THE FINAL POST....

For most of my life the term ambivalent held a negative connotation for me. It wasn’t just having, or seeing, both the positive and negative sides of a situation or issue, it was seeing both sides of that coin, AND being totally and irretrievably mired in uncertainty as to what to do, how to respond--to the point where the conflicting feelings consumed me.
Yet my return home and the completion of the SunPower assignment, and my stay in Malaysia, has left me ambivalent without those (negative) emotional overtones. If that is growth, maturity, then I am indeed growing, maybe even growing up. I leave the SunPower project well short of complete, and hence feel a bit sad, a bit disheartened at the state of progress. Yet I get to come home. Home—what a lovely word. The connotation there is one of safety, security, and “normal” life returning.
The choice as to whether I stayed in Malaysia or came home wasn’t mine, which helps. Some of that pulling to opposite emotional poles, the old-style ambivalence, usually came from a choice I had to make, from options I couldn’t quite reconcile. In this case, which ever choice SunPower made, I couldn’t lose: stay and continue with the work, making good money and comfortable in my adopted home, or return to the warm embrace of my family, and to the life I love in Portland. I couldn’t lose.
The feelings of leavings things incomplete at SunPower are greatly relieved by the fact that the choice was theirs, not mine. And I leave with things in what can only be termed an awful state. The bids for the architectural portion of the factory itself (walls, floors, ceilings and the like) were 100% over budget. Now, there are steps that can be taken that might reduce that 25 or even 30 percent—but 100%? That’s too much—it can’t be done. At that point, it’s time to start deciding what things you are NOT going to build. If you’re 100% over budget, you just can’t build everything you want. We went thru a value engineering (cost reduction) exercise with the winning contractor, and got the cost down almost 20%, only to have some decisions we made cause that same cost to inflate once again, with the net result of no significant change.
What are the variables in the equation? The design, the amount of materials, the types of materials, and the cost of labor. Was the design in some way extravagant? No. Walls, and floors, and ceilings are just that. Yes, some of the demands of the local code made some of these systems more expensive than I might be used to, but on the flip-side, some of the requirements of the local codes actually saved money when compared to applying US code requirements to the building. All in all, the local approach is probably less costly. The design meets codes, and the materials specified were not “gold plated.” The materials are commercial grade, durable, and generally appropriate for the areas/functions for which they are being used. Nothing fancy, yet nothing unnecessarily cheap either. Appropriate.
The amount of materials can be controlled. Build less walls and ceilings, change how you will cover floors to less expensive options. But if SunPower scours the floor plans, and eliminates rooms, there comes a point where no more can be removed without affecting the functionality of the building. A good guess would be that 25 to 30 percent of the rooms might be eliminated, but that’s about all. And with that, a 25 to 30 percent savings.
So, in the end result, SunPower can either increase their budget or reduce what they build. When I suggested this second notion, SunPower was adamant that the funding they had was for the entire building, and they could not simply postpone construction of areas that would not be fully utilized for a couple of years, until such time as the factory grows into them. And it seems that the budget is the budget, that there is essentially no way to increase it, no more money in the well.

SUNPOWER AS I LEFT IT

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INSIDE...............................................THE "LANGKAN".................RODI/WWTP, BACK OF FACTORY

So I leave with this huge and painful issue unresolved. Tho the resolution is something over which I have no power. We tried, and came up short, and now SunPower must face some tough decisions.
Now that is difficult, and will be painful, but the same scenario played out with the “Non-Utilities Buildings” (NUB) Package—several ancillary building, the primary one being the Administration Building. This building represents the lion’s share of the work. Again, the bids were fully 100% over budget. Do I sense a trend here? Certainly SunPower needs to re-evaluate their budgeting process. And in this case, the design of the Admin Building did seem to be a bit extravagant. Yet it had been designed and reviewed over a considerable period—it was what they wanted. Now, SunPower has had a problem in the past of designing their “wish-list,” of designing what they want, not what they need, and I truly believe this to be the case with the Admin Building. So they responded by reducing the building size about 30%, and re-bidding this work to 2 contractors as essentially a “turnkey” package: here’s what we want, here’s what we want to spend, and you, Mr. Contractor, design and build it for us. Sadly, by the time I left, both bidders had intimated to me that there was no way they could deliver what SunPower wanted for the amount they desired to spend. Again, it comes back to SunPower having to decide what it is they do not want to build—something has to give.
So 2 packages 100% over budget. Not very positive.
And in the meantime, they have stated that they want the factory building proper “Room Ready” by Work Week 20 of 2010. Now Room Ready isn’t 100% complete. But it does mean that the building is ready to receive their production tools, and has the space and the necessary utilities in place to begin installing and qualifying those tools. When I left it was the end of Work Week 13, and there were absolutely no utilities in place. None. Piping, ductwork, and electrical cables all have yet to be installed. Further, these utilities come from someplace: piping from large utility pads outside the building, electrical wiring from substations with transformers and switchgear, ductwork connected to large air handling units and scrubbers that clean the exhaust gases from the tools. None of this was in place either. The utility pads are not even built yet, let alone the equipment installed on them. And, should it all be in place in the next 7 weeks, it all needs to be tested and commissioned—it all has to work, and work right. Admittedly, there are shortcuts and stop-gap measures that can be taken, and there is a plan in place for these, but still, Work Week 20 is never going to happen.
Sad, and disappointing. And I learned that budget, and schedule, are 2 things I had no real power over. In fact, the entire experience was very good in so far as me coming to terms with what I did have power over, and what I didn’t. I learned that if I couldn’t do (much) to influence schedule and budget, I could focus my attention on areas where I could at least help. Help the design team do their best, hold them to the highest possible standards under the time constraints of the project. Help the contractors understand their scopes of work, and push them to find ways to save money and time. And gently help SunPower see the things they could do to improve their own performance: make decisions, think thru consequences, improve business systems, and file away “lessons learned” for application on the next project.
Some of these lessons are repeated from previous projects, yet they haven’t applied them. SunPower has grown from an upstart to a real contender in the solar cell industry. And quickly. Such rapid growth leads to growing pains. They are very cost-conscious, because every dime spent reflects on the cost of their product. Their solar cells are the most efficient in the industry, and the most expensive. In order to be more competitive, they need to keep costs down. In order to do that, they need to revamp their approach to project delivery. The y need to make decisions regarding costs, to do value engineering, very early in the design process. They need to know if the decisions they make in programming and conceptual/schematic design are cost effective. And f not, they need help generating options and approaches that more closely meet their cost models. Dong this at the time of bidding, and getting ugly surprises (100% over budget) is too late. They need to look carefully at some of their business practices, and streamline them to increase the efficiency of doing, and paying for, the work. And probably most importantly, they should look very carefully at getting out of the project delivery business. They make solar cells, they need to stick with that, with their core competency. Yes, it costs money to hire people whose core competency is project delivery, but that cost will be easily offset by the savings they realize in construction costs. Finally, and what all these things really mean, is that they need to let go of old paradigms. Just because something worked in the past doesn’t mean it will work now. The world has changed, their location has changed, they have changed. Their way of doing business now is certainly not the same as it was 6 or 7 years ago. This same applies to constructing their factories.
Hopefully they will sense some of this, and hopefully decide to take positive corrective action before they build their next factory. If they ask, I can provide them with a slew of ideas on how they can improve the entire process to align with their corporate goals. But the first realization is that they have a problem, and need to take positive action early in order to correct things. We shall see….

KOH SAMUI, THAILAND

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NANGYUAN ISLAND

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....PERFECT!................................DINNER ON THE BEACH..................YES, I AM HAPPY!........


On a more positive note, Jessica and I got to go to Thailand for her Spring Break vacation. Wow! We went to Koh Samui, an island south of bangkok in the south china Sea. White sand beach, palm trees, and a whole lot of doing nothing. It was a great trip, very low key, and our first time without kids in 17 years. Nice! We’re madly in love, and I’m so damned grateful for that!

So I leave having learned a lot, some of learned thru painful reality. There are, however, other lessons that were far less painful, and some even joyous.
For instance, if you want to lose 40 pounds, take up the MMBD. That’s the Malaysian Mountain Bike Diet. I should write a book, but it would take a lot of fluff to flush out this simple paragraph:
Go to Malaysia. Buy a mountain bike. Ride nearly every day at lunch time in the 95 degree heat and humidity for an hour or so. Ride thru the palm olive plantations and the rubber tree plantations and forget all your troubles. Eat your main meal of the day right afterward. Eat a small dinner (PB&J was a personal favorite). Viola! Lose 40 pounds.

Another lesson is that when you are far away from all you love, and essentially alone, get a hobby. Build a fish pond—that’s what I did. Now, you don’t have to do it quite to the scale that I did: nothing more constructive than an obsessive/compulsive with a lot of time on his hands. But something that engages your mind, and your body, and that challenges you, can really help pass the time.
Also, if you really are lonely, a cat is better than a bunch of fish. Cats love, and demand love. Fish look nice, but they ain’t real lovey-dovey. I will miss Riley, even tho I know she’s gone to a good home. I was so great to get home every day, get scolded for leaving, and have her run over and jump on the bed, roll over, and wait to be petted. Soft furry loving critter—sweet!
I also learned that time alone is an incredible chance to cultivate ones self. Pick some aspect of life: physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual, and invest some of that time in you. Or, in this case, in me. Every day I got up about 5 a.m., had a cup of coffee, sat on the roof deck (what a gift!), and prayed a meditated. This was a part of my spiritual life that I’d done, albeit intermittently, in the past. But a year on my own allowed it blossom into a full-fledged habit. And in daily communion with a power greater than myself, both talking (prayer) and listening (meditation),, I feel I have developed much more of a real working relationship with god as I understand him, or often don’t understand him. I the very least this daily quiet time helped me stay calm in the face of adversity and keep my perspective on what was happening, not only each day, but in my life as a whole. And that is a real gift.
But perhaps the biggest gift has to do with the other relationships I developed over the last year, the human relationships.
Rob brought me out because in our previous experience together he liked my managerial style (hell, I didn’t even know I had one!). Hopefully he still does. I feel I could have done a lot more for him, had I been empowered to do so. Oh well… Beyond work, we became biking buddies—the 2 guys who most consistently made time for our little lunch time excursions. And thru that, and of course thru work, became friends. The fun of biking, and the multiple challenges of work, helped us to form a good relationship, even one that allowed us to disagree, to not see eye-to-eye, at times.
Wayne is a single man in single man’s paradise—SE Asia. Watching his exploits from the sidelines is excellent entertainment. And he works hard; really drives everyone around him to do their best, asks tough questions, encourages people to really think. It’s fun to be around that kind of guy, even when he ask exasperating questions that you don’t have the answer for—he challenges me. And he’s a hoot. I’ll never forget when He came over and saw the cat for the first time. He proclaimed “Oh my god, you’ve got a cat infestation!” and proceeded to make as if he’d throw poor little Riley off the balcony. Hilarious! The kind of mind that puts the words “cat” and “infestation” together—delightful!
There was Kai—my “bitching” buddy from Hexagon. We bent each other’s ears and let out our frustrations—good to have somebody like that. And we laughed at the absurdities. And she bought several dinner—nice!
Speaking of Hexagon, there is Melvin. Calm, prepared, capable—in all things the term honorable comes to mind. Even tho he knew this project was just crazy, he stayed cool and professional. And I loved his feelings about MEI—“a 30 day vacation” due to their inability to accurately convey the scope—that was rich!
Another contractor was HF—who came to understand the “SunPower Way,” and adapted to it. What he discovered was just how much help they really needed, and rose to the occasion. Instead of being crushed by the disorganization and the chaos, he worked to find ways to help, and that is always appreciated.
Anand was the architect for the project, and how he kept up the energy is nothing short of miraculous. Hideously short-staffed and dangerously over-worked, he patiently, tirelessly, did his best to keep things going, and maintain some sort of professionalism when all the cards were stacked against him. At times I found myself essentially berating him, and at others coaching him. He demonstrated a willingness to learn, and to grow, even when the lessons were quite painful. He saw us as on the same team, working for the same goal, even when the situation of the moment got emotional. And he did try to change.
One change he initiated was bringing in the remarkable CL Goh, who came from Penang to help with the architectural work. She understood what architects do, and what needed to be done, on this project. We make instructions, and she helped clarify, coordinate, and organize the instructions for the Fit Out Package for Anand, and SunPower. Her efforts brought the package to a point where we could finally bid it—not bad, given the time constraints. And that laugh! While working so seriously and caring so deeply, she could still find a deep belly laugh in the face of what was happening: lots of work to do and very little time to do it in.
Another woman I cannot forget is Anis, who sat next to me in the early going. A local, we talked over the cubicle wall, and she helped me learn my way around town, and around Malaysian culture. And thru those conversations a nice friendship developed, one where we could count on finding a caring listener when we needed, whether the subject was work related or personal.
There were other personal friendships that developed. Pancha, my good Indian friend in KL, who kept me centered, and reminded me about what was really important. And Nancy from Canada, who taught in an international school in KL. It was great to have a woman in my life who had the same accent as I did! And who saw the world thru the same eyes, and lived by the same principles, as Pancha and I.
As I made friends in KL to the north, so it was in Singapore to the south. There I met Steve, and he and I spent a most remarkable Saturday together. I was a long and a bit of a grueling day, but we both learned quite a bit. There was a whole group of guys in Singapore I felt really close to: Jonathan, the “other” Steve’s, and several others. Again, people trying to live a principled life—wonderful!
Speaking of wonderful, there is one group of guys I cannot leave out: the drivers. Even on our last trip down to Singapore, Afizul commented on how I treated the drivers like friends, and not just “the hired help.” I responded that it couldn’t be any other way, there here were people who knew the local area: where to find things, how to get there, and how things worked a society that was, for me initially, totally alien. And besides, tho they may get treated as merely the help by many people, I just can’t do that. They are people too—and good people at that.
First among the drivers is Fahrul, the “head driver.” He was the one who picked me up in Singapore when I first arrived--the first Malay guy I met. Although he was Rob’s driver, he organized the other guys, answered calls for directions when they didn’t know exactly where this or that was, and served as my unofficial tour guide. His love of travel and knowledge of Malaysia were indispensable. And here was this jovial Muslim fellow who played guitar and just loved heavy metal music—an absolute Mettalica head. Now that I didn’t expect!
Fahrul led a cast of really great guys:

• Zarif—gruff and kind, who knew his way around KL, and smoked Suraya menthols
• Sa’ad—the funny guy who called me “father,” and will carry a torch for my daughter Claire until the day he dies (she’s too young!)
• Awis—the “smooth driver,” deeply spiritual and always projecting an aura of calm
• Mohammed—the jovial one
• Fairus—my movie and cigar buddy
• Ferdaus—young, goofy, and a joy to be with

And finally Afizul—my driver.

And not just my driver, but my friend, my companion, and my confidante. When 2 people are thrust together in a business relationship, it can stay merely that—business. Or it can grow into something more, as was the case with us. He was really hard to leave, and I did my best to make sure he understood that. On our last driver to Singapore, he said he felt bad that his English wasn’t better, and I replied that, on the drive down, we had talked about compassion, abortion, and faith—pretty heavy topics for someone without strong English. I told him that even if his spoken English wasn’t as good as he would like, his comprehension had gotten much better—his “hearing” of the language had improved dramatically. He gave me a stainless steel coffee thermos as a going away gift—given my love of coffee, it was most appropriate. Over the year he had a new daughter, taught me about Malay and Muslim culture, and took me to every tropical fish store in Melaka. He carried his share of rocks and plants up to the roof deck, got my morning roti and my lunch while I was out biking, took my shirts to the cleaners, and learned to buy the big jar of peanut butter. Afizul was kind and patient—a loving father and a good man. I miss him, he was my best friend in Malaysia.

One last friend I need to mention wasn’t Malaysian at all. Tom came from Portland to stay with me on the first leg of his spiritual sojourn thru SE Asia. He, thru his mere presence and thru conversation, reconnected me to Portland, and to those things that I find most important in life. And Malaysia was a good place for him to have a “soft landing” in that part of the world. He wasn’t immediately thrust into the chaos of someplace like Bangkok, with crazed drivers and little English and stay up all nite mentality. Instead, he got a nice cushy condo, people who spoke English, my driver during the day, and introductions to friends. He spent Chinese New Year with Ms. Goh in Penang (they had the same birthday—unreal!), and then they went to a meditation retreat in Thailand, and stayed with a friend of hers in Phuket. Not bad for a guy who landed knowing only me, and little or nothing about the area. And we went to Angkor Wat—amazing place!
The trip to Angkor was indeed wonderful. The place is just huge, and the artwork, the detail, and the overriding sense of holiness to the place really blew my mind.

And it is representative of another fond memory of Malaysia—all the places I got to see.
Like Angkor, Borobudur and Parambanan in Indonesia were just remarkable. All those temples were built about 800 to 1000 A.D., and it’s hard to believe the effort, the time, and the sheer number of people it must have taken to construct them. For an architect, these were not mere visits, but pilgrimages.
All of the architecture of the region was a real joy. Melaka itself, with it’s Chinese influence, little row houses, and amazing temples was right at my doorstep. Penang was similar, and larger, and added a greater influence from the English colonial times. KL was spectacular: the Petronas Towers are so beautiful and elegant, the KL tower hovering in the air above the city, and the Telecom Malaysia Tower like the hanging gardens of Babylon writ large. Singapore is without peer. It’s an architect’s playground. Everywhere I turned, on every trip, I saw something new, something wonderful. Highlights include:

• The Ion Plaza with it’s organic curves and exotic lighting ( a real retail Mecca)
• The LaSalle School of Fine Arts, with it’s black exterior walls like a shell, and it’s whimsical interior, all black and white angles and glass
• The Art Deco Parkview Building, like something out of a Batman movie
• The Esplanade Theatre, like a giant durian, simultaneously transparent and opaque, depending on your angle of view

And that’s merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg. I’ve got to admit, I love Singapore.

And I came to love Malaysia as well, and I got to see a lot of it. Langkawi, Penang, KL, even Melaka—they all had sights and charms. Of special note were Taman Negara—the jungle--and Tioman, the tropical island paradise.
Those last two were especially memorable, as I got to experience them with my family. The six weeks they spent with me were wonderful. I hope the kids will remember it fondly for their lifetimes.
And the final fond memory came just a couple of weeks ago, when Jessica came out for Spring Break, and we went to Koh Samui in Thailand. It was our first week along since before Claire was born—17 years! And it was great, because we did absolutely nothing. Oh, we went snorkeling, and shopping, and out to eat, but for the most part we lay on the beach or in each other’s arms, and it was just grand.
That made for a great way to wrap up my Malaysian adventure—kind of our reward for the year apart. And I return home with fond memories, and the feeling that I now have a second home in Melaka.

Thank you Malaysia—everyone and everything.

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The family and friends.....................Afizul................................The drivers

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Mountain biking trail.....................Malaysia from the air