CEO, Liz Woodyard, stands under the new roof at the Petersburg Medical Center. Photo/Angela Denning
For a town of 3,000, the Petersburg Medical Center is a hustling and bustling place. It employs about 100 people and serves both out-patients and those in long term care. Getting a new roof on the building to replace the old leaky one was vital but the project turned out to take a very long time. Construction began on the roof last August.
In the beginning, the medical center staff ran into problems with the construction company, Silver Bow, out of Juneau.
Mike Boggs is the medical center’s long-time Maintenance Director.
“We got off to a bad start with the initial crew and there were several conferences that we had with installers, and us, and all affected parties,” Boggs says. “And the wheels were turning slow on getting things rectified.
Basically, the job was taking too long and the work that was being done was not good enough. At one point part of the newly replaced roof had to be completely redone. But Boggs says things eventually smoothed out after Silver Bow brought in all new workers.
“Once we came to an agreement with quality of the job was the priority, Silver Bow came around and did a very good job, replaced the entire crew,” Boggs says. “They definitely made up for it with the crew they finished the job on. They were hand-picked and very good.”
Besides replacing the roof, the medical center got some new vents and a new stack for the water heater’s exhaust system.
Boggs says all of that is a great relief.
“It was getting to be, in adverse weather, you’d have to get up there and set out buckets, and try to remember to go up the last day it doesn’t rain before fall and just gum everything up and get ready for the rainy season and now we don’t have to,” Boggs says.
Liz Woodyard is the CEO of the medical center.
“It feels really good,” Woodyard says, “I think we had a little rocky start and a lot of delays but now that the project is done and we’ve had a different crew, we’ve had good communication with Silver Bow and we’re very happy.”
The project was paid for through two state grants totaling $442,648.The project went over that by $80,000 which the medical center plans to pay.
Although the facility is owned by the borough, the medical center pays for all the maintenance and repairs.
