THE CONSTRUCTION MANAGER/INSPECTOR

Fred Bensch

He knew early that architecture would pave the path of his career.  So did everyone else who supplied the little boy with erector sets of all manner and material, including brick buildings and plastic skyscrapers. The one he liked best — or at least, remembers the most — was his model of the Empire State building.

Which doesn’t mean Community Hospital construction manager/inspector Fred Bensch ever envisioned himself as the project manager for the Pavilions Project, or ever imagined he’d be overseeing the dramatic expansion of the hospital in the town where he grew up.

Born in New York and raised in Monterey where his family moved when he was a toddler, Bensch attended Monterey Peninsula Unified schools. After graduating from Monterey High School, he attended the University of California, Berkeley, on a Naval ROTC scholarship and earned a bachelor’s degree in architecture.

“After college,” says Bensch, “I fulfilled my obligation on a missile cruiser off the East Coast for two years, followed by a carrier off the West Coast for another two. Looking back on it, I enjoyed it. At the time, it was not what I wanted to be doing.

“Back in Monterey, I went to architect offices to get a job as a draftsman and ended up running into high school friend Neal Kruse on Cannery Row. He hired me as a draftsman for Origin Design & Construction. When we weren’t drawing, I worked as a part-time carpenter, which is where I really learned about architecture — from the ground up.”

Bensch later spent eight years working on hospital projects for architect Dennis Hodgin, including the design and construction of Community Hospital’s Outpatient Surgery Center. Looking back on 15 years in Facilities Planning at Community Hospital, he can add the Family Birth Center remodel, the Comprehensive Cancer Center, and the Pavilions Project to his resumé — all part of an effort, he says, to help shepherd the hospital along.

“My role,” he says, “is to provide the interface among the contractor, the architect, and the hospital. It’s my job to make sure all of those entities understand what’s coming and to ensure they get what they expect or explain why they’re not getting what they expect.

“The project is coming to a peak now with the South and Forest pavilions opening. But then we’ll go in to remodel the existing building. This will create a domino effect as we remodel one area, move people into it, and then remodel what they left. It’s not as intense as constructing two new buildings at once, but it has a lot of the same challenges.”