Virginia Tech Students Crowned National Pre-Construction Champions

National Pre-Construction ChampionsNational Pre-Construction Champions

A team of 6 students traveled to Sparks, Nevada in February 2009 to compete in the Associated Schools of Construction National Pre-Construction competition.  Under the supervision of Dr. Chris Fiori, they competed against 13 other teams from universities across the country, such as Arizona State, California Polytechnic, Colorado State and Brigham Young. Among these competitors, Virginia Tech finished in first place.  In addition to their first place finish, team member Sheila Matarazzo received the MVP award for the competition.  The team consisted of five seniors, Sheila Matarazzo, Lillian Miller, Jeff Simmons, Brandon Knight and David DuBose and one sophomore, Jacob Brown.  The competition problem was sponsored by PCL Construction and was completed in two phases, culminating in a presentation to the PCL judges.  The first phase of the project was completed prior to the team’s arrival in Nevada and was submitted at the initial meeting with the PCL judges the morning of the first competition day.  Teams then received their Phase II problem at 6:00am on day one of competition and were required to submit their solutions at 10:30pm that evening.  The problem involved a new office building and required the students to develop a plan for providing pre-construction services as well as a plan to negotiate a contract to provide construction.  These included estimating, scheduling, value engineering and constructability reviews, site logistics, equipment selection and a LEED credit evaluation.

 The teams were required to present their solutions to the PCL judges the following day.  The VT team presented strongly and their solution included an innovative fly-through of their site phasing plans.  The PCL judges requested their presentation for use in their internal company training, quite a complement to the team.  They proudly represented Virginia Tech and the Myers-Lawson School of Construction at this national competition.