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CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

December 28, 2010

Construction Resists National Wussiness Trend
Filed under: Uncategorized — nedpelger

Upon hearing the the National Football League cancelled last Sunday’s game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Minnesota Vikings, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said, “We’ve become a nation of wusses. The Chinese are kicking our butt in everything. If this was in China do you think the Chinese would have called off the game? People would have been marching down to the stadium, they would have walked and they would have been doing calculus on the way down.”

I have to agree with our august governor on this one. In general, America continues to make decisions based on fear of lawsuits and fear of inconvenience. We need to get better at making good plans and then executing them well.

The construction industry often does an excellent job at planning, scheduling and execution. Project after project, we complete challenging, one-of-a-kind jobs on time and on budget. Think about how many of your projects hit the on time and on budget criteria.

Nadine Post writes that the newest Frank Gehry building in Miami, Fl will be achieving this distinction in mid-January. The $160-million New World Symphony music academy and performance center has just over 100,000 sf of floor area (that’s right, $1600/sf) full of curves, bends and folds. Yet the 2,500 requests for information have been answered and no claims against the owner or architect have been filed. They resolved the challenges as they occurred. The photos below from ENR give a sense of the project.

As America addresses the challenge of international competitiveness, all Americans get a say in how we proceed. Let’s use the construction industry as a model for toughness, for staying the course in adversity. Other industries certainly surpass us in innovation, safety, etc, but, with the right team, we consistently get it done on time and on budget.

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