We've been planning for this for several years, and the original budget for the renovations was $500,000 (for each station), but that ended up being about $250,000 short.

Part of it was just inflation, but a big reason for the increase is we have to bring those two stations up to the 2003 building code, which requires them both to have sprinkler systems. That was something I hadn't budgeted for. When I found out about it, the hair went up on the back of my neck.

Because of the growth of the community, we've had to increase manpower over the years. So we've outgrown these two stations considerably.

These stations are occupied with personnel 24 hours a day, and if you have mixed genders on the force, you can see where things could get crowded. It's one thing when you have only guys in a station, but when males and females are in the same structure, it can get dicey.

[At United Stationers, the succession-planning system has also helped identify candidates for cross-functional promotions. So, for instance, when there's an open position in one part of the company, the system can help identify a solid candidate who might be working in another part of the organization.] The old culture at a lot of businesses is that when you talk about 'sharing resources,' people don't want to share, they think of it as 'stealing talent,' ... This puts a professional face on it.

The loss was very tough on them. With 32 seconds left [and a four point lead], we were planning on moving on. Never did we imagine that game would go in overtime. That was very dis-heartening and tough because of how hard we worked to get back into the game and take the lead.