Barker spurs Sellen toward sustainability
Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle) - by Rob Smith Special Reports Editor
As Sellen Construction Co.'s sustainable construction manager, Lynne Barker's job is to push the firm toward sustainable building.
Her colleagues push back.
"We butt heads sometimes," says Scott Redman, Sellen's director of marketing and new business development.
"Somewhere, we're creating a real value for our clients, a fresh look, rather than a staid, traditional approach. I think it's healthy."
Sustainable building covers all aspects of building, from land preparation to materials selection, including energy-efficient strategies and the use of recycled-content material.
Barker, the only full-time sustainable construction manager in the Puget Sound region, was hired three years ago. She initially held the title of project engineer, though she has a degree in psychology, not engineering.
Unlike sustainable construction experts at other firms, who more often than not are field superintendents or project managers with other responsibilities, Barker spends a good deal of her time internally, promoting sound environmental practices.
She admits she more or less created her present position.
"I had fairly clear ideas what I wanted to do," she recalls.
What she's done has been nothing short of innovative.
While setting up a job-site recycling program during Sellen's renovation of a building on the Microsoft campus, she noticed there was no market for a significant volume of waste material, including acoustical ceiling tiles.
Some quick research proved to her they were easily recyclable, so she began contacting national ceiling tile manufacturers in an attempt to convince them to recycle the product as post-consumer waste.
Eventually, Armstrong Ceiling Tile Co. agreed to take back the tiles at its regional manufacturing plant in St. Helens, Ore., if Sellen paid transportation costs. Despite shipping the tile 150 miles away, it was still more cost-effective to recycle the product than to dump it.
"The issue always comes down to economics," Barker says.
The 150,000 square feet of tile weighed 86 tons and cost about $3,900 to recycle; it would have cost $8,200 to dispose of in a landfill, a savings of 52 percent.
The plan was so successful that Sellen and Armstrong initiated a national pilot project for reclaiming acoustical ceiling tile.
"We heard about that and went, `God, why didn't we think of that? Hats off to our competition,' " says Craig Vierling, a project superintendent at Turner Construction Co. "It was a perfect, close-the-loop move. I think Lynn's doing a great job, doing some great stuff."
David Bennink, field manager at Re Store, an educational, nonprofit salvage building materials warehouse in Bellingham, says Barker and Sellen "are leaders in the field of recycling. It's very impressive."
In six years of business, Re Store's warehouse has increased in space from 5,000 to 28,000 square feet, an indication of the growing popularity of sustainable building.
During a project at the Northern Life Insurance building in downtown Seattle -- the future home of the FBI -- Sellen worked with Re Store to save more than 100 doors, 200 cabinets, plumbing fixtures, lighting and more than 100 work surfaces.
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