Two teams of students from Texas A&M’s Department of Construction Science scored first- and second-place finishes at the Associated Schools of Construction/Associated General Contractors Region V Student Competitions held Feb. 2-4 in Dallas.
Construction Science seniors Pam Muirhead, Erika Butler, Mike Leschber, Demetrio Yanez, Clayton Patton and team captain Danny Mignano won first place in the commercial construction category.
Their challenge was to prepare a bid and presentation for the construction of a $27 million church in Plano. They received their project’s information at 8 a.m. Feb. 2 while still in College Station, and went right to work in the Langford Architecture Center’s Student Leadership Lab.
Team members, coached by senior construction science lecturers Sally Morgan and Debra Ellis, prepared their bid and presentation materials and submitted their bid proposal electronically at midnight. Representatives from Joeris General Conractors, Ltd. Of San Antonio also helped the students prepare their presentation.
The following day, Aggies in the Heavy/Highway Construction team were busy too.
The team, Atanacio Carrisal, James Vardeman, John Forrest, Hillary Boyd, Jonathan Rogers and captain Collin Wood, finished second, just a few points short of the top spot.
They were tasked with preparing a bid and a presentation for a railway expansion project and had help from coaches Yilmaz Karasulu, assistant professor of Construction Science, and Ben Liggett ’07, winner of his Construction Science graduating class’ Craftsman Award.
In addition to expanding the railway, team members also had to determine how to keep the railway and its related facilities open during the project’s 8-month long work schedule.
After receiving the proposal at 7:30 a.m. Feb. 3, the team worked until midnight. They had to adjust their bid throughout the competition to contend with project additions and subcontractor quotes that were not included in the original package. W.W. Weber LLC Contractors of Houston helped team members prepare their competition presentation.
After submitting a bid, the team spent the morning preparing its presentation.
In Dallas on Monday, Feb. 4, both teams made their presentations and answered questions from a panel of industry professionals.
In addition to his team’s first-place finish, Commercial Construction team captain Danny Mignano placed second place in the contest’s best presenter category. The team now advances to national competition at the March Associated General Contractors convention in Las Vegas.
In the other competition category, Collin Wood , the Aggie Heavy/Highway Construction team captain, and teammate James Vardeman won first- and second-place honors respectively in the best presenter category, in which they used satellite images of the worksite to help explain their project’s schedule.
