Pat Riley keeps security and other systems operating smoothly for City of Norfolk drive invigorates Bayfront-St. Anthony's health care

Sep 1, 2000 12:00 PM, DAVID GERSH

Pat Riley has a lot on his mind. As chief operating engineer (COE) of the Bureau of Facilities Maintenance for Norfolk, Va., he is responsible for ensuring smooth operation of the security systems, fire protection and HVAC of 127 city buildings. That's over 4,000 pieces of equipment, including security and fire systems, 100 elevators, card access systems and everything else that's automated or electronic and connected to a building. From the city's Central Energy Plant Control Room, Riley and his crew directly monitor nearly 2,000 of those pieces.

When Riley first became COE four years ago, the department's control room staff operated two computerized energy management systems that monitored automation systems for several downtown buildings via coax cable and dial-up modem. "The city had invested to centralize its HVAC, but security efforts lagged far behind," he explains. "One of the main aggravations was that, when we needed to add or eliminate an access card for any location, an engineer had to visit the site to modify the database and download the field controller." With heavy turnover of city staff, the process was repeated several times a week. "Also," Riley continues, "the control room was essentially blind to building security conditions, having to rely on reports from the contract security guards every two hours for information." The city operated several access control systems, which forced staff needing to access every building - information technologies and building maintenance, for example - to carry multiple access cards.

Under Riley's direction, the control room began remotely monitoring access control and energy management systems using fiber connections. With a quick communications pathway in place, Riley set about consolidating the access control systems to a single manufacturer, choosing IdentiCard. "Our goal," he says, "was one card serving all."

Assistant Facilities Manager Monroe Lentz praised Riley's initiative. "To transform a 30-year-old plant of this size was a monumental undertaking. Keeping all mechanical and electrical systems online throughout the process with minimal customer disruption was an extraordinary feat," he says. "Pat Riley invested many nights and weekends to ensure that the new system functioned properly," Lentz adds.

Security was only a small part of Riley's initial job description. "All of my background was mechanical and installation," Riley says. "I picked up security because HVAC safety circuits and security circuits work basically the same way. So I was able to apply my mechanical background to security systems. I looked down the road to where I wanted to be in the coming years. I selected equipment and systems for buildings to fit, conceptually, into the long-term idea of where I was going." Not only has Riley built the control room by adding technology, he also built the control room - literally.

Prior to working for the city, Riley worked in residential and light-commercial plumbing for a few years before beginning a 15-year run as owner and operator of a construction company. From there he began installing and rehabilitating steam plants, boilers and wind tunnels. Afterwards, he moved on to power plants, acting as project superintendent on six large construction projects. After a 10-week stint in Guyana building a plant for a hospital, Riley was asked to oversee construction of a power plant being built in a small municipality called Norfolk, Va. "After working for a year to get the plant operational, my next job would have been in Sandusky, Ohio, putting a cold suppression system on pipes near the Great Lakes in the wintertime," Riley recalls. "When the city offered me a position, the thought of sitting in the control room of a place I had built sounded pretty good, so I decided I'd give municipal government a try."

Rather than hiring contractors, Riley has surrounded himself with a multi-talented in-house team whose expertise includes control wiring, electrical engineering, sheet metal and electronics. "We don't hesitate to do jobs in-house. With municipalities, that's pretty rare," Riley says. By using in-house labor, he has found a way to fund several facility enhancements. "If I can prove to management that I've done the job cheaper with in-house labor than they could get it done using a contractor, then the residual savings, instead of going to the contractor's overhead and profit, benefit my crew." Riley has already added a fully stocked shop, stoves and refrigerators connected to emergency power, and gas grills for barbecues and cookouts. "You spend as much time at work as you do at home, so you might as well have a nice place to work," Riley reasons.

Recently, Riley has been busy designing security for an eight-story addition to the city jail. Together with the sheriff's department, Riley's team designed the addition featuring touch-screen control centers for doors on each floor and a master control area that runs security for all the hallways, perimeters and elevators. As per his modus operandi, the whole project was done in-house. Riley's crew has also installed a security system for a new 200,000 square-foot Public Health Center that houses prescription drugs, a forensics laboratory and the regional crime lab and morgue.

Riley is also in the process of adding the Juvenile Domestic Relations Court - which occupies the bottom floors of a 13-story building that also houses the school system's personnel and administration departments - to the IdentiCard system. "The sheriff's department maintains security of the Juvenile Court during normal operating hours, but the judges were concerned that someone might come in after-hours to plant a weapon and pick it up the next day after passing through security," Riley explains. In response, Riley transformed the building's freight elevator - the only one to service every floor - into a "security car." An Identi-Card panel calls the freight elevator to the lobby and a second panel inside the elevator activates the buttons for the restricted floors. Cameras and an intercom on the exterior doors allow Riley's crew to monitor any after-hours access requests from non-card holders. The doors are opened remotely from the Control Room, and the images are recorded by a Toshiba timelapse video recorder.

"The most amazing thing about working in municipal government is the sheer variety of things you run into," Riley says. "Since Norfolk has been around for 300 years, I have buildings that are national historic monuments. Repairs need to made while respecting the integrity of the facility. You can't even locate new equipment on the outside because it's historic. On the flip side, I have a $30 million public health hospital with state-of-the-art electronics."

Riley attributes much of his success to his coworkers. "My supervisors, my crew - I couldn't ask for a better working relationship with all of them. That's probably the thing I'm most proud of. I know that all of them will work very hard doing whatever it takes to stay operational."

Pat Riley grew up in Hampton, Va., before studying engineering for a few years at Old Dominion University. He has coached baseball for 26 straight years, following his four sons - one of whom currently has a scholarship to play baseball for the Virginia Military Institute - as they came up through Little League, Pony League and Senior League. Riley also volunteers at the Parish Thrift Shop run by his church and performs preventive maintenance on the church HVAC equipment.

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