(Almost) Finished

By Dollie Elliott

Hundreds of people have been working on Oklahoma State’s new Business Building for many months:

• The Elliott + Associates architects first drew up what they envisioned the building to be.
• The Manhattan Construction crews and contractors have put in 50-hour weeks plus some weekends to bring that vision to life.
• Electricians have laid 1,095,060 feet of power cable while interior decorators helped Spears School of Business staff choose every piece of furniture and fabric.
• The building’s first donors gave because they believed in what the building could become.
• The freshman students will set foot in the building for the first time in the fall of 2018, not knowing anything but the new building.

All who have taken part in the process — whether funding, planning, executing or inspiring — will be proud of their work when the doors open.

Lisa Fain has been at the forefront of the entire process, working as the Spears School’s liaison to the building project, helping to bring about this pillar on Oklahoma State University’s Stillwater campus.

“I was thrilled when Dean [Ken] Eastman asked me to be a part of the project,” Fain says. “It was such a vote of confidence that he had in me, and I really take that very seriously. I was so proud that he would want to give that responsibility to me.”

“Lisa has done a tremendous job leading our building project,” says Eastman, dean of the Spears School of Business. “She has been our point person on this project since its beginning and her enthusiasm for the project has never wavered. Lisa has treated our building as if it were her own home, and I can never thank her enough for her dedication and commitment to the project.”

As director of operations for the Spears Business, Fain manages human resources, research and financial services, IT and facilities. “Part of my job is to help facilitate, so really what I do is problem solve. When someone needs to figure out the best way to do things within policy, they come to me,” she says. “I kinda enjoy the challenge of finding ways to do things while staying within policies that OSU and the state of Oklahoma have. Because I’m over facilities in the Business Building, I guess it was natural that I would be a part of this project.”

When Fain joined Spears Business nine years ago, she remembers how even then faculty members were discussing the prospect of a new building. “A lot of them had talked about how in their initial faculty interviews years ago, they were promised a new building. Everyone’s been anxiously awaiting the start of the new building for years,” she says. “With the completion of each phase, it draws us closer and closer to that reality. It’s really exciting to be a part of that.”

Construction began with tearing down Hanner Hall and the “stacks,” the educational wing consisting of five classrooms, of the current building in 2014.

During the beginning stages of construction, Fain says her day-to-day job didn’t change much other than a few meetings. “Initially, we talked about programming and what kind of space we needed. We looked at different designs from the architects but then as we are getting closer and closer to fruition, there have been more and more meetings,” she says.

As the project progressed, Fain has been involved in selecting the finishes for flooring, wall covers and paint. Then came the decisions on the numerous furniture pieces.

“We met a lot about the furniture because there’s such a variety of furniture in the building for faculty offices and staff offices for the lounge areas, for the students, the computer classrooms and the collaborative classrooms. It’s such a variety of different areas we had to select furniture for, so we’ve had a lot of meetings about that,” she says.

Currently, she is working on how to key the building, making final decisions on furniture, digital signs and the audio/visual program.

She realizes she is always thinking about the project in one way or another. “I find myself looking at every detail when I walk into a room, no matter where I am. I think about the furniture, the fixtures, the flooring and even the lighting.”

Every Wednesday morning, Fain meets with representatives from each group for a progress update.

“The meetings have been a little eye opening for me,” says Fain. “One of the fun things about this project is I’ve been able to learn a little bit, and I do mean very little, about construction.”

“I think the group enjoys teasing me about the construction terminology. It’s been fun learning what the terms GFRC or high wind refuge mean. I admit, sometimes after the meetings I have to go back to my office and Google a term to figure out what they’re talking about,” she laughs. “They’ve been very patient with me to make sure that I understand what we’re talking about so I can make the best decision.”

Fain’s primary role as the liaison is to make sure the building is functional. “My job is to make sure the students, faculty and staff all enjoy the building. We want to make sure that it fits us,” she says. “My objective is to make sure things are in the right places, so people can be productive.” She also has had the arduous task of helping more than 350 faculty and staff members choose their office space.

Flexibility is another major challenge in the project. After being in the current building for more than 50 years (it opened in 1966), all involved in the project understand the importance of having a structure that will withstand the test of time time and be flexible enough for future upgrades.

“We want to make sure this building lasts 60 to 70 years or even longer. You just never know how instruction or how we do things will change,” Fain says. “So our goal was to create a building that will be easy to modify as things change.”

Fain says she is trying to meet the needs of everyone who will use the building. “When you have so many people in mind, including students, faculty and staff, alums and donors, you realize there’s a lot of people to please.”

Fain is looking forward to having students grace the new halls. “I think this project brings excitement to all of us. Since the demolition of the stacks, students don’t really come to our building very much. There are not a lot of reasons for them to come back to the building. We miss that. We miss the excitement and energy the students bring. So we are looking forward to the new building being filled with students.”

Spears Business faculty and staff are currently housed is five different buildings across campus and even in some off-campus locations. “The exciting thing is we all will be in one building,” she says. “Currently, we have faculty or staff in Gundersen Hall, the Classroom Building, in off-campus leased space and more recently in Cordell Hall. So to have everyone in one building will be great. I’m looking forward to the point when we’ll all feel like a team.

“We are also excited that the alums will have a place that they can really be proud of. It will represent the Spears School and the degree they received. We know they are proud of the degrees they received from the Spears School, but this gives them a landmark, an iconic building that says, ‘Hey, I graduated from there.’”

Fain first began her career with OSU in 1986 where she worked at the Edmon Low Library as a financial coordinator for 19 years, and never envisioned leaving until applying for the job across campus. She and husband Jim Fain, professor in the Department of Economics and Legal Studies, both grew up in Texas. The pair met at the University of Texas where she got her bachelor’s degree in business management. After UT, they moved to West Lafayette, Indiana, where Jim completed his doctoral degree in economics at Purdue University.

The native Texans moved to Stillwater when Jim was hired to join the OSU business school’s faculty, and they have called it home for more than 30 years.

“So I’ve been at OSU for 30 years. I’ve kind of grown up professionally at OSU. Also our family has grown up here,” says Fain, whose two sons, Jonathan (accounting) and Logan (engineering) are both OSU graduates. “We are proud that they decided that OSU was the place they wanted to get their education. We just found that Stillwater was where we wanted to raise our family and we couldn’t be happier about that decision.”

Fain looks forward to the day she walks through the 147,450-square-foot building and sees students and faculty interacting with one another under the same roof for the first time in years.

“We all can say, ‘This is our building. We were a part of this iconic building on campus and we are proud to have helped make it come about,’” Fain says.