ENR survey shows no "happy news"

Don Mclean said it well in his 1972 anthem "American Pie" with the following lyrics:

I met a girl who sang the blues
And I asked her for some happy news,
But she just smiled and turned away.

While I didn't meet a girl who sang the blues, I was in fact looking for some happy news today when I opened up the ENR (Engineering News Record) website. The computer screen simply smiled and looked away.

ENR posted an article showing results of a market outlook survey conducted of 752 designers and contractors. A stout 86% of these firms see the current market as declining while only 11 firms out of 752 respondents thought the market was improving. I think these 11 folks were smoking the same stuff Don Mclean was back in '72 because if things are improving then my job application response ratio certainly isn't showing it.

In the chart:

brown=declining
green=stable
yellow=improving


The only good news that came out of this survey in my mind is that 76% of respondents are predicting an improving market three years from now. That's right, three years from now.

While I can't remember if I cried when I read this article, I can remember that the survey was distributed to 2000 companies with only 752 respondents. I can only hope that the 37% or so that responded were stunned with a nasty dose of pessimism while those who didn't respond were too busy with the phone ringing off the hook. The only evidence that may lead me to believe this to be true is that the ENR index is comparatively lower than the Princeton, N.J.-based Construction Financial Management Association’s CONFINDEX survey of commercial construction companies’ financial health; however, this index was most recently released in December of last year when many may have thought we were at the bottom, plus it wasn't that much better.

So why are leaders of the AEC industry so gloomy about the future? ENR suggests the very familiar continued reluctance of financial institutions to lend on projects.

“Everything we do is predicated on the availability of money, either through banks or bonds,” say Hugh McCoy, vice president and managing partner of White-Spunner Construction Inc., Mobile, Ala. He says there are a lot of projects on the boards that make sense and a lot of money is available, but financial institutions are afraid to pull the trigger on loans.

What can we do about this? I've got it! Let's drive our Chevy to the Levee.

We can fire up the Chevy all we want but if the banks don't start lending, the levee will remain dry as a bone and in need of desperate maintenance. Can the banks really take taxpayer money to keep them alive as a result of their own negligence and then stuff it in their big fat wallets while Americans are a generation lost in space?

Evidently they can.

So bye-bye Miss American Pie, if we can't somehow persuade the banks to shell out some cash we may not be seeing you for quite a while, and we might as well break out the whiskey and rye.

ENR survey shows no "happy news"

LEED exam prep ain't easy

I've been studying for the LEED accredited professional exam for the past several weeks partly because I have a personal interest in green building and I would like to have a professional certification reflecting this, and partly because I have nothing else to do since I got canned from my job (besides blogging of course). Let me tell you what, this is a lot of material to digest and spit back at a testing center computer screen in 2.5 hours with nothing but a photo ID as a reference. Trust me, this isn't enough.

I've never been great at memorization and I don't really know why. Perhaps it is because I don't feel the need to remember things that I can just look up later, or perhaps my brain is only capable of holding a very finite amount of information. Regardless, I've always been better when I had a cheat sheet of formulas or methods and then applied them to a problem. So memorizing gobs of information associated with 69 LEED credits is not my forte. I think I'd rather take a class in contract law, and that's pretty bad.

Since I've been exposed to LEED much more over the past six weeks, I've been noticing it more in the news and blogs that I have come across. Nicolette Toussaint who posted a blog today on the greening of school projects, noted that not only does green building present significant energy savings to schools but also increases student and teacher health (less absenteeism) and is consistent with higher test scores.

This phenomenon also holds true for businesses, where green office buildings decrease worker absenteeism and increases productivity on average of 1-7% according to the US Green Building Council. Yes business owners, that means mo' money in yo' pocket. I can already hear the boardroom high fiving. Or perhaps they'll celebrate with a stiff bloody mary on the corporate jet.

However, all this new found knowledge for green building will be much less useful if I don't pass this test of facts, figures, and processes. I need to figure out in the next two weeks what I need to do to get all of this info in my head without losing other very important facts like my Facebook password, my street address, or my mother's maiden name (I would then be unable to retrieve my Facebook password).

I resorted first to the tried and true method of flashcards. I have not made up flashcards since fourth grade and now at the ripe age of th-th-th-thirty one years I'm without a job, making up flash cards, and hoping like hell that I pass a LEED certification, ahem, accreditation exam. This valiant attempt at conventional memorization proved to be much less effective when I dropped my neatly organized flashcards. Many of the credits had two or three cards each and I was left trying to peice back..., oh well, you get the idea. Flashcards are a pain in the a**.

This is the last year you can take the LEED AP exam on the current rating system because they will soon be changing the system to weight credits on a scale of importance (sorry, it's too late to sign up). Presently, a project will earn the same number of LEED points for redeveloping and remediating a former site of a thermo-nuclear reactor as it would for putting a bike rack out front. So this is a much needed change, but the exam will undoubtedly be much more difficult and I'm scared s**tless about passing it this time around.

Perhaps I'm overreacting, and I hope I am, but if this cramming doesn't pay off I'm going to be a perennial LEED AP test taker. I'll have to build a personal green study facility to increase my learning potential and brain capability. This may not be a bad idea, but I really hope it doesn't come to this.

LEED exam prep ain't easy

Time Lapse Tuesday - What can this do for construction?

Starting last week, I made the brilliant choice of making Tuesday (already a great day) Time Lapse Tuesday featuring a time lapse construction video found on the web. There is plenty out there to choice from so I'm doing the laborious task of sifting through the internet dust and picking out a very good time lapse video of a construction project every week. Aren't you lucky?

This is a video of a five day construction project of a wind turbine in Lubbock, Texas. In my opinion we should be building these turbines as fast as this video shows except in real time.




I'm curious as to what people think of the benefits of time lapse photography and video in construction so please feel free to comment. It's a nifty and eye catching technological gadget, but does it add any real value to a project or organization? My own list of benefits is as follows:

1. TL photo allows builders to see the construction of a similar project to theirs for logistic purposes as well as visualization purposes. In golf, you have to visualize the shot before you can actually make it. Piecing a construction project together in your mind may not be as easy as seeing before your eyes.

2. You can look at the construction process of past projects and critique it for possible losses of efficiency. Much like a football coach will analyze film of previous games, construction companies can look at their past projects going up and determine if the best construction methods were used.

3. Construction can be a slow painful process at times, kind of like a baseball game. TL takes a slow moving marathon and turns it into a fast moving spring. This can make excellent marketing material to present to owner's who may want to see your work in action but don't happen to drive by one of your sites on their way to work every day.


If only construction moved as fast on the jobsite as it does on computer screen, we'd really be doing well.

Time Lapse Tuesday - What can this do for construction?

Don T. and Miss USA

I happened to peak at the television this morning and what did I see, but the smiling face, and peculiar hair-do of Donald J. Trump. There's nothing like a little Don Trump rhetoric to brighten up your morning.

I had a construction management college professor who always referred to Donald Trump as Don, as if to infer that they are on a first name basis. I'm nearly certain they were not on a first name basis or even met each other, but it sounds pretty cool to call the guy Don, so I think I will.

Anyway, Don was mainly talking about Miss California who gave a very controversial answer to a gay marriage question in the recent Trump owned Miss USA competition. Miss Cali and others blamed her response to this question as the reason for losing the competition.

She said, "We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite. And you know what, I think in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised."

Ouch. Tough question. That's like having your only major league at bat against a prime of his career Nolan Ryan - and whiffing on three straight 95 mph fastballs.

Regardless, this is Constructonomics, not Pageanomics so we're going to move on to the content of the interview that may in some way pertain to the construction industry. And since Don is a real estate tycoon, you know he's going to make some remarks about why no one is building anything. Of course, he blamed it on the banks.

Trump went on to say that the banks need to start loaning money again and should be mandated to do so by the government. Frankly, I agree with him.

The banks were given some hefty taxpayer bailout money and the intention of this bailout (I assume) was to put them in a position to lend this money instead of stuffing it under their mahogany bed in hopes of the economy recovering before they have to loan anything. Last time I checked, the cart doesn't come before the horse.

An NPR blog a couple of days ago gave some opinions as to why the banks are so reluctant to loosen the vice on their wallets. Some potential reasons are as follows:

1. They're scared that borrowers won't be able to pay them back
2. They're already too strapped to hand out any more cash.
3. Fear of being short of funds if investment opportunities get even better

The third scenario was proposed by Douglas Diamond and Raghuram Rajan from The University of Chicago School of Finance. They write:

"If financial institutions expect that those with liquidity could make a killing in the future (by buying financial assets or banks at fire sale prices), they will restrict their lending or investment today to very short maturities or liquid securities and not lock up liquidity in term loans."

Whatever that means. All I know is that lenders are about as conservative today with their lending as Miss California is with her question responses, and if we don't collectively liberate a little bit we're going to remain highly unemployed and quite ignorant to the personal preferences of others.

Don T. and Miss USA

Promoting a culture of safety

I ran across an article today of a settlement reached with the family of Matthew Ammon, a Microsoft attorney, who was killed in 2006 when a tower crane from an adjacent construction site crashed through his apartment. Having not heard of this incident previously, I started reading a bit more into it.

The reports show that the crane sat on a very unconventional foundation that was really not a foundation at all. The crane sat on a steel frame when cranes typically are supported by a foundation of concrete. This very unusual set up was designed by a local structural engineering firm and deemed to be safe by the engineering firm as well as the general contractor on the project.

A settlement was reached yesterday after an interesting admission of some responsibility by the designer of the crane support system one day before the trial was slated to begin. The engineering firm was fined $10,000. This seems a little light to me.

The most interesting part about this story however, was the fact that there were numerous reports of noticeable fatigue of the crane system. There were reports of the tower of the crane leaning upwards of three feet when the allowable lean was less than six inches.

So the question, of course, is if there were noticeable signs of stress on this system, why was a correction not performed? Ron Slater, a former construction foreman for the general contractor presented a possible reason for a construction company not being quick to deliver information about a potential hazard to a Seattle publication shortly after the incident.

"They preach a lot about safety but when you open your mouth too much, all of a sudden you become the problem," said Slater.

Slater also said that he has been blackballed from all construction supervisor jobs in the area due to whistle-blowing on un-safe practices earlier in his career and has since been able to find work only as an equipment operator.

While Slater's accusation of what could have happened may or may not have any true validity, I'll be one to attest that it is certainly possible. To bring a potentially poor crane foundation to the attention of the owner or engineer would at least cause minor delays, and at most cause severe financial impact to the project by requiring a new foundation to be designed and installed putting the crane temporarily out of operation.

I hope that this situation could not have been as easily prevented as Ron Slater is suggesting, but since this accident there have been several similar crane accidents in the US and some with more catastrophic outcomes.

We can add regulation and checklists all we want (and we are), but we also have to think about changing the culture on construction job sites to one that will not sacrifice safety or potential hazards just to save a buck. While laws and penalties are being enacted and more thoroughly enforced, I believe progress needs to be substantially supplemented by the leadership within construction organizations.

Promoting a culture of safety

Time Lapse Tuesday

Time Lapse Tuesday

What is the best way to job hunt?

While I sit here and write about my trials and tribulations of searching for a construction industry job during the worst market since the Great Depression, I will have you know that I in no way feel that my need for employment is any more important or news worthy than that of anybody else. However, I happen to have some experience with writing, some unexpected time on my hands, and a bi-weekly unemployment check that turns the hemmoraging into a slow bleed.

Anyway, I've done some serious thinking lately about the best way to get a job in these "uncertain economic times". While standing at a stoplight with a squeegee and a rag is probably the best way to earn a buck in the short term, I think I'm turning my attention more toward networking and away from rapid fire resume launch. I think that a few months from now will be when most companies begin hiring, and now is the time to lay groundwork, make contacts, and get in front of people's faces. There is no substitute for face to face contact when looking for a job.

Of course some will argue that the rapid-fire resume launch method into cyber-space is the way to go, but I don't see this being any more successful than launching them into actual space and having a potential employer run across it in their travels through the universe (looking for work perhaps). There are hundreds of applicants per position, and to get your docs in front of the right person at the right time who is in the right mood is highly unlikely. In my opinion, networking for jobs not advertised is a more realistic and sensible method of job hunting.

I took to the streets on Friday with resumes in hand with the intention of shoving it in the face of some potential employers and possibly getting some business cards. I did a little research of the Philadelphia construction companies and made a list of who I'd like to work for and then found out where their projects are located.

I'd rather not mess around in their corporate office right now because typically, the jobsites get the final word on who they do and don't hire. So I went straight to the office trailer of a $500 million casino that just broke ground along the Delaware River in Philadelphia and being a casualty of an expired casino project, I thought I could maybe grab a little attention.

I walked around and couldn't find the site at first but after asking some other street wanderers (I guess they got laid off as well), they pointed me in the direction of a construction site that was barely getting underway and a little single wide trailer. I popped my head in and got a look from a man in the back office of the trailer that could have easily said, "Who the hell are you?" or perhaps, "Get out of here before I throw you in that concrete pour."

I introduced myself and asked if I could drop off a resume. I also threw in how I just got laid off from a steel contractor working on the Revel Casino. He seemed immediately more interested. Construction companies will often start a project with a few "pioneers" and then add to it with people from other jobs or new hires and the workload ramps up. I got the feeling that this guy knew he had to hire people eventually.

He took my resume, but when I asked him for a business card he said he didn't have any - must have been fresh out. However, he did say I should stop back next week. I suppose that's better than getting thrown in that day's concrete pour.

What is the best way to job hunt?

iPhone: The sky is the limit

I was browsing some of my favorite blogs today when I ran across the Construction Informer blog by Duane Craig which posted an interesting piece on the new iphone application that turns your phone into a level. My comment to this post was as follows:

"This is great. I can’t wait to lay my hardwood floor. I shudder at the thought of what could be next".

And the truth is that I am actually shudddddering as I write this because the potential of this little phone for not only construction is mind boggling.

After being a loyal Verizon customer for nearly eight years, I switched to AT&T just so I could get my hands, or palms, on this little piece of technological genius. And while the AT&T service is far inferior to Verizon in my opinion, the phone kicks butt. However, I still ask the question of where the progression of hand held computers can take the construction industry?

Hand held devices have been around for years, but this one is bit different mainly because of the application feature and its striking screen resemblance to personal computers. Many web pages are already providing iPhone applicable pages that allow their content to be more easily viewed on the phone.

The following are some interesting iPhone apps that I've found for the construction industry:

InerTrak by Inertron Software allows users to monitor the time they spend on projects for more accurate billing, create client lists with hourly rates, and start and stop the timer as you switch from task to task and then e-mail data to their computers. Download price: $9.99.

InchCalc+ by River Studio eliminates the challenges of feet/inch/fraction calculations (always a tough one for me). It measure length, area, volume, rise, run, and pitch. Download price: $6.99.

Conference Call by IfByPhone will send selected contacts a phone call that connects them to your conference. No need to wait for others to dial in. Download price: free.

Sketches by LateNiteSoft. allows you to create a line drawing from scratch, or snap a photo of the client’s home or a particular feature and draw right on it. The tool lets you change colors, zoom in and out, and send images to others. Download price: $4.99

MarginCalc by Steve Greenley. The program has regular calculator functions but also includes three pairs of pricing buttons for margin, cost price, and sell price. Just enter the two numbers you have and MarginCalc will calculate the third. Again, I think I'll be downloading this one. Download price: Unsure.

EverNote by EverNote lets users keep all their ideas, lists, and other notes in one place, accessible both by the iPhone app and the Web-based desktop version. Written notes, photos, and voice notes can be recorded and saved, then synced so that both devices (phone and computer) are up-to-date. Download price: free.

Most of these apps are geared more toward the self-employed re-modelers but I see this thing breaking into the commercial construction world before too long (I wish I knew how long that was, perhaps when the economy turns around).

Some of my suggested apps included the "How much are you going to rip me off app" which, upon placement on somebody's forehead, will tell you how much money (+/- $500) they will try to gouge you for during the project. Also, the "When are you going to be done app" which predicts the actual schedule of any particular contractor again after placement on the forehead of the project manager.

While Steve Jobs will get more and more rich, the construction industry will be much more informed.

iPhone: The sky is the limit

I don't think these guys survived the recession

I don't think these guys survived the recession

In these economic times....

Have you noticed all the advertisements on television now start with, "In these difficult economic times..", and then go on to explain how you need to give your money to them despite the horrible and catastrophic economy. I've yet to be convinced by any of these ads, but they do get me thinking about what construction companies should do in, "these difficult economic times".

So Mr. or Mrs. Company Owner looks at his or her backlog of work and after some very elementary arithmetic realizes that there will not be enough money to pay the workforce, cover overhead, pay for the corporate jet and vacations to Tahiti, and still leave a sizable profit/bonus. Whatever should they do? I've got it! Start hacking employees.

Like a machete blazing a path through the Amazon, company owners have dropped staff like Terrell Owens drops passes across the middle. The question however, is if this is the best strategy. Perhaps it is, and when they start hiring again, they will have a fresh new group that may be better than the one previously in place.

Perhaps surprisingly however, this is not intended to be a sarcastic rant about the greediness of organizational convention or tendency of Terrell Owens to drop passes(I just saw an opportunity and took it). Rather, I'd like to look a bit more seriously about how a particular project may tackle (no pun intended) some very tight margins.

An ex-coworker of mine who survived a ruthless round of lay-offs at the company for whom I used to work, was talking about how his general contracting company is now having to hard bid jobs that would, under normal conditions, be negotiated. Evidently this hard bid, lump sum, contract presents more risk than a negotiated contract (I'm actually a bit skeptical of this, but let's assume it does). He is faced with the necessity to submit every nickel and dime of extra work to the owner as a request for change order.

To say the least, owner's do not like being nickel and dimed. In fact, getting a reputation for being a nickel and dime contractor can leave you literally picking up nickels and dimes from the sidewalk to stay alive. However, on small projects with a razor thin profit margin, nickels and dimes can turn into dollars that could erase some errors that were not covered by the non-existent contingency line. Is this worth sacrificing your reputation to maintain profitability in a time when survival is the main objective?

My opinion is yes. The owner may be upset in the short term with the small annoying change orders, but I believe this will be soon forgotten and the end result of cost, time, quality, and customer service will be the deciding factor in how your reputation is determined. So go ahead, throw out those nickel and dimes like you're a kid at the mall fountain. You won't even need to make a wish.

In these economic times....

Those darn architects

When unemployment rears its ugly, stinking face, you end up doing things that one who is gainfully employed may not normally do. Some of this you may share with others, and some of this you may not. I'm not talking about eating Ramen noodles three times a day or going on a shopping spree at Goodwill. Rather, I'm talking about looking at the industry in which you work in a way that you otherwise may not when you are in the day-to-day grind of details, deadlines, and workload.

One example of this slightly abnormal behavior came about because I was curious about the economic state of the construction industry and I decided to look on the AIA (American Institute of Architects) website for any clues about where and when the industry may be moving. This in and of itself wouldn't be consider abnormal, but plotting the non-residential percentages for 2009 and 2010 in an Excel spreadsheet could be (see above). I wouldn't say the results were encouraging other than the fact that construction spending will decrease at a slower rate in 2010 than 2009 (according to the AIA). And in the amusement sector of the construction industry, spending is projected to increase 1% in 2010. Woo-hoo! I guess high unemployment creates a need for more roller coasters and wave pools.

The AIA, in my opinion, does a fantastic job of tracking the economics of construction. They provide independent research that I have found to be far superior to the Association of General Contractors. It seems to me that the architects tend to have their you know what together a bit more than contractors. I'm sure there are some that will disagree with me, but from my experience, I can safely say that it has been the case.

I found myself left with three question after my little trip down the road of self-proclaimed economic analysis:

1. Is the non-residential construction spending projected by the AIA good news or bad?

2. Do architects ride the intellectural high-horse when compared to contractors?

3. If the answer to question 2 is yes, why?

Perhaps we can leave this an an open ended discussion for the illustrious Constructonomics readership to hash out. I'm sure we can come to some consensus on this one.

Those darn architects

Some Construction Humor

Some Construction Humor

When the hell will this thing be over?

I answered an unknown number today because I thought it may be from one of the companies to whom I sent a resume that decided immediately upon reading my credentials that not only should I be hired and paid a six figure salary, but I should be inserted as CEO and given full reign of their construction operation. Well, it didn't work out exactly as I had hoped, but at least it wasn't the IRS calling (not that there would be anything wrong with that).

It was actually who I thought was a recruiter and the conversation went kind of like this:

"Hi, my name is so-and-so from so-and-so and I wanted to follow up with you to see if you needed any help with your job search."

"Uh, yeah. A little help wouldn't be bad."

I felt like telling her that if she wanted to help she could tell me when we're going to be out of this
God-for-saken mess and unemployment rates in the AEC industry would start dipping lower instead of quickly approaching levels not seen since the Great Depression. However, I remained cool and calm (as always) and continued the conversation.

"I'm seeing 12 open construction management positions in your area and for the small fee of $49.95 per month we will contact these companies directly and move your resume to the top of the pack."

I'm sorry, but I don't think I'm going to pay $49.95 to do something I can do myself, especially when I'm unemployed. So I declined the offer politely.

I started to think however, of what would happen if the construction industry starts coming back at about the same rate it fell. As quickly as heads rolled, companies will be hiring every man, woman, and child that can write his or her name and knows what street they live on. Recruiters will have a bluetooth in each ear (separate clients) while writing an email, instant messaging and hand shaking their last meeting. I suppose that's the feast or famine nature of the AEC industry.

But once things improve and we're all sitting around laughing about how nervous we were back '09 when nobody had a job, let's make a little thought toward prevention. Perhaps we can somehow avoid such a dramatic drop off a cliff that would even give Wile E. Coyote a few beads of sweat.

When the hell will this thing be over?

You know it's bad when...

You know it's bad when...

Empire State Building taking the LEED

I saw a headline on the ENR website today that caught my attention for one reason and one reason only - because it mentioned the Empire State Building. Growing up on the east coast I was fortunate enough to make fairly regular trips to New York City for school field trips or to see a Broadway show, and I remember the day I first saw the Empire State Building. My back was arched backward as I stood on the sidewalk trying to see the spire from the street (it's not easy). We took the elevator up and looked out on the chaos of New York City from the observation deck. I remember wondering how all these people could function in such a densely populated area and how any type of order was maintatained (I still do actually). Of course, I'm from the farmland of Pennsylvania.

As a kid, the Empire State Building is like, the coolest thing ever. We would tell stories about how you can drop a penny off the top and it would drive itself four inches into the concrete. (This is actually not true. It will bounce harmlessly off the concrete as long as air resistance is around) And the movies made the EPS out to be a glamourous icon of New York City and America. After all, it was the talled building in the world for almost forty years and still stands as the tallest building in New York.

While being a very functional office building, the ESB is a symbol of America, and consequently, a leader. With the proposed $20 million in green upgrades the building will save an expected $4.4 million annually and create quite a buzz (not that is really needs it) about green building not only in the New York and the US, but around the World.

So $4.4 million in savings per year on a $20 million project...let's see, 2o divided by 4.4, carry the one, that's a pay-back of roughly four and a half years. And that's just back of the envelope calcs without considering tax or financing advantages. All this while putting people to work and not to mention contributing to a healthy, more sustainable environment. I'm no genius, but that sounds like a good deal to me.

I think that this particular renovation will be of great significance because of the profile of the building being renovated. Everybody from northern California to southern Taiwan have heard of the Empire State Building and with it's LEED certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) it would truly be taking the lead in the "greening" of existing buildings.

While all the green building in the US is fantastic, when looking at the World in general, the US makes up a very small part of what needs to be done when it comes to sustainable development. One could argue that the US is so insignificant in population compared to India and China that any effort at environmental sustainability is effectively negligible. I disagree with this for two reasons. One, it's not negligible and every little bit helps. Two, the US is setting an example for the rest of the World to follow.

We can't take the risk of a kid not being able to gaze off the observation deck of the Empire State Building because the folks below were too busy to think about the future.

Empire State Building taking the LEED

Experience: Does it deserve the respect?

I doubt there is any other industry that values experience like construction. It just seems to be all about how many years you've got under your belt.

"How many years you been doin' this Bill?"
"28 Tommy, and I've grinded every bit of the way."
"Well, my 30 years trumps your 28, so I think I'll take charge here."

While this is probably an over-dramatization of actual conversations that take place on construction job-sites (and more subtly in boardrooms), experience trumps everything in construction, especially education. If you tried to play the, "but I've got a master's degree" card, your well-educated behind will be cured in concrete in the very near future.

But the question really is if this experience and perceived superiority in the business is in fact warranted. Has anyone really explored this or is it just a forgone conclusion that experienced personnel are better than inexperienced or less experienced? Well, the answer is maybe (to both questions). However this investigation in the construction industry is shallow at best.

While experience can certainly be advantageous, I'm often puzzled by the choices experienced people make. The folks that loaned money to people to buy a house when it was clear that they could not sustain the payments was certainly done by experienced people. Experienced people were behind the accounting scandals, and let's not forget that the now infamous Bernie Madoff was 65 years old before his crooked operation was put to bed, much to the disadvantage of his investors.

But it's not only in the national news that I find experienced people doing questionable and unethical things. In my experience on construction sites, I have seen millions of dollars thrown out the window by very experienced people. I don't think this is because of their lack of intelligence, but more attributable to the way in which their performance is measured. Or perhaps because that is that way they were taught, and therefore the way that is reinforced and rewarded by their organization.

There is an old saying that I learned growing up playing golf that I think applies across the board in life - "Practice does not necessarily make perfect; practice makes permanent. Perfect practice makes perfect."

In order for experience to be truly more valuable, the experience one holds must but be of high operational, managerial, and ethical standard. Else, experience is nothing more than a reinforcement of bad practice that is more difficult to undo.

If you are banking on resting on your well seasoned and perhaps unethical laurels to push you through to the end of your career, I'm afraid that you are sadly mistaken, and I mean this when I say it - you should get out now.

We cannot allow the "experienced" decision makers in our industry to continue down an unethical road (if they are of course). I know that I will have to evolve in my career as things change over the years and I will not be able to coast along upon reaching a certain number of years. Our business is in dire need of change and we can't wait another ten years for this to happen. Old dogs can certainly learn new tricks, if fact, they must.

Experience: Does it deserve the respect?

Construction Costs: In control?

I found myself very interested in the cost of construction work today, so I made a very ambitious choice of looking at the cost of construction vs. the cost of another industry. And what industry should that be? Automobiles? Good choice, we'll compare the cost of construction from 1967 to 2o09 between construction and automobiles in the United States.

For construction, I used the Turner Construction Cost Index, put out by none other than Turner Construction. The index has been tracking construction costs every quarter since 1967. In 1967 the benchmark of 100 was set and now the index sits at about 900. Our industry has brought us an increase of 900% since 1967. So that's a lot...I mean, not that much...I mean, what is that?

I whipped out the spreadsheet and buckled down for an intense 60 seconds of figuring out the yearly increase in construction costs that this index is suggesting, and as a result, I came to the conclusion that according to Turner Construction, costs have increased 5.5% since 1967. Ok, I guess that's not terrible since inflation typically sits around 3%.

Now on to our friends and colleagues, the automakers. I took a rather crude approach to estimating this appreciation by looking at the average price of a new car in 1967 compared to 2009. In 1967 the average price of a new car was $2,750 (must have been nice) and the price of a new car now is $27,958. And this works out to........a 5.8% yearly appreciation. Hmm, I was expecting construction costs to far exceed autos in that time period.

There are some very obvious flaws to this methodology, for example, while construction costs and auto costs have increased at about the same rate, the auto industry has made tremendous strides in costs cutting and productivity improvements since 1967 while construction has lagged miserably. Perhaps an eventual look at earnings or profit margins between construction and automobiles could present a better picture as to what is actually happening.

These numbers could also be thrown off by a supply and demand difference between 1967 and now. For example, people now surely buy more cars per person and probably spend more as a percentage of income than they did in 1967, while this phenomenon may or may not be true for construction. I can see why it is nearly impossible to come to any clear conclusions when comparing things that are very different. Try controlling for all the variables in construction that differ from manufacturing - in fact, be my guest.

Anyway, I think a look at profits and productivity could be a good indication of what may be going on between auto makers and builders (maybe next time), and what I think we'll find is that manufacturing is kicking our severely fragmented, uncontrollable, disorganized, finger pointing, and litigating rear end. Perhaps we can pull ourselves off the canvas at the count of nine and fight back in a battle that would improve costs, quality, safety, and even profits to the construction industry.

Construction Costs: In control?