A couple of weeks ago, I had a brush with death. Well, not really, but it felt that way for a few seconds. I was in Asheville, NC at the intersection of Airport Road and I-26, a “diverging diamond interchange.” This video shows you exactly how traffic flow works, where one is essentially crisscrossing …
One of our jobs in Somerset, KY is set to turn over soon. Because it is a new prototype for our customer, I went to visit this week and to meet with our project superintendent. He and I talked over dinner about problem solving and management skills. I was lamenting that sometimes it’s hard to …
Earlier in the week I was meeting with an equity firm we’ve partnered with over the years. They are experienced, and just solid folks. We have worked on several projects together, where they provide the equity to the developer sponsor, and we build the project, sort of like a 3-legged stool. That morning, we were …
Every year, there are more regulatory boxes to check and forms to fill out for a job site. However, our number one job is always to ensure anyone who enters our site remains safe. Our project superintendents are on the front line, and we ask them to walk their job “more than once,” looking for …
We would all like to weigh our words carefully before we speak, and only say things we’ll be proud of 24-hours later. In reality, this doesn’t always happen. Earlier this week, toward the end of a tough, stressful day, I had a disagreement with a couple of our managers over something minor. I told them …
I try to use flight time to catch up on my business reading. [For the life of me, I cannot understand how others on the plane enjoy watching a movie on a tiny smartphone.] On my return from Minneapolis this week, I poured through a stack of WSJ articles. One was an obituary for Bob …
This week, I was in Denver participating in a peer group of other contractors from around the US–from Washington State to Pennsylvania. This was “an assembly of like, non-competing firms in an organized setting, exchanging private company information for mutual benefit.” As a construction company, I found these three takeaways we discussed most helpful and to …
As teenager, I helped my father build a cabin in North Georgia. I still remember how he loved his Craftsman 6-foot yellow folding rule. I wish I still had one, but unfortunately, I somehow misused them when I was younger and ended up breaking a few. Still, I have great respect for what that simple tool …
There’s a running joke around the office about who has received an email from me early in the mornings, maybe too early at times. I’ve been known to write at 3 or 4 in the morning. I wouldn’t bill myself as an insomniac or a workaholic. I just find my best productivity in the solitude …
Strange as it sounds now, back in the 1970s, getting a concrete floor into a “flat mode” was at times measured as “no more than an 1/8 inch difference in 10 feet,” or for the old timers, “throw a nickel on a wet floor, and if the water doesn’t bead over the top, it’s okay.” …
Before email came on the scene, in many ways we were restricted to communicating during business hours. No one wanted to bother someone with a call to their home phone unless it was a real emergency. Email transformed this notion by giving the sender the option to write at his or her leisure. The receiver …
EIFS (exterior insulating finish system) was once one of the hottest building materials on the market, then water intrusion problems signaled the demise of the way it was being used. The industry then took a hard look at means of installation and corrected those earlier problems. Beyond revising installation errors, a whole new family of cool finishes …