CMAdvisor May/June 2010 - 5

MAY 2010

ATLANTA, GA

OWnERS FORuM PRESENTS SURPRISING BUT TIMELY MESSAGES
Sometimes what you hear when you “go direct to the source” can surprise you. Consider the messages CM practitioners took away from the 2010 Owners Forum held in early May in Atlanta. Nearly 20 leading owners from both the public and private sectors, spread across four general sessions and two interactive “town halls,” shared their plans, expectations and policies when it comes to Agency CM services. The final topic—owners’ grasp of the value of CM—occasioned the most surprise and discussion among the 300-plus participants.
David Chambers, director of planning and architecture at Sutter Health, reported that his organization “invites the CM and the design company to work together with us to remove waste and deliver value,” and added, “the benefits of getting it right can be astounding.” Several other owners, however, either expressed indifference to the value of CM in their projects or insisted it was a function they could perform adequately in-house. Responding to several of the owner presentations, Bob Hixon, CCM, of Hill International commented, “It was apparent from the May 3rd Private Owners portion of the CMAA Conference, that many private owners do not yet understand the value of CM Agency services in managing the design and construction process to provide them with high quality projects that are delivered on time and within the budget.” The owners took part in general sessions devoted to process industries, transportation, healthcare, and federal markets. Each day’s program was capped by a town hall session that re-assembled owner speakers from the other sessions. “The owners we saw on Monday were not necessarily embracing Agency CM,” said Ron Kerins, CCM, of GREYHAWK. “They become a target for us to embrace what we do.” John Manning, CCM, of Kraus-Manning, noted that “owners really don’t understand what a CM practitioner, especially a consultant, can bring to the mix. The whole process of getting us more ingrained together will help them understand and help us market CM practitioner services to them.” Joseph Seibold, PE, FCMAA, reaped another important lesson from the conference— that owners are sometimes much more sophisticated than CMs may think in terms of Integrated Project Delivery, sustainability and other topics. “While we as service providers should be bringing cutting edge Best Practices and new innovations to our clients, many of them are already there,” Seibold said. A number of owner speakers, though, stressed their reliance on qualified consultants to provide professional CM and PM services, and several—including Houssam Sleiman, PE, CCM of Massport, put special emphasis on the value of working with Certified Construction Managers. Regardless of the specific opinions being expressed, many attendees agreed on the importance of hearing these viewpoints direct from owners. “It’s critical to understand what the owner’s point of view is,” said Manning.

CMAdvisor May/June

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VIDEOS FROM THE OWNERS FORUM
Joe Seibold, PE, FCMAA, ARCADIS John Manning, CCM, Kraus-Manning Rebecca Jones, Safework Ron Kerins, CCM, GREYHAWK

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CMAdvisor May/June
CMAdvisor May/June 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of CMAdvisor May/June 2010
