Practical Ref

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This page contains practical reference info for the Jimenez Group.

General Reference Info

Introduction to the Group

Logistical References

Lab

Purchasing

Instrument References

Group Instruments

Software

User Manuals for Lab Equipment

Field Software and instrumentation manuals

Training Requirements

Travel and Moving Equipment

CU Distribution Services -- Moving and Hauling

Traveling Abroad

    • CU employees who will work abroad for >6months - need to contact risk management (workers comp, etc.)
    Health Insurance
    • In general, Risk Management recommends taking out personal travel insurance when traveling abroad since only accidents arising out of the scope of employment would be covered. If someone falls seriously ill, this is not insured. They've recommended the company HTH which is also used for CU student excursions (http://www.hthtravelinsurance.com). This plan also covers repatriation and starts at 1 USD per day and then gets successively more expensive for periods longer than 2 weeks. You should first check with your private health insurance carrier. You may or may not be already be covered. For example, Hilke says that Kaiser Permanente only covers emergencies abroad (ER) but probably not non-emergency doctor visits.

    Assistance Abroad

    • When we travel on University business, we can use the 'International SOS' plan (www.internationalsos.com). This is not a health insurance, but an organization that would help with locating doctors abroad, help finding someone to translate in a medical emergency or even help with organizing repatriation also in the case of political unrest. Before you travel abroad, you should copy the details: https://www.cu.edu/content/internationaltravel.

    Travel Insurance

    • HTH also provides separate policies for travel insurance. This may be useful in cases where there is a high likelihood of needing to change airplane tickets.
    • HTH Travel Insurance Rates and Coverage Table

Insurance: On-Campus/Shipping/Off-Campus

Key Links

Key Contacts

    CIRES:
    • Ted DeMaria (demaria_at_colorado.edu, 303-735-3739) -CIRES Property accounting and Inventory.

    CU Risk Management

    • Tara Lindsay (tara.lindsay_at_cu.edu, 303-492-1906) - Director of University Risk Management, Boulder Campus Operations
    • Gary Longfellow (gary.longfellow_at_cu.edu, 303-860-5676) - Director, Insurance and Claims Administration
    • Frank Hammitt (frank.hammitt_at_cu.edu, 719-255-3525) - Risk Analyst

CU's Insurance Policy

  • The University is mostly self-insured. That means everything under the value of 500,000 USD will be replaced by the University itself and only for larger amounts, a claim is made with an external insurance company (FM Global). For smaller losses, our group may be expected to pay, and the university may ask CIRES to cover moderate/small losses. The rules seem generally complicated/vague, Risk Management informed us that if we demonstrate due diligence, the university will probably cover it in the end; however, when in doubt contact the appropriate admin.
  • There is a CU deductible: $2500 (CIRES generally pays that out of pooled funds). However, often when shipping with a commercial shipping company you can take insurance for just $2500 to cover that deductible (it will generally only be a few dollars).
  • CU will cover destroyed/stolen items at their replacement costs. In the event that we need to replace one or many items, we would probably need to demonstrate the replacement costs, for example with quotes for larger items
  • Power surges are covered.
  • Car Rental: Use US Bank Travel Card. If abroad may be different: contact US Bank and/or Risk managements. Also be sure to use CU-approved rental companies (see CIRES Travel).

Shipping and Deployment in the Field

  • When shipping items off-campus you need to fill out an "OFF-CAMPUS USE OF UNIVERSITY EQUIPMENT Form" for "equipment" which are items of value >$5k. See further details and example here under "Property". Additionally you should report the total value of the items being shipped since non-equipment items may likely be a significant portion of the total.
  • For shipping, coverage only exists when transported by a regular carrier or a commercial airline. Open ocean/offshore is excluded (unless by inland waters or by coastal shipments). Open ocean, off-shore policies have to be taken out separately. This would include transport on a cargo ship as well as deployment on a ship. Also, URM has created an ”Ocean Cargo and Off-shore MOU” which allows for CU departments to pay a premium for a specific shipment (they start at $2500 with CU). In the case of GVAX it was cheaper to go with a 3rd party insurance carrier (that ARI arranged). In the case of international shipping, once the equipment is in the foreign country, it is covered by CU property insurance.
  • Driving equipment in rental or private cars is covered by the CU insurance. Tara specifies that: "I would like to know in advance of any equipment being delivered by CU personnel that has a value of $1mil or more. But again, that’s not a requirement for coverage, it’s to ask and discuss what loss prevention techniques that the person doing the transport will have in place to help prevent a loss".
  • Given the uncertainty and inability of Risk Management to provide us with specific documented or "hard-and-fast" rules, the general approach is to talk to Sarah Guthrie (CIRES message center) or Ted Demaria and they would contact the Risk Management Department discussing the details of the journey and the deployment. The threshold for contacting Risk Management is ~100,000 USD and also for everything that is a bit more unusual which would include deployment on a research aircraft. In such cases, likely Risk Management would contact NCAR/NOAA/NASA etc. See link of "CU Property Insurance Information" above for specific exceptions to CU coverage (such as open-ocean or blacked-out countries).
  • If we use equipment on loan (sans visiting researcher), i.e. it is in our care the CU insurance covers that equipment. Moreover, if we bring loaner equipment off-campus, we need to include that in our insurance/off-campus reporting. Conversely, if we loan equipment to another institution or company (and are not there ourselves using it), CU expects THEIR policy to cover it. So in such cases ask Ted to contact his counterpart at that institution. An example of the above is the HAIS-ToF-AMS, which belongs to NCAR but is in our custody and thus is covered by our insurance.
  • Customs declarations do not count for insurance. CU will cover destroyed/stolen items at their replacement value.
  • Mobile Road Laboratories (such as ARI's): CU’s property coverage applies to equipment in mobile road laboratories.
  • Attaching/Installing equipment on ships and aircrafts: What is our liability coverage in case we damage an aircraft with our installation? Tara's response: "The University of Colorado’s General Liability insurance affords coverage to defend the University and its employees acting within the course and scope of their University employment against claims brought by third-party claimants, in the event of alleged acts of negligence or omission. For further information, see our website at: https://www.cu.edu/content/generalliability. Am I correct in assuming that ship and aircraft owners’ personal would be providing instruction on how to safely attach the instruments? If so, as long as you follow their direction, that should avoid most, if not all, liability to CU."
  • See Insurance Q&A document from Tara Lindsay for further details on some of the above items here.

Pending questions about insurance of importance to our group (waiting to hear more from Tara Lindsay):

  • Is flying in research aircraft during field experiments covered by CU's insurance? Both in the continental US, over the ocean, and overseas? For example our next campaigns, starting in April 2012, are in the NASA DC8: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/FactSheets/FS-050-DFRC.html and as part of the DC3 and SEAC4RS campaigns in Oklahoma and Thailand: http://www.espo.nasa.gov/pub/SEAC4RS-overview-21OCT2010.pdf Tara's response 16 Nov, 2011: "CU’s property policy excludes airborne shipments unless by regularly scheduled passenger airlines or air freight carriers. URM is doing further research and analysis to see what we can do about coverage for this equipment performing research in these aircraft, and I’ll let you know as soon as we have more information." Doug's Note: Likely this will be the same as for open ocean and offshore ($2500+ fee with a new MOU), but still awaiting updated from Tara/URM as of 19 Dec. 2011.

Usual Suppliers

  • Brechtel for flow splitters, Y's, laminar flow elements, control valves, etc.

Guest Internet Access

  • Guest internet access for university wireless ITS website
  • Guest Identi-Key (for access to non-public facing webpages ie: library resources) ITS website

Poster Printing

  • Megaprint Email them the file and they will fedex the poster to any location.
  • Poster Session
  • Also, Nate or the office workers in chemistry can print a poster.

Group Meeting

Local Seminars

Science and Publication References

Conferences

Info for Field Campaigns

Packing lists for field campaigns

Information Regarding Specific Campaigns

Group Restricted Pages

Group Activities

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