National Academy of Construction

Focuses on Generational Imperatives

COMMENTARY

By Bob Prieto

Chairman & CEO
Strategic Program Management LLC

Jupiter, Florida

The National Academy of Construction, founded in 1999, has continued to grow its focus and membership in ways that become increasingly relevant to the United States in the years ahead. Originally focused on honoring key individuals in the profession, the very nature of its members as leaders soon drove it to seek to proactively contribute to the industry in which they have served with distinction throughout their professional careers.

Initial contributions focused in the area of safety, a perennial industry challenge. Over the last 15 years nearly 50 safety white papers have been published and shared broadly throughout the industry with NAC often acting as a convener around this topic and also workforce development.

More recently the NAC has intensified its efforts to support the generational transfer of construction related knowledge while at the same time sharing their insights based on decades of senior executive experience and involvement in emerging challenges and opportunities the industry is facing. Today the National Academy of Construction (NAC) drives this increasingly important sharing of knowledge through two primary vehicles.

The first of these vehicles is Executive Insights. Executive Insights captures the knowledge, experience, and wisdom gained through individual NAC member’s leadership roles in the construction industry. To date sixty insights have been published by NAC and are freely available to clients, engineers, project and construction managers, and contractors, worldwide.

Executive Insights cover a broad range of areas, reflecting the breadth and depth of its over 300 members. The major topical areas addressed include:

• General topics, encompassing strategies to improve large project delivery; the nuts and bolts of engineering and construction; capital project execution in an operating environment; and post disaster engineering and construction. Improving large project delivery is a theme that runs through many of the Executive Insights and reflects the ongoing imperative to improve project performance which has now risen to a generational imperative.

• Accelerating project delivery, addressing topics ranging from owner procured materials, partnering and improving workflows on tomorrows projects. Recent challenges faced as a result of COVID-19 highlight the importance of these capabilities and the insights shared, together with ones that will arise by NAC members most recent experience will help address what will undoubtedly become a growing generational imperative. The recognition of using schedule to drive project performance and outcomes was only made clear in the COVID crisis.

• Construction driven design, looks at some insights gained on major design- build efforts and reflects some of the considerations that likely were front of mind for the original “Master Builders”. The NAC’s members, through Executive Insights, seek to help the next generation of “Master Builders” including those contemplating entering the profession.

• Estimating project cost, focused on sharing best practices, insights from a C-suite level and lessons learned to improve the completeness and accuracy of the cost baselines of the projects we undertake. The range of Executive Insights already prepared is impressive, addressing scope required for quality estimates, costing of projects and bidding for profit under a number of different scenarios.

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How to cite this article: Prieto, R. (2020). National Academy of Construction Focuses on Generational Imperatives; PM World Journal, Vol. IX, Issue V, May. Available online at https://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/pmwj93-May2020-Prieto-Natonal-Academy-of-Construction-Focuses-on-Gerational-Imperatives.pdf

About the Author

Bob Prieto

Chairman & CEO
Strategic Program Management LLC
Jupiter, Florida, USA

Bob Prieto is a senior executive effective in shaping and executing business strategy and a recognized leader within the infrastructure, engineering and construction industries. Currently Bob heads his own management consulting practice, Strategic Program Management LLC. He previously served as a senior vice president of Fluor, one of the largest engineering and construction companies in the world. He focuses on the development and delivery of large, complex projects worldwide and consults with owners across all market sectors in the development of programmatic delivery strategies. He is author of nine books including “Strategic Program Management”, “The Giga Factor: Program Management in the Engineering and Construction Industry”, “Application of Life Cycle Analysis in the Capital Assets Industry”, “Capital Efficiency: Pull All the Levers” and, most recently, “Theory of Management of Large Complex Projects” published by the Construction Management Association of America (CMAA) as well as over 650 other papers and presentations

Bob is an Independent Member of the Shareholder Committee of Mott MacDonald. He is a member of the ASCE Industry Leaders Council, National Academy of Construction, a Fellow of the Construction Management Association of America and member of several university departmental and campus advisory boards. Bob served until 2006 as a U.S. presidential appointee to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Business Advisory Council (ABAC), working with U.S. and Asia-Pacific business leaders to shape the framework for trade and economic growth. He had previously served as both as Chairman of the Engineering and Construction Governors of the World Economic Forum and co-chair of the infrastructure task force formed after September 11th by the New York City Chamber of Commerce. Previously, he served as Chairman at Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB) and a non-executive director of Cardno (ASX)

Bob can be contacted at rpstrategic@comcast.net.