The Big Fan

Last week, the big fan that drives the air flow through the building was delivered (see attached picture). If you remember when we were doing the work on the foundation about two years ago, there were large (about 6’) underground tubes. This fan is placed at the mouth of the tubes to drive the air.

The big fan isn’t needed so much to drive hot air. We have a lot of radiant heat built into the floors of Huntsman Hall. The radiant heat is connected to the steam plant that services the entire Logan campus. But the big fan is needed to drive the air conditioning when needed.

Not much else to say – except it’s a big fan!

Ken Snyder

USU's BAP Chapter Wins Regional Deloitte Best Practices Competition

By Bonnie Villarreal

The team that will compete in Milwaukee in International Impact: Jacob Fryer, Derek Droesbeke, and Josh Richards

Utah State University's Delta Omega chapter of Beta Alpha Psi is famous for being the longest concurrently running "Superior" chapter in the entire organization. They are also famous for being ambitious and competitive; this year they have kept that tradition alive by taking both a first place and third place award in the Deloitte sponsored Best Practices Regional competition in Denver, Colorado April 9 and 10.

The winning presentation was in the category International Impact and featured the award winning VITA Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program that benefits approximately 700 students by preparing and e-filing their tax returns. For this competition, the BAP chapter decided to focus on supporting the inbound side of Global experience by supporting and assisting the hundreds of international students who attend USU and are required to comply with United States tax laws that are foreign and complex to them. The judges particularly liked that the chapter was innovative in their approach to develop new procedures that would keep students from waiting hours in the hallways for their turn to get a tax return prepared, reviewed and ready to file. The presentation team included Jacob Fryer, Josh Richards and Derek Droesbeke.

 

The Financial Literacy 3^rd place team:  Stephen Brown, Alyssa Kohler, and Eric Graves

The third place finish was in the category of Financial Literacy and was presented by Alyssa Kohler, Stephen Brown and Eric Graves. Trevor Frank and Jeff Fielding also presented in the Effective Operations division and while they did not place, they shared ideas about how the Delta Omega chapter has refined their success to be more inclusive and leadership oriented rather than an elite organization with benefits only for a few students at the top of their class.

The Rocky Mountain Region has chapters from 17 different schools in Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, Montana and New Mexico and includes some powerhouse accounting programs like University of Denver, University of Utah and BYU. Teams that place first in the region are invited to compete at the annual meeting in August which this year will be held in Milwaukee Wisconsin.

The entire team from left to right: Stephen Brown, Jon Medrano, Alyssa Kohler, Jeff Fielding, Eric Graves, Trevor Frank, Josh Richards, Derek Droesbeke, Bonnie Villarreal (advisor), and Jacob Fryer

Tour Guide?

Ken Snyder

The progress of the building has spurred a lot of interest in seeing the building. With the end of the school and the various celebrations related to the end of the year, we have a lot of people coming to campus. As these supporters come to visit the school, many of them ask to see the building. So I’ve been doing a lot of tours lately. This week alone, I plan to do six different tours.

Many of these visitors are long-time supporters of the school. They are the people who have helped us pay for the building. They also help us and our students in many more ways besides money. We are very, very, grateful to these people. It’s a great honor to host these distinguished guests.

Still… I’m training some other people so they can do some of the tours.

Stairway to Heaven (part 2)

Ken Snyder

Last August, I wrote a blog about our grand staircase. This is the staircase that is just inside the main entrance at the SW corner of the building. It is on the curve of the boomerang that Huntsman Hall forms as it sweeps around the current Eccles Business Building.

These stairways will be glass-enclosed. That means that people on the outside will be able to see the people on the stairs, and that the people on the stairs will see the people outside – and also have nice view of the Wellsville Mountains and the south end of the valley. An absolutely great view!

The news is that yesterday (finally!), we started installing the grand staircase. The first step is to install some columns to which the staircase will attach. I took some pictures of the workers installing the base of the columns, and also of the vertical view of the columns (see attached).

The pieces of the grand staircase will be installed in segments. The first segment being installed this week will be Level 1 (the basement) to Level 2 (the ground floor). In about two weeks, we will start installing the 2^nd segment which will connect Level 2 to Level 3. The 3^rd segment will follow about 2 weeks after that. Please watch for this installation over the next 6-7 weeks. I think you’ll be amazed by our stairway to heaven.