Ohio State's Student Construction Management (CM) Team recently returned from the Associated Builders and Contractors National Competition in Birmingham, Ala., where it earned an overall first place national championship while competing against 13 of the top CM programs in the country.
The team was led by six pre-selected Construction Systems Management students from CFAES'sDepartment of Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering: Derek Goettemoeller (team captain), Trevor Bunevich (co-captain), Shane Mouser, Todd Heitkamp, Jeremy Severs, and Andrew Gest.
Accompanying the team at the competition and serving as team advisers for their fourth consecutive year were W. Mac Ware (CSM instructor, Ohio State) and Alex Belkofer (P|C|S, Project and Construction Services Inc.).
The 13th annual ABC National Student Chapter Construction Management Competition, which ran from April 29 to May 3, featured 14 of the top construction management schools from around the country. The program required student teams to act as a construction manager/general contractor submitting a technical price proposal for a real construction project. The competition is staged over five days, with the student teams having received an initial RFP (request for proposal) from ABC National in February.
During the competition, teams bring their prepared technical proposals and compete head to head in areas of project management/scheduling, cost estimating, and safety. A "short list" of the top eight teams is prepared after two rounds of judging, and formal interview presentations are conducted by the ABC National judging panel.
This year, the Ohio State team placed first in the overall category while also placing first in the project management and scheduling category and second overall in the estimating category.
-- Alex R. Belkofer, P|C|S, Project and Construction Services Inc.