Autodesk Corporate Headquarters

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In his 38 years with Giampolini Group—the last 12 as operations manager of the paint division— Ted Schmidt has seen his fair share of challenging projects. While he wasn’t intimidated by the scope of work involved in finishing Autodesk’s new corporate headquarters in downtown San Francisco, he knew that choosing the right coatings partner would be key to the project’s success.

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Customer

Giampolini Group

Location

San Francisco, CA

Completion Date

Sep, 2020

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Little did he know just how important his choice would prove to be. He explains, “To begin with, we were looking at tackling four 30,000-squarefoot floors simultaneously with a palette of roughly 60 colors. While many of the colors were Dunn-Edwards colors, many more had to be matched to different manufacturers. Plus, we were working around other trades as we all pushed to complete the job by the September 2020 deadline. And then COVID hit.”

Schmidt recalls that after a one-month shutdown due to the pandemic, “The return to work was complicated by a whole new set of protocols. While we had a 6-8 man crew assigned to the job, you couldn’t necessarily put them where you ideally wanted them due to social distancing requirements. It added a whole new level of logistics to the work and required me to lean harder on my coatings supplier Dunn-Edwards than I ever had before. Without question, they delivered on every front.”

We’d call in an order at 7 a.m. and it was consistently on the jobsite before noon. That’s phenomenal. Not every vendor does that. Dunn-Edwards does

Schmidt’s initial decision to work with Dunn-Edwards was mostly driven by product choice. “We were looking at a lot of strong accent colors and some very tall walls. I knew I could trust their EVEREST product to provide the coverage and holdout for sheen. Other brands simply strike too much. That holdout saves you having to put up a 4th or 5th coat, which saves you labor time—and all that goes to the bottom line.” Delivery of product was also critical to the project’s success. “They were absolutely spot on with deliveries,” says Schmidt. “We’d call in an order at 7 a.m. and it was consistently on the jobsite before noon.

That’s phenomenal. Not every vendor does that. Dunn-Edwards does. There were times we had to shift our schedules to evenings so we could continue to be productive through the protocols. Dunn-Edwards didn’t blink and just shifted with us.” Schmidt also praised the company’s color-matching capabilities: “Every day, there were gallons of multiple colors coming in. And these were bold colors so the matching had to be consistent. Throughout the entire job, we didn’t send a single bucket back.” While Schmidt’s job requires him to be mindful of each project’s budget, he says, “For me there’s more to choosing a coatings partner than price. It’s really about the quality and service. That’s where the real value is found.”