"If a member sees a specific plan they want, all they have to do is call and ask." - Plan-room committee chairman Galen Olson

User friendly

By Jack Bess

		Address: 230 Reservoir Ave. Wausau, WI 54402-6190 Mailing Address: P.O. Box 6190, Wausau, WI 54402-6190 Phone: 715-842-9510 Fax: 715-845-6291 Hours: Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Region Covered: North-central Wisconsin and upper Michigan Plans available: 40 the during slow season, 100 at peak times Services: Phones, fax machine, weekly bulletin and blueprint copier Membership: $125 for associate membership and $300 for full membership

Like they say on those late-night Hair Club ads, Galen Olson doesn't just run the Wausau Area Builders Exchange plan room, he's also a client.

"We use it every day for our type of business. I have one person who works there virtually the full week," said Olson, owner of Olson Floor Covering Inc. in Wausau and chairman of the Wausau Area Chamber of Commerce committee overseeing the plan room.

Housed in the chamber of commerce offices, the Wausau plan room might not have as many members as other plan rooms , but that hasn't hurt its holdings or its importance to contractors, Olson said. In the last eight years, the plan room has annually received between 700 and 800 project plans and is already "off and running" with new projects in 2000, he said.

Olson's business belongs to two different builders exchanges, but Olson "very seldom" uses the second one "because we've become much more efficient," he said. The room draws members from a 60-mile radius, he said.

The plan room has two membership categories. An associate membership carries an $125 annual fee, for which the member receives the weekly bulletin listing the jobs. $300 buys the full membership, which includes the bulletin, the ability to check out plans overnight and full use of the plan room.
Members can copy their own blueprints. Plan-room manager Sharon Baumann can also order plans from neighboring states.

The Wausau service area, which is north central Wisconsin and upper Michigan, has seen a trend in new school construction, Baumann said. Apart from schools, many of the plans Baumann sees aren't for brand-new projects but for additions or remodeling. While the school-building trend has been "pretty hot," Olson added, the plan room overall receives plans for a variety of building types, such as medical facilities, offices and manufacturing.

Olson "guess-estimated" that around 50 percent of the area's design/build projects have appeared in the plan room. He and others in the chamber encourage members of the local contractors association to use the room for bidding when they are able, he said.

The room is expected to have an Internet presence as part of the Chamber of Commerce's forthcoming Web site, he said. Also on the technology front, the oversight committee is considering whether the 170-member plan room can support the costs of new technology such as Internet-ready computers and CD-ROMs, Olson said.

"We're starting to think about the future and we're getting in a being-prepared stage," he said.