The Los Angeles Convention Center (LACC), managed by AEG Facilities, revealed its new 9,500 square foot rooftop garden in January. The project began taking shape in April of 2017 and features various citrus trees, herbs, vegetables, and seasonal flowers above the South Hall lobby.

“Sustainability and innovation are core values at AEG Facilities, and at the Los Angeles Convention Center we take this to heart,” says Brad Gessner, CVE, Senior Vice President and General Manager at the LACC. “The idea for the rooftop garden has been developing over the past few years and we are thrilled with this addition to our facility.”

The garden will not only contribute to the green efforts of Downtown Los Angeles, but will also provide produce for LACC’s in-house caterer Levy Restaurants. Currently 90 percent of produce at the LACC is locally sourced; Levy plans to build on this by utilizing oregano, chili peppers, citrus, lettuce, and carrots grown in the garden and use them regularly in their recipes to showcase the originality of the convention center.

The rooftop garden is an addition to more than 30 environmentally friendly practices and procedures implemented at the LACC under the management of AEG Facilities. These various implementations have resulted in conservation of energy and water, consistent increase in waste diversions rates, responsible purchasing of in-house goods, and the demonstration of leadership to local real estate and broad convention center communities.

By Christianne Beringer

For 50 years, Daktronics has been innovating and engineering new solutions for its customers. The company is a pioneer in the electronic scoreboard, programmable display system, and large-screen video display market and it continues to provide the highest quality products and custom-designed, integrated systems for customers around the world.

Daktronics, a contraction of Dakota and electronics, was founded in 1968 by two university professors, Dr. Al Kurtenbach and Dr. Duane Sander. Kurtenbach was determined to retain South Dakota’s best and brightest college graduates through the development and growth of high tech industry in the state. Fast forward to today, he achieved this goal as 30 percent of Daktronics employees (more than 2,500) began their careers as students. In the five decades of business, more than 8,000 students have worked for the company.

In the beginning, the company initially planned to design and manufacture equipment for hospital and medical uses. One of the first stock holders suggested the company consider electronic voting systems. They set about manufacturing a prototype to present to the State of South Dakota, and later the State of Colorado. However, neither were seriously looking to purchase such a system.

Kurtenbach had a subscription to the Wall Street Journal and would browse through the week’s papers on Friday nights. One

Friday night, he happened to see an advertisement from the State of Utah, looking for a company to make and install an electronic voting system in its House of Representatives.

“I got ahold of them, went out and met with them and submitted a bid,” said Kurtenbach. “When I met with them, I learned that they had actually gone out for bids two years prior, but had rejected all bids.

“So I said, ‘Was that a public bid opening?’ and they said it was, and I said, ‘I’d sure like to have a copy of those bids.’” Kurtenbach laughed as he added, “That helped a lot with our bidding.”

Daktronics successfully secured the project, and would continue to find success in that market. Around that same time, the wrestling coach from SDSU reached out to Kurtenbach after returning from a national tournament.

“Warren Williamson was a family friend, he became a family friend through by brother Frank. Frank wrestled for him,” said Kurtenbach. Williamson asked to meet for coffee because he wanted to talk about the scoreboards at the national tournament. The two met, and Williamson described how the scoreboards used were inappropriate; they didn’t show the correct information and they blocked the view of the fans.

Daktronics designed the patented Matside® wrestling scoreboard with a truncated pyramid-style structure, and added advantage time so referees would no longer have to keep that time on a stopwatch. “Warren helped us get exposure at the national tournaments in ’71,” said Kurtenbach.

From the beginning, Daktronics reinvented the way messages are shared with audiences in every situation, market, and location. They gathered talented individuals who shared their passion for developing useful, cutting-edge technology to make life easier for those who needed it. After 50 years, the same is still true as Daktronics employees carry that passion into their daily work to provide customers world-wide with the best display solutions available on the market.

During the 50th year, the people of Daktronics will be sharing their stories to give a glimpse of the Daktronics life with this world-wide company.

Christianne Beringer is in Employee Communications with Daktronics.

The Hawaii Convention Center enjoyed some very good news in 2017, posting a profit of $1.1 million, which was a $2.8 million improvement against the budget and nearly double the net income of $605,200 achieved in 2016.

AEG Facilities is in its fourth year of managing the venue and has welcomed record financial results during that time.

The Hawaii Convention Center held 182 events in 2017, including 10 more offshore events in 2017 than the year prior, helping gross revenue to jump 9.5 percent to $17.6 million in 2017.

General Manager Teri Orton noted that the increases were in all offshore markets including association, corporate, international, and sports.

The center’s occupancy rose five percentage points to 33 percent in 2017, a two-percentage point increase over the budget.

Sporting events continue to represent an opportunity for the center since its initial investment of $1.1 million in 2016 to convert 204,000 square feet of exhibition space into basketball, volleyball, and futsal courts.

The venue most recently secured agreements with three national sports organizations to host tournaments on the new courts, all of which begin this year. The portable sports courts can be configured to simultaneously stage up to 28 regulation volleyball or badminton matches, 18 high school basketball games or 11 futsal matches. The center also has a regulation NBA- and NCAA-approved basketball court with a solid wood floor.

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Hawaii hotelier Kelly Sanders announces departure from Marriott Hotels

Kelly Sanders announced Tuesday that he is leaving his post as area general manager of Marriott Hotels and Resorts Waikiki.

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Mentors and mentees connect at PBN’s Fourth Annual Mentoring Monday: S

Mentors on the left and mentees on the right take full advantage of the seven minutes given for each meeting at the Bizwomen Pacific Business News Mentoring Monday held at the Pomaikaii Ballroom.

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The 1.1-million-square-foot center is funded by the Hawaii Tourism Authority, and has been managed by AEG Facilities since 2014.

The NFL, in partnership with PepsiCo, Aramark, U.S. Bank Stadium, SMG and the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority, scored a zero-waste legacy project at Super Bowl LII, with 91 percent[ii] of all trash generated on gameday from 67,612 fans responsibly recovered through composting, recycling and reuse. The landmark project marks the highest diversion rate achieved at U.S. Bank Stadium and at any previous Super Bowl, and aims to serve as the benchmark for future large-scale events.

The results are in following the big game: nearly 63 tons of the 69 tons of game-day waste were recovered through recycling or donation for reuse (62 percent) and composting (29 percent). Recovering waste through composting and recycling reduces waste disposal costs and provides several environmental benefits including reduction of landfill use and reduction of the greenhouse gas generated by the landfill process, gasses which contribute significantly to global warming.

“The zero-waste legacy project is a testament to teamwork, with multiple partners coming together to achieve an ambitious environmental goal,” said Director of the NFL’s Environmental Program Jack Groh. “The NFL is proud that this program was not only successful at Super Bowl LII, but will also serve as a permanent installation at the stadium and leave a lasting impact on the community.”

U.S. Bank Stadium partners, including the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority, stadium operator SMG, and Aramark, kicked off the effort to achieve a zero-waste operation in 2017, and were joined by the NFL and PepsiCo in the lead-up to Super Bowl LII.

“SMG is always striving to raise industry standards through our operation at U.S. Bank Stadium and our commitment to sustainability is no different. In our first season, we produced a waste diversion rate of 20 percent. Over the course of our second season our team increased that diversion rate to 91 percent,” said Patrick Talty, SMG General Manager at U.S. Bank Stadium. “Developing a successful and long-term zero-waste program has always been our goal. The diversion improvement we have seen to date is rare in the world of facility management and is a testament to the dedication of all of our stadium partners.”

“U.S. Bank Stadium’s journey to the zero-waste threshold has been demanding, and we couldn’t have gotten here without the commitment of our stadium partners,” said Michael Vekich, chair of the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority, owner of U.S. Bank Stadium. “We look forward to sharing our experiences with other facilities who are interested in this important sustainability program.”

Ahead of game-day, PepsiCo launched the Rush2Recycle campaign to show fans how to make recycling fun and easy in the stadium and at in-home Super Bowl parties across the country. Fans attending the Super Bowl were greeted by a team of uniformed zero-waste ambassadors who helped identify the correct bins for recycling, composting and waste-to-energy. Super Bowl XL MVP and Pittsburgh Steelers Legend Hines Ward helped lucky fans recycle with his own end zone dance, the Rush2Recyle Shuffle, available at www.Rush2Recycle.com, along with tips and resources.

“To tackle waste and boost recycling rates, each of us needs to do our part,” said Roberta Barbieri, PepsiCo’s vice president global environmental sustainability. “While we’re working to make PepsiCo’s packaging increasingly sustainable and investing in recycling programs in communities around the world, we also want to find new ways to make it fun and simple for consumers to participate—like Rush2Recycle.”

Critical to hitting the initiative’s goals was removing items from stadium inventory that could not be either recycled or composted. Aramark, the food and beverage partner for U.S. Bank Stadium, replaced nearly its entire inventory of food vessels, service products and utensils handed to fans with compostable alternatives.

“The successful implementation and results of this historic waste reduction project reflect the partners’ collective commitment to delivering innovative sustainable solutions that will endure beyond Super Bowl LII,” said Carl Mittleman, President of Aramark’s Sports and Entertainment division. “Aramark is incredibly proud to have contributed to this milestone and we look forward to utilizing our insights from this effort to further reduce the environmental impact of our operations at U.S. Bank Stadium and across all the venues we serve.”

Other pre-game steps were essential to achieving the zero-waste goal. U.S. Bank Stadium, home of the Minnesota Vikings, working with Recycle Across America, designed all illustrated signs for the stadium’s new three-bin waste stations to show fans exactly how to sort items. Recycling and compost bins were made larger and more accessible, while trash bins were made much smaller, encouraging fans to make the right choices for disposing items. In addition, a comprehensive LEED-certification level waste audit was performed in October 2017 to identify specific materials for recovery in the stadium waste stream. A “zero-waste trial run” was performed at a December 2017 Minnesota Vikings home game to encourage fans to properly dispose of waste and to refine game-day practices for Super Bowl LII.

Post-game steps to achieve the 91% resource recovery rate at Super Bowl LII were led by SMG and the NFL. The SMG team sorted all fan-generated waste into the correct waste compactors. The waste hauling partners then collected and provided weight-tickets at each destination including the recycling facility, the composting facility and the waste-to-energy facility. This data was reviewed by SMG and combined with the reuse and donation data collected by the NFL from their community partners. When the recycling, composting and donation/reuse data is combined, the total resource recovery rate for gam-eday waste is 91%.

 

IAVM’s Severe Weather Preparedness program, an advanced, 1-day training program where participants learn information about all aspects of severe and threatening weather, kicks off today in Minneapolis. Attendees will be immersed in proven practices on identification, messaging, media communication, and how the law imposes a duty of care and how it affects venues.

Joseph Sampson and Ty Sheaks, partners with McCathern Law, PLLC, will be engaging attendees in a discussion on “Legal Considerations for Venue Management in Severe Weather Situations.” Sampson, chosen for the 2017 Texas Super Lawyers Rising Stars list, handles cases in all areas of business and civil litigation and consults companies regarding risk management and insurance, employment issues, and general business and contract matters. Sheaks is the go to “fixer” for McCathern’s most difficult and high-exposure litigation matters. “We will address a variety of legal considerations for a variety of different severe weather conditions with a focus on understating the general duty owed to patrons (whether invited or uninvited) to protect and/or warn of severe weather,” stated Sampson and Sheaks. “We will also provide real-world examples of severe weather events to walk through some of those legal considerations.”

Sampson and Sheaks plan to provide attendees with real-world examples of various severe weather situations and the legal considerations facing such weather events. When asked what they felt the key takeaway from their discussion would be, they replied, “Hopefully the attendees will gain an understanding of the general duty owed and an interest in taking steps to fully understand the limits of that duty in the specific jurisdiction of their venues and an interest in seeking further information from trusted legal advisers and others, including insurance brokers, etc.”

To learn more about IAVM’s Severe Weather Preparedness program, click here.