Daily Herald - March 28, 2007
Catherine Edman, Daily Herald Staff Writer
Four years into the massive construction plan at the College of DuPage, the school's man at the building helm, Gavin Tun, is leaving to take a job in the private sector.Tun, who's worked on the college's facilities master plan since 2003, will depart Friday, a month before the first new building is set to receive an occupancy permit.
"It'll be very hard," said Tun, director of facilities, planning and construction. "This is a department that didn't exist (when I started). We took the facilities master plan from a concept to construction and that took a lot of work."
The Glen Ellyn college posted Tun's job to internal candidates this week. Until a successor is hired, the college will work directly with The Rise Group, which trustees hired to serve as the outside construction program manager, said Bill Troller, COD director of public information.
Troller said Tun's contributions to the massive, $297 million expansion and renovation plan were invaluable. "He was especially helpful in shaping the overall facilities management plan and been a key figure in helping to develop its overall implementation," he said. "He was a tireless worker and took great pains on detail."
Voters in 2002 gave the school permission to borrow $183 million to build a number of new buildings and renovate existing ones, and the balance of the money was to come from tuition and state grants.
The spotlight fell on the college's construction program earlier this year when college board Trustee Jane Herron suddenly resigned. One of the questions she raised was about construction contractors hired by the board.
Just this month, the trustees were asked to approve $330,000 for playground equipment for the nearly complete Early Childhood Education Center. The expense wasn't brought to the board earlier in the process. That was the job of an early project manager who's since been replaced by The Rise Group. Because it's now so late, it's not possible to send the work out to bid.
