On a good day, it takes George Eiler about
30 minutes to drive his truck from Carrier's Oakland office across
the Bay Bridge to San Francisco.On a good day, it takes George Eiler about
30 minutes to drive his truck from Carrier's Oakland office across
the Bay Bridge to San Francisco.
About half way into the journey, as he crosses the Bay Bridge, the eye-popping San Francisco skyline looms into view. And dominating that skyline from the east is the Transamerica Building, or "the Pyramid" as it's locally known. It looks like no other building you've ever seen, a graceful rocket poised for take-off.
As Eiler reaches Montgomery Street, tourists are standing on the sidewalk outside the "Pyramid" gawking and training cameras on the tower.
Eiler pulls his truck into the underground parking of the building and parks in a utility space. He's been making this pilgrimage for 23 years now. So he knows the way. Eiler is Carrier's senior service technician, and 23 years ago he started up the air conditioning system for the then new Transamerica Building.
"We installed the original Carrier chillers in here and ever since we have done the preventive maintenance and trouble shooting for them," says Eiler. "We do an annual inspection and then four operating inspections each year. Plus, we're on call."
Eiler says Carrier has kept its Transamerica Building customer happy for 23 years by simply providing good service.
He takes a special pride in taking care of this building's air conditioning. "This is the most recognized building in town. A landmark. Everybody knows it. When I see it on TV I tell myself that's OUR building."
When the Pyramid was constructed 23 years ago at a cost of $34 million, some tradition-minded citizens were affronted by the futuristic edifice. Now it has become a local symbol, appearing in postcards, posters, calendars, publications and videos of the city.
Transamerica, which is headquartered here, uses the building as its corporate symbol. The company has featured its headquarters building in many ad campaigns, including a television commercial with King Kong scaling the building, and a famous "pop-up " ad in Time Magazine.
Whenever there's a high rise office building incident somewhere in the world, Eiler says, local news people rush over to the Pyramid to interview the building engineer.
At 853 feet, the 48 floor Pyramid is the tallest building in San Franciso. Its 530,000 square feet house 1500 workers, working for more than 40 companies. And in addition to being corporate headquarters for Transamerica, it houses investment banking, law, insurance and accounting firms. The building has 18 elevators, 3,678 windows, and 280 underground parking spaces. The building's base is composed of 16,000 cubic yards of concrete, encasing more than 300 miles of steel reinforcing rods.
Eiler says the building gets progressively narrower from bottom to top. For instance, the fifth floor measures 145 feet per side, the 48th floor measures 45 feet per side. Above the 48th floor soars a 212 foot "spire." The architect reportedly hit upon the pyramid shape to allow more light to reach the surrounding sidewalks than a conventional rectangular high-rise would.
"This is a prestige account for us to have, one that we always point to as one of our clients," says Eiler. "Because it's such a well known building there's also pressure on us to do a good job."
Eiler is the common thread in Carrier's long history with the Transamerica Pyramid. At 62, Eiler is a 39-year Carrier veteran. The son of a pipe fitter, he got his start with the company back in 1956 in his native Chicago as an apprentice. He chose air conditioning as a specialty because he felt it was the "wave of the future." Because Eiler served in the Navy in the Bay Area and married a northern California woman, he wanted to return to the San Francisco Bay area. He was transferred out here in 1960, when Carrier had a two person serve office. He's been a fixture ever since.
Today, as field service coordinator, he heads a tech service team of nine Carrier employees who service the entire Bay Area. He's known as the "old pro," a guru in the field, and something of a character. A non-stop talker, likes to kid people, including clients. When clients call him out with a problem, he greets them with mock disgust and with a reassuring "Eiler's on the job!" He's trained everyone on his staff and refers to himself as their "mentor and tormentor." One of those he trained, Ron Sherbourne, has also worked on the Pyramid air conditioning many years.
Eiler says there's no secret on how his Carrier people have kept Transamerica happy for 23 years. "We have a good track record. There have been very few problems with their air conditioning over the years. Our service techs do quality work, the Carrier equipment is good, and we have good support from Carrier."
Being an air conditioning service tech for buildings, he says, is like being a defensive back in foot ball. Boring is good. The best air conditioning is the kind the client never has to think about because there are few problems. "Nothing dramatic has happened with the air conditioning at the Transamerica Building in 23 years. And that's a measure of our success."
Even California's infamous earthquakes have never caused a problem for the air conditioning service in the Transamerica Building. And there has never been a time when the air conditioning went down.
Eiler says he and his people have worked hard to fill the customer's needs. "The key is to listen to the client. Explain things clearly, be helpful and patient. Recommend, don't dictate. Accept responsibility for problems. Basically you must develop a personal relationship with the client."
He adds: "You have to be accessible. We're available 24 hours a day to Transamerica. We are more accessible than your doctor. We make house calls. We've been called out to the building at all hours. That's our job."
Eiler and his techs troubleshoot electrical and control problems. They do periodic inspections. They look for and repair water and air leaks. They re calibrate and replace thermostats, take readings and samples, and inspect controls. They change gaskets and vales, tighten wiring, and look for buildup of non-condensables.
The worst thing you can do is to be inaccessible, have an arrogant attitude, and do poor quality work. That's how you lose an account. If we were at Transamerica all the time with one problem after another, we wouldn't have lasted 23 years."
In the underground portion of the Pyramid, Eiler calls on the building's chief engineer Mike Dineen. Dineen has a staff building engineers who care for the building In all it takes 50 engineers, custodians, and security people to run the building.
Dineen, a friendly bearded man young enough to be Eiler's son, has been chief engineer here five years. Before that he had considerable engineering experience in other Bay Area buildings.
"I thought I'd drop by to make sure you guys haven't messed anything up," Eiler teases.
Dineen smiles, and gives Eiler an update on the new Carrier chillers that were installed only weeks ago. Everything is going well, he says.
Eiler and Dineen walk over to the air conditioning room to inspect the new chillers Eiler groans when he sees that some sound blankets have been strapped over the chillers to muffle noise. This makes it harder for service techs to work on the equipment.
Dineen says the sound blankets were installed because of a new restaurant that opened on the floor right above. But he says the restaurant could not hear the new chillers before the blankets were installed, so he's thinking of removing them.
Eiler nodes his approval. On his way out, George pats the younger man on the shoulder. "Remember now, don't you guys screw up."
Dineen shakes his head and laughs.
After Eiler leaves, Dineen settles into the chair behind his desk. He says he needs reliable air conditioning and service because the equipment runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week in the Pyramid. "We have demanding tenants, including a big investment banking firm that has sensitive data. If we had an air conditioning failure and the temperature rose dramatically in the building, there would be serious consequences."
Dineen says the Carrier service people are technically sound and accessible. "And I find them very personable to work with."
Dineen says that Transamerica had two Carrier absorption units in here for more than 20 years. Because they were getting old and the steam to power them was becoming more expensive, Transamerica decided to replace those units with the three new centrifugal chillers.
Back at Carrier's Oakland office, sales engineer Bob Levi says Carrier put in a lot of effort to make the sale on the three new chillers for the Transamerica building. "We badly wanted to keep the account. And we put in a lot of work on our bid. It was an advantage that they had been happy with our equipment and service for 23 years."
Levi says the new chillers are chlorine-free and thus environmentally friendly. He says that once this startup phase is done, the challenge will be to keep these complex chillers leak free and running well.
Based on the 23-year Transamerica track record chalked up by George Eiler and his tech service team, Carrier is up to the task.