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10 FEDA News & Views Imagine jumping into the ring with a shape shifter. Pinning down an oppo- nent equipped with the ability to change at will would be a nightmare—unless you had the advantage of time to study and anticipate the risk…learn its fi ghting style and weaknesses, develop an action plan and then revise and re-revise to include lessons learned. Oh, and having Burgess Meredith in your corner would defi nitely be a plus. That's what kitchen equipment contractors (KECs) liken the contract and design business to, and caution would-be opportunists to pause before they leap. "It's complicated," says Thompson & Little Inc.'s Vice President Drew O'Quinn, aptly summa- rizing the sentiments of fellow KECs. "There's no consistency and there's no template. Every consul- tant has a different list of what we're supposed to include or exclude from our plan and every job is different." Fayetteville, N.C.-based, Thompson & Little has been in the industry for 72 years and more than 50 of them has involved putting new kitchens into res- taurants, schools, hospitals and prisons throughout the Southeast. "If there's a dealer that's not very experienced and thinks, 'I'm just going to increase my volume by half a million dollars,' it's not as easy as doing a sales order and dropping off some equip- ment," says O'Quinn. "Project manage- ment is a different animal; there's longev- ity and phases. You have to do rough-in drawings at the beginning of the project. There's a phase for the exhaust hood, a phase for the walk-in. You have to run refrigeration line sets and then come back and do the kitchen equipment. You have to coordinate with the plumber and electrician. Store the equipment, and sometimes you have to store it at your expense." There's also the challenge of over- coming multiple breaks in communica- tion with the other trades on the job, learning how to outmaneuver general contractors bent on sidestepping liabil- ity, codes and requirements that change across state lines and equipping your team with the expertise necessary to respond to the wave of technology that's revolutionized kitchen equipment and design. "The equipment and installation pro- cess in a modern kitchen is a lot more complicated than it was 20 to 30 years ago," says longtime foodservice consul- tant Foster Frable of Clevenger Frable LaVallee. "First off, everything is wired and connected, so there's a whole com- ponent of electrical work on hoods that really didn't exist before. And it's com- plicated electrical, not the two-wires-to- a-light-switch or fan the average electri- cian understands. That alone helps to contribute to a lot of the fi nger pointing. A lot of these guys don't know how to do it, and they don't estimate it in their original quote, or they underestimate the implications. So, the fi rst thing they do is turn to the KEC and say, 'It's your hood. You wire it up.'" To which the KEC typically replies, "We're not electricians." (Although, to the chagrin of many, there are some KECs that believe it's their responsibility to step into the gap and make sure all electrical interconnections and plumb- ing are performed when the other trades fall short. But, that's a rabbit hole worth no template. Every consul- "It's complicated," says Thompson & Little Inc.'s Vice President Drew O'Quinn, aptly summa- rizing the sentiments of fellow KECs. "There's no consistency and there's no template. Every consul- Kitchen Equipment Contractors Discuss the By Stacy Ward, Managing Editor stacy@feda.com 5 Lessons Learned