New-Service Connection Helps Canine Companions Grow

By Jennifer Robison

Canine Companions has big goals and a long waiting list of potential clients.

The Santa Rosa-based nonprofit already ranks as the nation’s largest provider of service dogs and as a leader in research into service-dog breeding. But by 2025, it aims to become the most recognized leader in the service-dog sector. It also plans to nearly double the dogs it places with clients, from about 350 in 2021 to roughly 500 a year—a number that would significantly decrease its 400-client waiting list.

“We reached an inflection point where we wanted to grow to meet the needs of more people,” said Canine Companions CEO Paige Mazzoni.

Now, thanks in part to hard work by PG&E’s Service Planning & Design (SP&D) and Electric Distribution teams, the nonprofit is closer to its goals.

Canine Companions held an April grand opening of its new, 32,000-square-foot Nelson Schulz Canine Health and Wellness Center. The $23 million veterinary hospital, canine early-development center and community event space is across the street from the nonprofit’s existing 13,000-square-foot facility.

On May 21, Canine Companions installed an entry-wall sign thanking people who helped make the center happen. On the roster was Alex Ivakhnenko, the SP&D industrial power engineer who worked with Canine Companions.

“We worked on our expansion through unprecedented rainstorms, supply chain issues and other obstacles,” Mazzoni said. “Along the way, it felt like Alex was part of the team. Every time I talked to him he was so hopeful that things would work out. He was doing everything possible to make sure PG&E finished its electrical work. He gave me a gift way beyond helping us complete this project—he gave me that bright light when I was down.”

‘Extensive collaboration’

Canine Companions had a grant to expand and was on a tight timeline to complete the project. Construction began in 2022, and the new building would need electric service by December 2023 to complete its permitting process and open in spring 2024.

Missing the deadline would stall the nonprofit in its tracks.

“Our momentum was at a point where, if we couldn’t have opened the new center now, we would have had to look at pausing growth altogether,” Mazzoni said. “That would have been horrible for our clients, and it would have taken a terrible toll on employee morale.”

But there was a major issue: The powerline that served Canine Companions was already at capacity. Bringing in a new powerline to handle a much larger building would take five to 10 years, Ivakhnenko said.

Ivakhnenko was committed to finding a quicker solution.

“Canine Companions offers a unique service to people with special needs,” he said. “Their work is lifechanging. PG&E had an opportunity to help expand their ability to serve more people. I wanted to do everything I could to help them achieve their goal.”

That would require “extensive collaboration” among Ivakhnenko, PG&E’s Electric Distribution Planning Engineering team and Canine Companions.

Ivakhnenko looped in Santa Rosa-based electric distribution engineer Emelio Nunez, as well as Nunez’s management team, to look at how they could serve the nonprofit’s expanded electric demand. He also enlisted the expertise of electric engineering estimator Josh Buhagiar.

The team analyzed nearby electric demand to make sure their estimated numbers were as accurate as possible. The goal? To see if they could make the new-service connection work by tightening electric supply and demand in the area.

After weeks of meetings to discuss demand calculations, they realized that, despite its larger footprint, the electric demand of Canine Companions’ expanded facility would “almost mirror” that of its existing facility, Buhagiar said. That meant the new center wouldn’t draw much more power than Canine Companions already used.

The find was a revelation.

“The electric load they anticipated when they applied for new service was significantly higher than what they were drawing in their existing facility,” Buhagiar said. “We were able to take those standards as proof that their new, projected load was not actual load. We found that their actual electricity demand would be significantly lower—by almost half.”

That meant the new-service connection could use a smaller transformer, accommodated by the existing powerline.

“Doing a little digging and thinking outside the box helped us move forward with this job,” Buhagiar said. “It was a good team effort. Alex is a great job owner. He really advocates for customers.”

Completing construction

Based on SP&D’s customer on-time delivery protocol, construction was scheduled for mid-December. Advance scheduling gave both PG&E and Canine Companions a target date to complete necessary work, including system planning, permitting and inspections, by the time the nonprofit needed the job completed.

But extra time spent studying the new-service connection caused a scheduling crunch.

Ivakhnenko kept the project on the construction calendar by staying in constant contact with crew supervisors to assure them the expansion was on track, despite planning delays. With those reassurances, the team stayed on schedule, holding preconstruction meetings with trenching contractors and other vendors to ensure work could begin on time.

“Anytime I ran into a speed bump, I addressed it as quickly as I could,” Ivakhnenko said.

PG&E set the new facility’s electric meter on schedule in mid-December. Gas crews followed up immediately with the facility’s gas meter.

Delivering for the customer

Canine Companions is already reaping the expansion’s benefits.

“Our new building is state-of-the-art,” Mazzoni said. “It gives us the best capability to manage our dogs’ health care, to have the best chance with difficult whelps or deliveries, and to provide the highest-quality neonatal care to our puppies.”

The building is also expanding the nonprofit’s research, which it conducts with major universities including Duke, Purdue, Harvard and Arizona. The goal is to find and promote heritable traits that increase the success of service dogs.

PG&E’s planning, estimating and construction teams may all have come through, but there’s one other person without whom Ivakhnenko said he couldn’t have met the timeline: Paige Mazzoni.

“This was a great example of PG&E working through issues on our end to deliver for the customer, but also, this customer worked really well with us,” he said. “Paige was phenomenal.”

Mazzoni gave Ivakhnenko her direct phone number for escalations. She also provided phone numbers for the nonprofit’s land surveyors and architects. When PG&E needed Canine Companions to act on a permitting or inspections issue, their team “did not waste any time,” Ivakhnenko said.

“With customer on-time delivery, both PG&E and the customer have to work together to achieve the date,” he added. “If a customer waits until the last minute to finish their work and gives us only a week to do our part, that can cause missed deadlines. Canine Companions did everything they had to do on their end to get the job completed.”

Mazzoni said her approach to the work came from a team mentality.

“If you’re building a building, you’re responsible for knowing what you need to do,” she said. “I called Alex constantly to ask him what we needed to be doing, and what we needed to make sure our subcontractors were doing. Alex was always professional and clear. He kept things moving.”

Added Alex: “There were a lot of ups and downs through the process, but I’m really proud this project ended up being a success. Our team was well-focused and coordinated. It makes me proud to be a part of PG&E.”