For over 30 years, Webcor has been a proud partner of Rebuilding Together Peninsula (RTP), a nonprofit that provides year-round renovation and repair services for the Bay Area Peninsula’s most vulnerable homeowners. Since Webcor took on its first RTP project in April 1990, support for Rebuilding Together has grown substantially companywide. Along the way, Webcor participation has reached as many as 100 volunteers, allowing us to expand our volunteer services from small residential projects to larger community facilities throughout California.
Like many events that were planned for 2020 and 2021, last year’s National Rebuilding Day (NRD) was put on hold due to COVID-19-related safety concerns. NRD, which takes place the last Saturday of April every year and was formerly known as “Christmas in April,” has always drawn more Webcor volunteers than any other Rebuilding Together event – upwards of 80 Webcor employees and family members. Instead of ignoring the canceled RTP event, Vice President and RTP Board Chair Kurt Ricci approached two Peninsula-area project teams about working on RTP residential projects.
“Our Bay Meadows team worked on a home in Belmont, and our Genesis Marina team worked on a home in South San Francisco,” says Kurt, who has been an RTP Board member for almost seven years and is finishing up his current role as Board Chair. “When I approached the leaders of the Bay Meadows and Genesis Marina project teams, they were immediately receptive to supporting those in their project-area community. After meeting with each of the teams and the RTP staff, we discussed the residential projects that were available in the general area of their respective Webcor project – which were chosen by RTP based on the scope of work – and they conducted tours so each team could select which home to work on."
Assistant Safety Manager Mario Saenz led the Genesis Marina team’s efforts with RTP – his first home project with the program after working on RTP educational facility projects in years past.
“Mario did an incredible job of making volunteering accessible to all,” says Assistant Project Manager Stefanie Cooke. “He put in a tremendous amount of work, including setting us up with material and feasible tasks beforehand so that everyone felt comfortable and encouraged to participate.”
The residential project required mechanical (furnace required maintenance, parts exchanged, and duct repairs), plumbing (water heater maintenance/proper settings and kitchen sink installation), carpentry (procurement and installation of five lower kitchen cabinets), glazing (procurement/ installation of five windows), drywall (ceiling repairs), electrical (seven lighting fixture replacements, installation of range hood above the stove, installation of bathroom fan, and replacement of existing outlets to GFCI), and paint services (common areas —living room, hallway, kitchen, and laundry room).
“Providing the functional kitchen before the holidays was one of the biggest contributions our team made to the family,” Mario says. “The kitchen is commonly known as the heart of a home; we hope it played a big role in their family holiday meals.”
Over the course of several days between August and November 2021, several members of Webcor’s Genesis Marina team contributed their core & shell, carpentry, and drywall services: Sr. Project Accountant Jasmin Lautt, Project Engineer Casey Mathews, Carpenter Foreman Adolfo Arellano, Sr. Project Manager Adam Martin, Sr. Project Engineer Miranda Nowlen, Project Engineer Kai Weyland, Assistant Superintendent Ben Jodis, Assistant Superintendent Zack Moore, Superintendent Omar Hosny, Assistant Project Manager Bernard Brown, Vice President Kerriann McDermott, Vice President/former RTP Board Chair John Wilson, Mario, and Stefanie. The team worked closely with trade partners Frank M. Booth, Architectural Glass & Aluminum Co, Inc., OEG Inc., and South San Francisco Scavenger Co. Inc. to complete the RTP home’s full scope of work.
“Working on this project with the Genesis Marina team was a great opportunity to volunteer in the local area where I work,” Stefanie says. “I love giving back, especially to my local community. I had a great experience with volunteering for RTP a few years ago at NRD, so I was excited to support them again.
“Seeing the significant difference that we made in such a short time to an elderly person’s home was the best part of the whole experience – and we did it whilst having tremendous fun and building our team! The participation from our trade partners was also very much appreciated.”
The Bay Meadows team went to work on their RTP home project last August and completed the work in late February. The project’s scope of work included upgrading the waterlines (only one side of the house had running cold water and no hot water), installing a water heater and connecting all lines, installing a wall heater (the house had no functional heating system), and transforming a nonfunctional bathroom into a functional, ADA-compliant one.
“We were a good fit to help this family, which had suffered with mental illness,” says Sr. Project Manager Sarmad Khalaf. “We’d done multiple other volunteering events as a team and wanted to continue giving back to the community.”
Several Bay Meadows team members from Webcor’s core & shell, drywall, and carpentry groups were involved with the project: Safety Manager Larry Spencer, Project Manager Megan Zahnow, Project Director Ted Williams, Assistant Project Manager Matt Moran, Sr. Project Engineer Evan To, Vice President Kerriann McDermott, Concrete Sr. Superintendent Eric Roggeveen; Drywall Specialist Marco Sifuentes, Sarmad, and Field Specialist Virgil Coop, who performed the majority of the work, Sarmad noted. Trade partners J.W. McClenahan Co., Brayer, and D&J Tile Company Inc. also contributed their services to the project.
“Ted asked me to help and see this project to completion,” Virgil says. “I didn’t need any motivation to say yes; the family living in the home needed our help, so I was happy and honored to do whatever it took. I worked on my first RTP in 1999, back when it was called ‘Christmas in April,’ and I’ve worked on four or five others since then. The last RTP project I’d been involved with was a Menlo Park school in 2018.”
