Team Creation

James has over 30 years experience in various construction management roles. These roles range from operations and construction to executive roles at an ENR top 25 construction company.

He has led crews, segments, projects, regions, and companies without ever compromising safety, quality, or environmental standards. He has always prided himself on building high performing teams. He has been fortunate that his teams have produced some of the most iconic and challenging projects in the United States. It is to these teams that James owes his success.

James creates teams that are a mosaic of skills and personalities. This variation allows a team to be nimble and highly productive. This approach not only creates an environment that is satisfying to the members individually but also turns customers into clients.

Project Controls

Project Controls in many companies is a measurement of the past. James’ philosophy differs greatly in this respect. He believes the purpose of Project Controls is to create tools that effectively manage operations and increase productivity. The systems he has put in place are geared toward proactive management, not simply reporting how quickly or slowly a project is progressing; or, reporting financial results.

James’ approach to Project Controls is comprehensive in all aspects of the project life cycle. It encompasses not only the traditional areas of project controls (Cost, Schedule, and Document processes) but also draws in safety, quality, and environmental standards through thorough planning and adjustment. He subscribes a project approach in which slow (taking the time to plan) is smooth (a deliberate plan communicated), smooth is fast (execution is as planned) allowing for optimization (a Six Sigma approach). This approach has allowed him not only to have success throughout his project management career but has also created success at a $3.5B company.

Estimating

In many companies estimating is viewed as a department whose sole purpose is to secure backlog. James’ approach varies from this typical standard. He is a thorough believer that Estimating should be a reasonable projection of project cost. He expects an estimate to be built from the ground up using a probabilistic approach to risk assessment. His vast experience from being an Estimator, Chief Estimator, as well as having multiple roles in operations, validate this approach. Most recently James has set policy and procedure for estimating in conjunction with the Director of Estimating (a direct report) to create scalable systems that could handle estimating 10,000 plus projects per year with over a 25% hit rate.