Student pens award-winning essay
during final semester in Aggieland

In his last semester at Texas A&M, a construction science student won $500 for authoring an essay on construction management, scoring a second-place finish in a national writing contest.

The essay by A.J. Chier, who graduated with a bachelor of science degree in construction science in December 2009, was recognized in the 2010 James L. Allhands Essay Competition sponsored by the Associated General Contractors of America.

"The award recognizes a student essay on a specific topic that is deemed to be beneficial to the advancement of technological, educational, or vocational expertise in the construction industry," states the essay competition's rules.

Chier’s essay was titled "Building a Professional Construction Company — The Case for Attracting, Educating and Retaining Highly Effective Managers."

"To retain professional managers, a company must remember to give incentives to perform," wrote Chier. "A strong motivator is promoting from within. Companies that fail to recognize high achievers will often find that another company recognizes talented employees and lures them away."

Another useful tool in retaining managers is to give them more voice in the company’s decision making process, he wrote, through online polling, or weekly conference calls that include people below the top management staff.

"If there is a high level of transparency and inclusion, these conference calls may also help lower management in the company understand the factors guiding the upper management decisions that ultimately affect their jobs," He wrote.  "This could effectively reduce the rumors and discontent spread by employees who previously misunderstood the decisions of those above them."

Chier is employed with Mass. Electric Construction Company as a maintenance engineer.

- Posted: March 31, 2010 -