I really do work with the best crew in the world.

The most recent reminder is the note I got this afternoon from Peter Jacke at Cooper Testing.  Along with notifying me that my results had been posted (ahead of schedule), he wanted to be sure I knew that there were three specific gravity tests that he had assigned on his own initiative and for which I would not be charged.

The tests were necessary, in Peter’s judgment, because some falling head hydraulic conductivity tests were returning low saturation values and the most logical explanation was that the soils from our Maui site were heavier than typical tropical soils. For those of you keeping score at home, the results were 3.05 to 3.09, 15% higher than the typically assumed value.

The point here is not that Peter ran extra tests for free.  The point is that Peter and his crew at the lab saw results that didn’t seem right and took unilateral initiative to satisfy themselves that they were delivering results consistent with the quality standards we all expect from Cooper Labs. Their in-house quality checks raised an issue, they resolved it quantitatively to their own satisfaction (upon which I rely), and they sent along the results just in case I could find another use for them.

What a great object lesson for all of us, especially those of us who aspire to the same reputation for quality that Cooper has earned over the past decades.  Quality comes standard on every project, and when you need to do a little work to assure that you’re delivering quality, you do the work without expectation. This is how you earn long term customer loyalty and repeat business, everyone.

Well done, Peter. Thank you.