Shapiro & Duncan

IDEA GENERATOR ALWAYS ‘ON’

For Shapiro & Duncan, Creative Thinking Permeates Mechanical Services Expertise

Shapiro & Duncan, Inc. donates gifts to the local Toys for Tots campaign. Pictured here overseeing the hand-off are (far left) Shapiro & Duncan, Inc. President Jerry Shapiro and (far right) CEO, Sheldon Shapiro.

Brian Bobitka, HVAC Service Sales Representative for Shapiro & Duncan, Inc., teaches sixth graders at Benjamin Banneker Middle School (Burtonsville, Maryland) about financial literacy during the annual Junior Achievement Day.

Good ideas, executed well, bring desired results. And so it is with the Mid-Atlantic’s Shapiro & Duncan, Inc. when it comes to both the complicated installation of plumbing, heating and air conditioning systems and the inner workings of the company.

“The best ideas really do come from those in the field if you just ask them,” says CEO Sheldon Shapiro. He has continued the legacy started by his father to ensure that leadership at Shapiro & Duncan (S&D) listens to suggestions from employees and makes good change happen.

Shapiro & Duncan is a full-service commercial design-build contractor that serves the greater Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, also referred to as the DMV (District, Maryland and Virginia). With offices in both Rockville and Landover, Maryland, S&D has a diverse portfolio that includes projects related to transportation, health care, data centers, K-12 campuses, higher education, office buildings and hospitality in both public and private markets. Its customers include the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Intelligence Community.

“We have an open-door policy,” says Marketing Manager Stacey Holsinger. “It’s very rare if they say ‘no’ to a good idea.”

The business of mechanical contracting demands such openness to good ideas. When the central mechanical room at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum required that all components were supported from only the floor (instead of the typical ceiling use, due to architecture), the S&D crew delivered. They employed building information modeling (BIM) software to create multiple prefabricated skids, which they then installed. The successful project garnered S&D a “Best Lean Project” award from the Associated General Contractors of Metro DC in 2017.

“Our team had not previously encountered such a strict installation requirement. …[It] took some novel thinking,” Shapiro says.

When a patient tower was being built to serve both the Inova Women’s Hospital and the Inova Children’s Hospital in Falls Church, Virginia, S&D oversaw the demanding coordination of all trades and did extensive planning, including prefabricating more than 80 percent of the work. “We like to call it an upfront investment of intelligence,” Shapiro says. “Putting our best minds together with our planning department—as well as their talent and experience in modeling and clash resolution was key.” The result was a new 665,000-square-foot, 12-story structure with 192 patient rooms, a 108-bed neonatal intensive care unit and 33 labor and delivery rooms.

For the 14-story apartment building in Alexandria, Virginia, which overlooks Washington D.C., and the Potomac River, S&D’s team decided to prioritize each mechanical subsystem serving each apartment through 3D creation. Additionally, they built a mock-up for all 260 mechanical closets so all subcontractors would have a visual walk-through.

The Dalton at Braddock Gateway project ran very smoothly, was completed ahead of schedule and had few conflicts—and those were resolved quickly. “It was yet another demonstration of the core competencies that sets our company apart–our commitment to proactive coordination, our effective use of technology and, most of all, the extraordinary ability of our people,” Shapiro says.

Where Ideas Abound

The company’s S&D University is where the foundation is laid for innovation. Employees are exposed to such training as reading blueprints and regulations pertaining to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the use of heavy equipment, work in confined spaces, protection from silica in construction material, project scheduling, introduction to plumbing or HVAC, workplace communication and public speaking. This professional training also allows the company to extend the widest net to bring on new employees in the current tight job market.

S&D University started 13 years ago, not long after S&D began experimenting and investing in the technology infrastructure that has put it on the forefront of innovation.

Cost accounting, project management and scheduling software came first, in the 1990s. By 1999, the company had engaged with computer-aided design (CAD). As those capabilities increased, S&D started creating detailed spool designs for prefabricating mechanical system piping assemblies. Then, in 2007, building information modeling (BIM) was added for streamlined coordination and planning.

In the field, S&D brings together the CAD program and a digital GPS surveying tool to configure all sleeves, anchors and concrete formwork, as well as to install all equipment and materials.

In 2016, the company invested in the project tracking software FabPro1. It was the perfect complement to manage all aspects of the company’s new 51,000-square-foot fabrication shop. It also moved S&D closer to its desire to “go paperless.” Paper plans and work orders have been replaced by laptops and LED monitors, which display work orders for fabrication assemblies, and iPads in the office and in the field have replaced paper plans and documents.

“Our use and development of technology in the workplace has provided our employees with a challenging and rewarding work environment in which they are constantly learning and improving,” Holsinger says. “This gives them a great deal of pride and confidence in their individual successes and their contribution to the team’s success.”

Individual Attention

The company’s attention to employee growth motivated Zuleima Perez to achieve success within the company—and in a male-dominated industry. “I choose to start my career with Shapiro & Duncan because of the great working environment, great income and excellent reviews,” she says.

Perez started in the fabrication shop but eventually steered her career toward plumbing. In 2012, she joined the special projects department and was assigned a mentor, Foreman James Mayo. He recognized her consistent talent and desire, and in time helped her complete the plumbing apprenticeship program and obtain her journeyman’s license to become the company’s first female journeyman.

Others offer similar stories. “I started as the front desk receptionist in 1996 and worked my way up to become the first female project manager in the company,” says Senior Project Manager Mary Beth Kingsley. “Now I’m managing mechanical projects in excess of $25 million.”

Dan Zimmerman, Design-Build Manager, started as an intern, saw a bright future and stayed. “It was a great experience for me,” Zimmerman says. “I was able to see various aspects of the company and how each function played an impact in building a project.” With the company’s support, Zimmerman earned LEED certification and his professional engineer license.

S&D regularly celebrates its employees—totaling 400—through both monthly and yearly awards. The company works closely with older workers with possible technology shortcomings so they are not left behind.

Building from the Outside In

The company similarly seeks outside opportunities to promote education and honor excellence. S&D makes an investment in future generations by offering scholarships to mechanical engineering students at the University of Maryland.

As ideas continue to flow, the company has made community service a priority. S&D encourages employees to serve by leading a full day of education in financial literacy to middle school students, collecting canned goods at the offices for the needy, calling on vendors to join in on a bowl-a-thon for fundraising for a good cause, and participating in “She Builds” projects to build homes for low-income families in conjunction with the Women in Construction group of ABC (Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc.) of Metro Washington.

Students are also invited into the company’s facilities to observe and tour the fabrication shop and meet its welders, pipefitters and BIM coordinators.

Students from the Academy of Engineering at Wheaton High School in Silver Spring, Maryland, recently visited the fabrication lab at Shapiro & Duncan. “The students were impressed with the state of technology and the efficiency of the process…and surprised to know that the ‘real-world’ automation is even more advanced than what they were learning in their engineering classes,” says Rich Scott, engineering teacher at the school.

Shapiro takes pride in the influences achieved by the company and the unique relationship S&D has with its employees. That, itself, started as an idea.

“Ask your people for feedback,” Shapiro says. “It just takes one good idea to create a culture of innovative thinkers.”

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