Looking Forward – from our president, Troy Tucker

December 21, 2020

As we enter the final days of what has been a year that most would like to forget, 2020 has me pausing to reflect on the many opportunities this year has afforded us. The interruption to the comforts of a predictable future has invited us all to consider things that may have been and things that yet still could be with a fresh understanding that it all could be ripped away so easily because this year, much of it was.  

So, as I look forward to 2021, it is with excitement that we’re better than we’ve been before. This year has reminded us that there is much that we cannot control and that makes the things that we can control all the more important. At The Stahl Companies, we’ve traded in the uncertainty for what we know. We know that investment in our people will pay dividends to our culture, honing our operations will increase our effectiveness, and developing a strategy heading into 2021 that focuses on building great teams who specialize in adding value will continue to make us a commodity our clients actively pursue. 

We’re seeing things begin to open up with suspended projects coming back and new projects being considered. I don’t expect the spigot to suddenly open wide, but the current trend is promising, and we’re poised to assist our clients in project development through budget creation, cash flow projections, schedule estimates, and various other data required for their decision making.  We know that healthcare systems have been hit like most of us and they’re looking for ways to recover their cash flow including through capital investment.  

The industry has long awaited telehealth to take hold throughout the country and the pandemic seems to have been just the catalyst needed to push patients in that direction. Combined with the growth trajectory of clinic space, especially in California, where the cost to build acute space is so high, it would appear that the uber specialized workforce that has been able to count on continued activity in the OSHPD world would need to begin looking elsewhere. But not so fast. Relief does not seem to be on the way related to seismic standards as SB 758 has stopped in its tracks. This means 1994’s Senate Bill 1953 remains the law of the land with a compliance deadline of 2030. The recent Rand Corporation report suggests this could top out as high as $143 billion as this decade reaches its close. In addition to this, industry leaders are considering legislation to require the industry to be better prepared for another pandemic or other major disaster. A key term being considered is flexibility. And while this typically invokes the best and brightest to innovate, flexibility almost always equates to a spike in cost. 

But if we’ve learned anything this year, it has been flexibility. Uncertainty does that. So, as we invest in our people, flexibility will be accompanied by grittiness, innovationand optimism toward solutions to the many challenges that, while perhaps unpredictable, remain inevitable in our world and specifically this industry.   

For the Health of Our Communities,  

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