“Safety First”

“Safety first” has been a popular catch phrase for years, and is used in the public and internal literature of many companies, especially those in fields where it matters the most, like in construction. Too many construction sites have personnel that treat it as an afterthought, however, if they give any thought to safety at all.

Why do people who have the most to lose if a job site is unsafe, the workers themselves, seem to be the people most likely to display a don’t-care or slack attitude about safety? You would think these people would be the most diligent about safety. There are, of course, many foremen and trades people who look at a safe working environment and planned construction method as paramount in doing their jobs properly, safely, and can therefore execute their work with confidence. But there are still too many others not following that example!

A site where everyone automatically includes elements of safety into each day’s construction plan can be the norm, however. A culture of safety can be grown in crews and companies by teaching, reminding and enforcing commonly known OSHA safety measures that everyone on a site should, and most do, know. But how does one grow such a culture?

It starts with a company’s commitment to safe work procedures and a well written safety plan; it continues with signs, checklists, and feedback for any crew’s plan for working safely on any given day. It is enforced by giving verbal and written warnings, and where necessary, taking action to remove individuals from the site that refuse to take safety rules seriously. Companies that continue to send such people to a site should be replaced by other companies who will send safe workers.

Safe workplace procedures like those listed above are a must in today’s construction world, as there are too many life, health and financial repercussions for those companies that don’t do so. I urge everyone, no matter what level of authority, to look at what your company is doing to keep everyone in your workplace safe. I bet you’ll come up with at least one suggestion that leads to a safer and more peaceful workplace for all. After all, the life you save or health you protect may just end up being your own.

APPRO Development, Inc., a Lakeville based commercial construction company, is committed to “safety first” on all its construction projects – large or small. You may review our safety mission statement for more information on APPRO’s policy, and as always, please contact us with any questions.

Lakeville Industrial Warehouse Building Expansion Project Breaks Ground

APPRO Development as design build general contractor at QA1 Groundbreaking

Groundbreaking at QA1, Lakeville, MN with APPRO and CERRON

Lakeville Industrial Warehouse Building Expansion Project Breaks Ground with APPRO Development and CERRON Commercial Properties helping QA1 to celebrate an official groundbreaking for the addition of a 17,200 sq. ft. warehouse. The new addition will expand their existing space to accommodate QA1’s growing business.

The entire QA1 team was joined by a few of the APPRO and CERRON team members to participate in the official groundbreaking ceremony. Everyone at QA1 is looking forward to the added space this new expansion will provide. More information about the ceremony can be found on QA1’s news page by clicking on the following link: QA1 NEWS. Additionally, if you are interested in learning more about QA1, located in Lakeville, MN, you may visit their website at: www.QA1.net.

Looking for more information or ideas for your growing business? Feel free to contact our design team for a no obligation appointment to discuss your needs and ideas.

 

North Dakota Land Opportunities

ND Combined Opportunity Map

North Dakota land opportunities abound and APPRO Development and CERRON Commercial Properties have been working in the Williams County area of the Bakken Formation on a few exciting development projects between Ray and Tioga, ND. ND Land For Sale is the focus of the attached overall flyer which can be accessed by clicking on the following link: Combined Flyer–Tioga-Ray-ND-2013

The first is the Tioga Area Commerce Park (TACP) which is located just off the southeast corner of HWY 2 and CR-19 (109th St E). This development was established in 2011 and is an excellent location for your commercial or industrial business. Lot sizes vary from 3 Acre to 160 Acres in size and have been selling at a rapid pace. Additional information can be found at: [TACP].

The second development, West Bank Station (WBS) is located on the southwest intersection of Hwy 2 and CR-19, between Ray and Tioga, North Dakota. This development includes 333 Total Acres which is comprised of 225 Acres of Commercial with lot sizes ranging from 5 to 50 Acre Commercial Lots and features a multiple turn lane intersection. Click on [WBS] to access up to date information on the current availabilities on this development.

The final development, West Bank Ridge (WBR) is located just south of West Bank Ridge. This residential development includes 25 Single Family Lots, ranging in size from 1 to 2.82 Acre Single Family Lots and 146 Mobile Home Lots. Additional information on this development can be found by clicking on the following link: [WBR].

North Dakota building continues to lead headline news. See attached articles pertaining to housing boom in North Dakota’s Williams County: NorthDakotaLeadsArticle.

CERRON Commercial Properties is proud to market each of these properties for sale.

For more information on getting involved in North Dakota land opportunities to purchase, development, or building opportunities in the heart of the Bakken Formation, please contact Daniel Madrigal at 612-418-9986 or by filling out the contact form below:

[form danm]

 

 

 

Fourth of July in Lakeville, MN

4th of july in Lakeville MN picture of flag-fireworksFourth of July in Lakeville, MN

Fourth of July week is here! At APPRO and CERRON, we are lucky to work in the great community of Lakeville, MN. Lakeville’s Panorama of Progress (“Pan-O-Prog”) is celebrating its 47th year this year July 4th through the 14th. There is a lot going on this year so don’t miss out on any of the fun activities. The enjoyable week starts off with a spectacular free fireworks display the night of the 4th. Included in the fun night is live music by the band CASTAWAYS, temporary tattoos, clowns, and concessions. Don’t miss out on any of the festive events!

Other great events include:

  • A fishing tournament, Saturday, July 6th at 6:00 a.m. at Casperson Park
  • Baby Crawl-a-thon, Tuesday, July 9th at 10:00 a.m. at the Heritage Center
  • Miss Lakeville Scholarship Pageant, Wednesday, July 10th 6:00 p.m. at Lakeville South High School
  • Beer brats and bingo, Thursday, July 11th 5:00 p.m. Lakeville arts center
  • Fun Fair Friday, July 11th-13th from 12:00 noon – 10:00 p.m. Lakeville area arts center parking lot
  • Classic car cruise, Friday, July 12th 6:30 pm downtown
  • Grand parade, Saturday, July 13th 5:30 pm downtown
  • Babe’s tent dance, 8:00 p.m. on Saturday night.

Hope to see you there!

(Additional information on festivities can be found at Pan-O-Prog.)

APPRO and CERRON will be closed Thursday, July 4th and Friday, July 5th in observance of the Fourth of July holiday.

APPRO Development, Inc. has been providing property solutions to our local Lakeville community for more than 25 years! Contact us if you need help finding the perfect property solution in MN or ND.

Social Media – Tips, Tricks, and Shortcuts

Social-Media-People

Social media – tips, tricks, and shortcuts are on the brain this week at APPRO and CERRON. Why? Well, we made the commitment this past year to dig in more deeply to the utilization of social media to begin or continue discussions with our friends and clients, in addition to finding out what is important to each of their businesses. And, why not? It is growing in use due to an increase in mobile device usage and an adoption of use by the older segment of our population, according to a recent article by Jeff Bullas for Small Business on Yahoo!, titled, “21 Awesome Social Media Facts, Figures and Statistics for 2013.”

According to Bullas, here are some very interesting facts about the adoption and growth of social media:

  • Mobile – with the number of people accessing the Internet via a mobile phone increasing by 60.3% to 818.4 million in the last 2 years.
  • Older users adoption – On Twitter the 55-64 year age bracket is the fastest growing demographic at 79% since 2012. The fastest growing demographic on Facebook’s and Google+’s networks are the 45 to 54 year age bracket at 46% and 56% respectively.

In addition, we wanted to share some basic stats for each of the social media outlets we found fascinating (again thanks to Jeff Bullas (who can be followed on @jeffbullas on Twitter) for sharing these stats):

  • Facebook: Monthly active users have passed 1.1 billion for the first time
  • Twitter: 288 million monthly active users
  • YouTube: 1 billion unique monthly visitors
  • Google+: 359 million monthly active users according to a Global Web Index study
  • LinkedIn: Over 200 million users

We were fascinated by these stats and consider ourselves relative novices in the use social media. So, maybe like you, if you have jumped on and are in the midst of “liking”, “tweeting”, and “sharing” but, find it all takes a whole lot of time in your day (you didn’t really have to spare), we would like to share some time saving shortcuts with you. We came across this great social media shortcut infographic article on Quintly, by Aljoscha Fermor we wanted to share with our readers.

If you have not already connected with us on our social media sites – go ahead and click on the links at the top of our web page, or right here: We look forward to connecting with you to bring you property solutions as we continue to work for you…with you!

quintly Infographic: Social Media Shortcuts - How To Save Your Time On Social Media Platforms

Innovation’s Golden Age

Raymond Kurzweil on WSJ comments by APPRO Development & CERRON Properties

Innovation’s Golden Age was an interesting post on the Wall Street Journal’s website this week (www.wsj.com). At APPRO and CERRON, we are fortunate to work with some very forward thinking companies in MN and ND, and we learn about their businesses as we help them find property solutions to meet their unique needs.

I have come across Ray Kurzweil’s writings and presentations multiple times in the past few years and am intrigued by this innovator, speaker, and futurist. The Wall Street Journal has a spotlight section featuring the greatest innovators of our time and this week’s feature includes commentary by Kurzweil, which can be found at: WSJ Link.

In this short video, Kurzweil describes how quickly technology has changed and the mind baffling rate at which new inventions and innovations are being created. He shares that these inventions have been created within the past century with less time and expense than ever before.

If you find Kurzweil’s comments interesting and want to learn more about his work, this is a link to the TED talks he has given: TED link

If your business is in the midst of creating innovative solutions for the world in which we live, and find that your space needs are changing as a result – contact us today. No question is too large or too small, as we are more than happy to chat with you about your unique situation.

 

 

Why Do We Measure Air Conditioner Capacity in Tons?

, via Wikimedia Commons

Like modern air conditioning, the expression has a cold-climate origin

Originally posted on May 29 2013 by Allison A. Bailes III, PhD, GBA Advisor on the Green Building Adviser Website at: http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/building-science/why-do-we-measure-air-conditioner-capacity-tons

When we talk about “tons” of air conditioner capacity, the expression refers to the weight of a quantity of ice that would provide the equivalent amount of cooling. Before modern air conditioning, buildings were cooled with ice harvested from frozen lakes.

A few years ago, a HERS rater student in a class I taught told a funny story. He was an HVAC contractor and said he was installing a new air conditioner for an elderly woman. As he was explaining things to her, he mentioned that they would be installing a 4-ton unit. “Oh, my,” she said. “How are you going to get something so big into my back yard?”

The confusion here is completely natural. HVAC and home energy pros find this story funny because when you say an air conditioner is 4 tons, we know we’re not talking about the weight of the equipment. It’s a number that tells how much heat the air conditioner can remove from the house in an hour. (Fro now, let’s ignore the issues of nominal vs. actual capacity and AHRI derating.) A 4-ton air conditioner is one that can remove 48,000 BTUs of heat per hour from the house. (A BTU is a British Thermal Unit, approximately the amount of heat you get from burning one kitchen match all the way down.) For most people, though, 4 tons means 8,000 pounds.

It’s cold enough to start harvesting, so get out your ice saw

Most pros also know how such a common term as “ton” has turned into a bit of HVAC jargon. Before Willis Carrier invented the modern air conditioner, people used to cool buildings in the summertime with ice harvested from rivers and lakes in the wintertime. A Green Homes America article quotes ice production figures from a 19th-century journal, Ice and Refrigeration, indicating that the 1890 crop from the Hudson River was about 4 million tons.

OK, so people used to cool and refrigerate with ice. How does that equate to air conditioning capacity in BTUs per hour, you ask? Well, let’s get quantitative and find out.

The latent heat of fusion

When ice is below freezing and it absorbs heat, its temperature increases. When ice is at its melting point, 32°F, and it absorbs heat, its temperature doesn’t change. Instead, it melts. If you’ve had a physics or chemistry class, you may recall that the amount of heat needed to melt ice is called the latent heat of fusion. In Imperial units, that number is 143 BTUs per pound.

That’s actually a lot of heat to pump into a pound frozen water. Once the ice is melted into liquid water, it takes only 1 BTU per pound to raise the temperature 1 degree. So if you’ve got a pound of ice at 32°F, you put 143 BTUs into it to melt it completely. Then it takes only 180 more BTUs to raise the temperature of that pound of water from 32°F to 212°F, the boiling point.

Anyway, getting back to our main discussion: if you have a ton of ice, it takes (143 BTU/lb) x (2000 lbs) = 286,000 BTUs to melt it completely. You could do that in one hour or 10 hours or a year, depending on how quickly you pump heat into it. Somewhere along the line, though, someone decided to use 1 day — 24 hours — as the standard time reference here. If the ice melts uniformly over the 24 hours, it absorbs heat at the rate of 286,000 / 24 hrs = 11,917 BTU/hr.

Rounding that number up makes it a nice, round 12,000 BTU/hr. In air conditioning jargon, then, a ton of AC capacity is equal to 12,000 BTU/hr. There it is.

We’ve been talking about “tons of cooling” for a century

If you’re wondering how this term got institutionalized, it was probably the usual way. People in the industry start using it, and then the professional organizations make it official.

An architecture website has a quote from 1912 that claims the American Society of Mechanical Engineers standardized it. It sounds likely, but their numbers don’t work out, so I’m gonna go with Honest Abe (see image below) on this one and remain skeptical (until someone in the comments shows me what’s wrong with my thinking anyway).

For the fearless: If you want to read some funny HVAC banter on this topic, check out this thread in the HVAC-Talk forum. And if you figure out what “heat of zaporization” is, let me know!

Allison Bailes of Decatur, Georgia, is a speaker, writer, energy consultant, RESNET-certified trainer, and the author of the Energy Vanguard Blog. You can follow him on Twitter at @EnergyVanguard.

Thinking about making a change to your building’s HVAC system? For more than 25 years, APPRO Development has been working as a general contractor with building owners in Minnesota, Wisconsin and North Dakota. Let us know how we can help you with your current building needs by contacting us here.

How’s Business? What You Measure Matters!

APPRO-CERRON-RulerHow’s business? What you measure matters! I recently read a great article by Edmond Lau via Quora, titled “Pick the right metric to incentivize the behavior you want.” In this article Lau reviews Jim Collins’ story in Good to Great, regarding the importance of measuring the right metric.

Lau elaborates on the story of Walgreens’ CEO, Cork Walgreen, in his decision to measure the profit per customer visit, rather than the profit per store (which was a standard metric for their competition at the time). For Walgreens, this increased their stock price from $1 per share to a whopping $562 over the course of 25 years. Because they changed their paradigm to something outside of the industry standard, they realized significant increases in their revenues. By taking that information and choosing to purchase properties on convenient corners, Walgreens thereby increased the convenience for each customer which in turn directly impacted the revenues generated. Walgreens chose not to be just “good” but “great” by thinking differently about their business model and the metrics utilized to measure their successes.

At APPRO and CERRON, we utilize a variety of different metrics in our business. Take for example, my role in marketing which measures the number of people who read a blog post such as this, or how many people visit our website, which begins the process of client contact in the form of calls, emails and appointments. This article had me considering Lau’s statement, “…but the choice of the actual metric to focus on significantly influences the actions we take. The right metric aligns team efforts toward a common goal, that if achieved, increases the success of the product or organization; the wrong metric leads to efforts that might be ineffective or, even worse, counterproductive.”

What we measure, and don’t measure, truly matters, as Lau points out:

“Similarly, when setting metrics for ourselves, we should ask ourselves: If you could pick one and only one metric to systematically increase over time, what metric would have the greatest and most sustainable impact on you and your team’s effectiveness?”

At APPRO and CERRON, we pride ourselves in providing property solutions for our customers since 1987. One metric we measure and which drives our business, is the number of satisfied clients we have served and our repeat customers who continue to work with us year after year. Feel free to give us a call if you are reviewing the metrics in your business plan and find that a change in space is a possible solution. We would be happy to help walk you through an analysis to see if a change might make sense for you and your business. Contact us today!

New Improvements Coming to Miracle League Field in Lakeville, Minnesota

Miracle Field Lakeville MNNew improvements coming to Miracle League Field in Lakeville, Minnesota. APPRO Development, Inc., has been thrilled to be involved in the construction of the Miracle Field in Lakeville, MN. It makes us even happier to see what a success the project and programs have been !

We are happy to say that the field will serve 10 teams and over 110 players this year !!

We are presently adding some ramp and access improvements to make it easier for players and spectators to get to the field. The new bleachers being installed will accommodate the cheering friends and families of the players!

Thanks to the subcontractors donating their time and dollars, the Lakeville Baseball Association, Brian Roseen and the Miracle Field Network for allowing us to help in a small way !

I only have to recall the first “exhibition game” played on one of the regular fields at King Park – to understand the relevance of this field . I was standing near the backstop watching one of the players bat and run the bases, and as he rounded third base – headed for home, it was impossible to miss the smile on his face and the joy he felt at that moment he scored his run. He ran up to the woman standing next to me and asked – “Mom – did I do good and will Dad be proud of me?” She said “oh yes Honey – you did great and Dad will be thrilled!”. The hair on my arms stood straight up. EVERY SINGLE CHILD deserves to feel the joy of moments like that. As a bonus – she told her Son they had to leave early, so they could go pick up Dad at the airport – turns out he was returning from his tour in Iraq !

It never ceases to amaze me that whenever you commit to a volunteer effort like this – the rewards of the involvement far exceed the energy put into it. The Lakeville Community embraced this project form day 1, and continues to support it. Over 500 volunteers help in facilitating this worthwhile program each year .

Please consider stopping by the Miracle Field at King Park, on Dodd Road – and cheer on the players, they are the most gracious and happy kids that ever played the game!

APPRO Development has been blessed to be one of the many groups/people helping Miracle Field and all they do to accomplish their mission of making the game of baseball accessible to all children. If you would also like to get involved, you may visit their website at Miracle League MN for more information.

Looking to Grow Your Small Business?

Trustworthy small business resources in MN by APPRO and CERRON Curious Puppy by Ashley Linn Trann

Looking to grow your small business? Or, looking for information to start a new business? APPRO and CERRON have the resources you need. In today’s age of electronics, instant gratification, and information on demand, whatever you can Google, can be found in a matter of seconds. But, how do you know if the answer is trustworthy? I love that insurance company commercial where two friends are talking on the sidewalk with the message, “if it is on the internet, it MUST be true” as her “French model” boyfriend (who she met online) walks up. So, how do we really know what to believe and who to trust?

As much as we have adopted many electronic resources at APPRO and CERRON, we continue to value our personal relationships with trusted resources and advisors. With that said, we would like to share some of these trusted resources with you to help you grow your business. Do your research online, and then plan a meeting in person to get the help you need.

Business Planning:

  • Open to Business
  • SCORE (this link goes to the National site and allows you to find a chapter closest to you)
  • SBA

Local Chambers of Commerce:

Financing:

  • SBA Small business loans and financing options
  • SPEDCO Local SBA lending resource

{{cta(‘edaec547-e418-4730-960a-c7c47c8cfbdf’)}}For additional Resources, please feel free to visit our company’s website Resource Page for additional links to help your business grow!

At APPRO and CERRON, we have been working hard for more than 25 years to earn the trust of each of our clients. We have been here and will continue to be here as a trusted resource for all of your property solution needs. If you are looking for more helpful information for your business, please feel free to sign up for our monthly E-Newsletter.