Green Integrity
April 22, 2011
The Cover story in this months Contracting Profits magazine is
the story of how Cardinal Building Maintenance became experts in
the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design (LEED) Program.
Read about it here by downloading the PDF of the article.
Cardinal's Kismet
Is it Spring Yet?
April 20, 2011
It may not feel as of late that we are completely out of winter,
but as spring approaches and there are more people in and out of
your buildings, increases in allergenic concerns, and the "deep
thaw" dampens your surroundings, Cardinal Building Maintenance Inc.
will prepare and repair you every spring.
And while just about everyone is as optimistic about our two
local baseball teams, the best approach is a proactive one in
preparing for setbacks.
This season Cardinal's starting line-up will be supporting our
customers by:
- Increasing Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) by optimizing our Healthy
High Performance Cleaning (HHPC) program in effort to increase
occupancy rates.
- Provide service, using chemicals with low levels of volatile
organic compounds (VOC's) - which at high levels can increase the
risk of triggering asthma attacks, and additional health
concerns.
- Installing and treating entryway systems in order to maximize
the potential absorption of moisture and soil.
- Servicing equipment and replacing batteries to ensure peak
performance for the year.
This year, don't get left in the dust with other companies and
be proactive with Cardinal Building Maintenance, Inc. Call us today
at 708-385-3575
Diversey Inc. Welcomes Cardinal Building Maintenance, Inc.
March 14, 2011
On a grey, rainy and cold early March Friday morning in
Sturtevant Wisconsin, Diversey Inc. opened its doors to Cardinal
Building Maintenance, Inc.
Projecting how important of a trip this was for Cardinal,
President Jim DeGrado not only included himself but also
recommended that he bring along 10 additional members of his
support team. Recognizing the significance of a synergistic
approach to the Diversey Inc. relationship, Cardinal was
represented by members of Sales and Marketing, Operations, Human
Resources, Administration and Purchasing.
Getting introduced in person to the extravagant and immaculate
facility was quite entertaining. Our tour highlighted the origins,
backbone and experience that has transformed Diversey Inc. into the
worldwide company it is today. The LEED Gold accredited main
building is very work friendly, comfortable and unassumingly
hi-tech. Cardinal's Kirsten Uzzardo and Tim Wagner, straight
off of their LEED Green Associate certification, took notice to
many of the unique retrofitting efforts that Diversey Inc. included
in their updated home.
The next portion of our visit was discussing Diversey Inc.'s
Learning Management System (LMS). Senior Manager Ms. Joan Hansen
directed our attention toward the many benefits and advantages to
the program including: self-directed training, accountability,
documentation, and 24/7/365 availability. Denise Knop, Kathy
Nicholson and Rodney Reams were all heavily interested in the
content and potential for a system like this to add to Cardinal's
repertoire of training techniques.
Our final destination was to the Diversey Floor Care Institute.
Like kids on Christmas Kathy Bogdzia, Evelyn Noble, Andy Jatczyszyn
and Randy Griffin viewed demonstrations on the updated TASKI
equipment, had discussions about the latest in floor/carpet care
chemistry and "test" drove some of the new wheels on the lot.
Cardinal Building Maintenance Inc. has continually focused on
improving ways to service our customers. We would like to thank the
entire group at Diversey Inc. for the day on their campus as well
as their ongoing efforts to support us.
Snowstorm Superstars
February 08, 2011
Did you tag a creative name to the blizzard of 2011?
Snowpacolyspe, Snowmageddon, SnOMG, Snoprah
Whintrey? More importantly, how did your building
service contractor react to your name?
By sticking to three of our best practices - preparation,
communication and flawless execution Cardinal Building Maintenance,
Inc was able to continue to provide service throughout the duration
of the past couple of days, as promised. All while without putting
our customers, employees and business at risk.
Monday morning - Strategic in-house operation
meetings were scheduled throughout the day each with their own
specific agenda and timetable.
Monday afternoon - While business went on as
per usual some special accounts were targeted for early cleaning
with the potential threat that they might be closing for a day or
two. This was only available because of excellent cooperation
between management, employees and communication with onsite
contacts.
Tuesday morning - As the threat became imminent
additional precautionary measures were put into effect. First, we
booked 8 hotel rooms for employees needing immediate access to
facilities in order to ensure completion of work but most
importantly personal safety.
Next, our key management and operation staff relocated to the
local Double Tree Hotel for reasonable walking distance to
Cardinal's corporate office to ensure "business as usual" for our
customers during the storm.
As Tuesday turned into Wednesday and the inches turned in feet,
a normal night at work turned into hours of commitment, resiliency
and doing what ever it takes to get the job done. The heroine
tales have poured in from customers, employees and management. We
had employees bunked and fed at hospitals, schools and even a
police station - under their own power of course, overnight snow
plowing expeditions to keep sidewalks safe and parking lots clear,
the snow might have been piling up outside but the trash cans and
dust was not going to pile up inside.
Internal "Badges of Honor" were handed out across our industry
this week and we were extremely satisfied to earn ours.
Through an "after action" review process after the last snowflake
had settled, we performed a self-critique in order to learn and
improve for our customers. Overall we found that we were
successful because we established crystal clear lines of
communication, provided a safe and productive work environment and
exceeded customer expectations.
For those customers that closed your buildings - thank you for
your patience.
For those customers that remained open - thank you for the
challenge.
If your current contractor does not measure up to our standards
or yours, call us for a risk free assessment before the next
emergency comes our way.
We want to thank and acknowledge our Snowstorm Superstars,
because without them and their continued excellence we wouldn't
have been nearly as successful as we were this
week.
New Location
September 28, 2010
In the red? Well you are in luck. You are going to get to see a
little more, but it in this case more is better. With a
tremendous opportunity to spread the red, Cardinal Building
Maintenance, Inc has opened a new branch office in Northbrook,
Illinois. "Cardinal North" as it will be known, is a 2,550
square foot facility located conveniently between 294 and 94, and
just north of Willow Road. Minutes from both major arteries,
this facility will allow Cardinal to create quicker response times
limiting your facilities risk exposure, give us more people,
resources and opportunities to continue to make your facilities
shine, and even in these tough economic times we will be able to
populate the workforce with an initial 100 new employees. For
more information on how Cardinal Building Maintenance, Inc can
support your business, give us a call at 708.385.3575.
The Uniform
May 14, 2010
Picture this: An office worker returns to his building late at
night to retrieve some additional files. The facility is largely
deserted, and mostly dark. Suddenly, the occupant unexpectedly sees
an unfamiliar person onsite. The occupant is nervous at first, but
soon relaxes when he notices the stranger is wearing a janitorial
uniform clearly identifying him from the local cleaning company. He
is actually not a stranger at all, but a member of the team hired
to clean the building. A uniform not only makes janitors
recognizable, but it can make them more productive and professional
as well.
Since janitorial work involves not only the dirtiest and
greasiest of environments as well as chemicals that can stain or
ruin clothing, practicality suggest that material for janitorial
uniforms should be stain-resistant and easy to clean. As cleaning
is strenuous work, uniforms also need to be comfortable, breathable
and durable.
At Cardinal, our uniforms vary depending on the type of work the
employees will be doing. For example, all day porters and day
cleaning personnel as well as Area Managers wear Cardinal's
signature white polo with the logo embroidered on. Members of our
Special Project Crew and Night Custodians wear clearly marked
Cardinal t-shirts, either in grey or blue. When selecting pants, we
like to utilize a durable, comfortable, and stain-resistant black
pant that matches our company colors. The rest of our line ranges
from vests to aprons to winter jackets and hats. Our outfit has
many outfits.
The right combination of uniform clothing delivers comfort, work
utility, security, good customer relations and a constant
promotional element. That's a lot of value coming from a simple
collection of fabric.
Sustainable Education
April 01, 2010
Cardinal Building Maintenance, Inc. recent award "Best of
Alsip" doesn't happen without hard work and continued
improvement from all aspects of our organization. Being awarded as
a two-time winner proves that a consistent approach to better our
business practices and the service we provide will pay off.
Our ongoing efforts as an environmentally friendly organization
have provided us many opportunities to educate our customers with
that knowledge we accumulate. One of our more recent
education seminars that we attended was the USGBC's LEED Core
Concepts and Strategies event held here in Chicago. The two
individuals who we sent are also in the process of obtaining their
LEED Green Associate Certification.
Safety Training Meeting
February 10, 2010
It was an exciting morning for the group
of Area Managers and Site Supervisors as they
gathered January 30th for the first quarterly safety
training meeting of 2010. They all knew that there was plenty
on the agenda to look forward to and that they would all have a
chance to chime in. So, with coffee and doughnuts in hand,
the Cardinal Training Center was opened for business.
We were lucky enough to have John Paul-Surdo of JohnsonDiversey
in our presence that morning for a refreshing take on the updated
Healthy High Performance Cleaning Procedures. After a general
review of the program, which has gotten a great response from both
our customers and employees, John took us on an in-depth look into
the specific HHPC requirements that we will be implementing to our
current customers.
Continuing on with the "Green Theme", President Jim DeGrado
introduced Cardinal's newest member to the family, The Ionator from
Activeion. The updated Activeion product delivers portable,
on-demand, safe and sustainable cleaning by converting tap water
into a powerful cleaner. After a brief training and
demonstration session, the Area Managers and Site Supervisors were
both impressed and excited going forward with this piece of
equipment in their arsenal.
Finally, as a yearly reminder for all Area Managers we reviewed
in detail Cardinal's Employee Training Checklist. This review
is a reminder for all Trainers to pay special attention to the
little things at each building we service, and re-emphasizes the
importance of their initial training process.
It's Getting Hot in Here
January 15, 2010
Hot Spot Cleaning
I think that we all could have assumed that children are more
susceptible to infection by microbial pathogens picked up from
their environments than adults exposed to the same pathogens, now
there is substantial evidence that leads us to that same
conclusion. There are many reasons for this increased risk, but the
major factor is that children's immune systems and the natural
protection against pathogens don't fully develop until adulthood.
With the increased risk, crowding in schools, the fact that
children have frequent hand-to-mouth and object-to-mouth contact,
etc., make it very important to understand what environmental
sources present the most important risks for infection.
A surprisingly inefficient way of transferring diseases is
direct person-to-person transfer from sneezes and coughs.
Conversely, the transfer of human microbial pathogens to a surface
or material that is touched by many other individuals, known as
highly touched objects (HTO's), in the course of their daily lives
and to allow each individual's touch-to-mouth or
touch-to-hand-to-mouth practice spread the infection is highly
efficient.
The big questions are (1) whether or not microbial pathogens can
survive on these surfaces, (2) which surfaces have the highest
probability of holding microbial contamination and (3) how can they
be best removed? Within the last few years these questions have
been addressed through studies and highly touted papers.
1. It was determined that common pathogens may persist on
surfaces for times ranging from two hours to more than four
years.
2. With a wide variety of data recovery methods, results of
these studies are difficult to determine, however a number of
general conclusions can be made. Restroom floors and walls do not
rank at the top of the list, most directly related to the idea that
most cleaning efforts are focused there. Highly ranked HTO surfaces
include the following: Children's playground equipment, faucets,
armrests, phones and importantly computer keyboards. In schools,
the previously mentioned HTO's were most contaminated with
bacteria, while desktops, faucet handles and paper towel dispensers
were most contaminated with viruses. Most importantly, the study
showed that contamination levels had a strong positive correlation
with student absenteeism due to illness. So in the case of schools,
HTO's can be efficient in spreading person-to-person and
person-to-home microbial contamination.
3. While creating the best method for disinfection of HTO's is
ideal, it is not easily obtained. A good example is the common
method of applying a disinfectant as a liquid from a wiper. It has
been determined that wipers vary greatly in their ability to
release disinfectants to surfaces. In particular, microfiber-based
wipers have shown to release far more disinfectants than their
cheaper less effective cotton rag counterpart.
HTO's can be an efficient way of spreading infections within
schools and from schools to homes. The physical and organizational
tools that can be used to clean and disinfect HTO's and to monitor
the effectiveness of the cleaning and disinfection are well known
and available. What is required is the knowledge that to implement
and use these tools.
For more information on Cardinal Building Maintenance, Inc.
contact us at 708.385.3575 or info@cardbldgmnt.com