Project Manager of the Year: Ken Schacherbauer
by Angela Gabriel

As he stood in the Glendale Arena, a multipurpose facility he helped build, Ken Schacherbauer wanted to make one thing clear: He didn't do it alone.

"Any success my projects have had isn't because of me, but the team of people I work with," he said.

Schacherbauer, a project executive at Perini Building Co. in Phoenix, has managed projects totaling more than $1 billion. His sports facilities include the Glendale Arena, Bank One Ballpark and America West Arena. His Nevada resorts include the Riverside Resort Hotel & Casino, Ramada Express Hotel & Casino and the Flamingo Hilton Hotel Casino.

His efforts have been recognized with several awards, most recently the >> Southwest Contractor "Project Manager of the Year."

advertisement

Schacherbauer, 50, is humble about such honors, which doesn't surprise Perini President Craig Shaw, who's known Schacherbauer for 25 years.

"Sharing the credit and accolades is something he's always been willing to do," Shaw said.

And he added that getting people to work together as a team, is one of Schacherbauer's greatest strengths.

"Everyone who works with him will tell you not only do they appreciate the way he treated them professionally and on the job, but also how he deals with them on a personal level," Shaw said.

Such personal and professional skills are crucial to Schacherbauer's job. As project executive, he supports the project manager and project superintendent on issues related to staffing, budget, logistics, schedule, subcontract management, systems testing and owner/client relations.

He handles his responsibilities well, said John Lind, vice president of finance, administration and retail for the Ramada Express Hotel & Casino in Laughlin, Nev. Perini built the Ramada's second phase and remodeled the front entrance and meeting room three years ago.

"Ken will find a way to get the job done and get it done well," Lind said. "You know that when you have Ken and Perini on the job, you're not going to be agonizing about it."

Schacherbauer said he learned many of his skills by working his way up the ranks. He started out as an apprentice carpenter, setting concrete forms for the basement of the Phoenix Adams Hotel. He then advanced to foreman, superintendent, project manager and project executive.

"It's the hard way to do it, but I have a whole different understanding of the logistics a craftsman goes through and the logistics you need on a project," he said.

Schacherbauer was born in Chicago but moved to Arizona at age 6. He , has spent the bulk of his career, 26 years, with Perini, and during that time, he's faced many challenges, the most significant being building the Bank One Ballpark roof.

Each side of the 1.26 million-sq.-ft. baseball stadium's roof moves independently of the other. A moving roof of that size had not been built before, Schacherbauer said.

When the time came to test it, even though everyone had signed off on it, there was some uncertainty about the end result, he added.

"The best response we could get from any design engineer was that it should work," he said.

It did work, and the project is one of Schacherbauer's favorites.

"It was the toughest job I'd done, with the moving roof, multiple general contractors and a tough schedule and completion date that the whole world was watching," he added.

Schacherbauer's other sports projects include the recently completed Glendale Arena, the $160- million, 600,000-sq.-ft. home of the Phoenix Coyotes hockey team.

Molly Hood, the city of Glendale's project director of the arena, said everyone loves the building. "We couldn't be more excited about it," she added. "It's phenomenal."

While Schacherbauer enjoys working on sports facilities, he also likes resort and casino projects. His said his favorite is the Flamingo Hilton Hotel Casino in Laughlin, Nev. Perini built the $108- million hotel - with its two 18-story post-tensioned concrete towers with 2,000 guest rooms, a casino and five restaurants, from March 1989 to September 1990.

It was Schacherbauer's first big job, and he said that although he was nervous and a bit overwhelmed, he loved the fast pace and excitement.

He admitted, however, that the construction industry's hectic pace has sometimes been difficult for his wife, Jean, and 19-year-old daughter, April. Work days often start at 7 a.m. and end at 7 p.m. or later, and travel is often necessary.

"You have to go where the project is," he said. "That means you come home late Friday night and leave early Monday morning."

Luckily, many of Schacherbauer's jobs have been in town or not far from it. And he's been able to balance his job and home life by setting aside Sundays as a family day.
"You have to spend as much time as you can with your family," he said.

>Top Projects Intro
>Top Projects List