number of people have to tackle the increased work load in the same amount of space.

Celebrating Earth Day’s 50^th Anniversary

In the midst of social distancing and staying at home to slow the spread of COVID-19, it’s more important than ever to do our part to reduce, reuse, and recycle. In June of 2018, P1 Connection brought you a story about the recycling efforts of P1 Group and one of the program’s biggest champions, Manpower Coordinator Assistant Emily Barber. 

Not so long ago, Heather Richards-St. Clair headed off to the University of Central Missouri (UCM) with the dream of becoming a reporter and traveling the world. But when graduation came on the heels of a huge economic recession, she found herself following a different path.

Armed with a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism, she looked for what was available and was able to secure a position with a maintenance management company selling commercial janitorial and minimum maintenance service.

Even though we continue to provide our regular services during regular business hours, P1 Group has temporarily closed offices for those personnel not deemed “essential” in compliance with government and state COVID-19 stay-at-home orders.

Some of us have jobs that allow us to work remotely with very little change to our actual work. But for most of us, we still face the very big difference of not reporting to an office, seeing our co-workers face-to-face, and the routine that goes with actually working on site.

On an October morning in 2019, P1 Group received an urgent call from the owners of the I-44 Cold Storage in Springfield Mo. I-44 cold storage is a storage facility for restaurant supply and custom cold storage that houses a 10,000 sq. foot freezer, 10,000 sq. foot cooler space, and 30,000 sq. foot of dry storage space.  

During the night, winds of up to 90 mph had whipped through the area and caused significant damage to the building. The roof of the cooler and part of the freezer were completely blown off, including the majority of the ammonia piping, causing a considerable amount of ammonia leakage.

First Medical Gas Trailer Built by P1 Group

Just because we haven’t done it before doesn’t mean we can’t.  When the Dwight D. Eisenhower VA Medical Center in Leavenworth, KS needed a medical gas trailer to equip their mobile operating room (OR), P1 Group stepped up to the challenge.

The VA Medical Center is preparing to renovate the operating rooms and, due to the nature of the renovations, they are not able to move surgeries to another location in the building. In order to continue providing surgical procedures, they brought in a mobile OR trailer to use during the remodel. However, this trailer did not come equipped with its own medical gas supplies.

Michael Schram has filled many roles during his 10 years at P1 Group, including field technician and Ammonia Division service manager. But after his recent move to the role of Industrial Mechanical Specialist, he’s going after some “big fish” for both the Ammonia division and P1 Group.

Michael started at P1 in 2010 as an HVAC field technician with primarily industrial clients. Soon, he was pricing small service projects and moved into a project manager role, where he worked with ammonia refrigeration customers. He then became a service manager focusing entirely on ammonia. Thanks in part to his leadership, the ammonia division has seen much growth and success.

Thanks to the leadership of P1 Group Business Development Manager Tim Moore, P1 Group has been doing a lot more entertaining.

Tim has been instrumental in organizing events like P1 Fun@4 and fabrication shop tours that allow customers, prospects, and partners a chance to get to know us better.

What happens when fabrication, project managers, VDC, manpower, and field experts in multiple trades get together on a committee?

We do things better.