“Leadership is building a bridge that connects the vision with the purpose, in order to empower those who are around us.” -David Walker
Last week I mentioned our friend Nivi Sharma and Bridges to Prosperity. Did you apply for her giveaway yet?!? This week, I sat down with one of our nation’s foremost experts on bridges, Vince Campisi, to discuss his 50+ years of experience in the Engineering world. Listen here! So, in the spirit of building bridges, I’m going to keep it simple and share one of my favorite poems of all time by Will Allen Dromgoole: The Bridge Builder.
Whether it’s at work in our communities or in our families – leaders build bridges. What bridges are you building?
BJ Kraemer, President
P.S. – Whether it’s an infrastructure problem or a leadership problem, we help public and private leaders solve problems, build projects and improve their organizations. Think we can help you? Shoot me an email.
Title: “The Value of Personal Expertise with Vince Campisi”
Episode Summary:
On this episode of Inspiring People and Places, BJ sits down with Vince Campisi. Vince has over 50 years of experience in the management, design, inspection and rehabilitation of highways, railroads, and various types of bridges and buildings. Vince explores his career journey, how he learned to manage the time strain of going to night school, having a job and maintaining a family, and how the infrastructure of our country can be reformed.
“It is impossible to unsign a contract, so do all your thinking before you sign.” -Warren Buffet
The first rule I was taught in Construction Management was to read the contract. The first rule I learned in real estate development was if it’s not part of the contract, it’s not part of the deal. The first rule I learned in customer service was if the client has to pull out the contract, we’ve already lost them.
Contracts…those big, long, fine print PDFs that credit card companies, banks and social media companies get us to sign off in a rush just to keep things moving! But as big and complicated as contracts may be, they really are the critical partnering document to a project. They are the place we can lay out expectations and work through contentious issues. They are where two or more parties can get aligned.
I know, I know – it’s not the most exciting topic. Lawyers make fun of themselves, and each other, for “overcomplicating.” But the truth is, the contract is where risk is identified. After risk is identified, we only have a few options. Mitigate, manage or MOVE. Most of the time, moving the risk means shifting it from one party to another. Sometimes that’s through an insurance policy, or sometimes through a subcontract, but risk rarely runs uphill.
Why am I talking about contracts? Well, this week’s podcast was with Brian Perlberg, an attorney and the primary champion of ConsensusDocs – an alternative to the AIA standard contract that aims to align parties and ensure fairness in the A/E/C contracting space. Listen here!
Title: “Making a Big Impact by Applying Expertise and Focusing on Communication to Protect Contract Fairness with Brian Perlberg”
Episode Summary:
On this week’s episode BJ sits down with Brian Perlberg, Executive Director & Senior Counsel for ConsensusDocs, a coalition of 40 leading construction organizations. Brian is the only construction attorney in the United States certified as a CM-Lean for lean construction. Using Brian’s contracts to communicate and incorporate best practices instills fairness throughout contracts and are used by people who want to mitigate claims instead of escalating claims.
CM-Lean: The AGC Certificate of Management-Lean Construction (CM-Lean) is an assessment-based certificate credential that denotes knowledge and understanding of concepts related to lean adoption, practice and process transformation outlined in AGC’s Lean Construction Education Program. Successful candidates will carry the CM-Lean designation.
ConsensusDocs was founded in 2007 under the leadership of twenty organizations in the architecture, engineering, and construction (A/E/C) industry, with one goal in mind: to help the industry build a better way by developing contracts that protect the best interests of the project. In order to do so, the ConsensusDocs Coalition created a process dependent upon — trust, collaboration, and innovation. About The ConsensusDocs Coalition | Construction Contract Agreements: The ConsensusDocs Coalition consists of 41 prominent organizations collectively representing more than 300,000 individuals and companies
