Sue Klawans

'Our clients' comments and scores determine our direction,' says Gilbane's Sue Klawans, who was recently named Contractor of the Year. /
'Our clients' comments and scores determine our direction,' says Gilbane's Sue Klawans, who was recently named Contractor of the Year. /

Sue Klawans, Gilbane’s director of client satisfaction, has been named Contractor of the Year by the New England Chapter of CoreNet Global. She was nominated by her client Sun Microsystems. Sun cited Klawans’ successes on a range of assignments, including major campus development projects; 100 concurrent integration projects; data center projects; and transition planning and management.

PBN: How did you become Gilbane’s director of client satisfaction?
KLAWANS: I’ve been with Gilbane since 1984, and in that time I’ve held a number of positions here that have allowed me to develop an understanding of our field operations and how to help our clients reach their goals. Our business is a professional service, and that means we have to understand our clients and their requirements. But more importantly, it also means we need to know what drives their business.

PBN: What are your responsibilities?
KLAWANS: Through many different means, my primary role is to drive consistency and operations excellence throughout our organization. … For example, ensuring top-quality work across all of our construction projects. … One of my primary responsibilities is to champion our client survey process, a rigorously applied tool that we use to measure how our clients perceive us. … In short, our clients’ comments and scores determine our direction. We use these measures to plan our Gilbane University learning priorities and our regionally focused training priorities. In fact, our Gilbane strategic plan is shaped by client feedback.

PBN: What types of projects have you worked on for Sun Microsystems?
KLAWANS: I spent several years of my career on Sun’s Corporate Campus in Burlington, Mass. While there I helped provide oversight on all aspects of a major campus development project, including permitting, planning, construction, occupancy furniture and moves. In this role I learned that Sun was all about communication. Technical skills, like knowing how to write an architect/engineer request for proposal, how to schedule a campus development project, or how to transition planning, were necessary but not enough. By understanding the needs and motivations of all of the internal players (real estate, IT, facilities, security, business lines, etc.), I was able to find the best way to translate their objectives into an executable plan.

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