A team of Utah Valley University construction management students took first place in the annual Associated Schools of Construction Management Competition, held in Sparks, Nev., February 8-11. The Mixed Use team took first place in their competition, with Northern Arizona finishing second and BYU third.
“This competition is the equivalent of an NCAA athletics championship for our construction management students,” said Eric Linfield, UVU construction technologies department chair. “They work long hours in hopes of winning their competition and taking home bragging rights.”
Each team is comprised of six team members from their university. The exception is with the “alternates” competition, where students are assigned to a team composed of members from five other universities. Student teams strategized, researched, and practiced for competition during the Fall 2016 semester and early January 2017 in preparation for this competition.
Teams are given their “problem” at 6 a.m. Thursday morning and then submit their solutions by 10 p.m. that same evening. Each team then prepares a proposal presentation for the judges beginning at 7 a.m. Friday morning.
“It is an exhausting experience for these students,” said Linfield, “but our students were up to the task and they amazed not only me, but the judges as well. It’s certainly a real feather in our cap to beat the teams from some of the more recognizable schools like Auburn, Florida and USC. In fact we did so well, some of our students got job offers on the spot.”
Winning UVU team members included Colin Gilmore, Jake Calobeer, Anne Cottam, McKay Johnson, Chris Keeler, Gentry Houghton, and Everett Hinckley. Alternate Mitch Cozzens also took first place with his assigned team in the alternates competition. This team was partially sponsored by Big D Construction.
The competition is organized into three categories; Region Six (Mountain), Region 7 (Pacific Coast), and Open Division (United States). In Region Six, UVU CM students competed in the Mixed Use and Heavy Civil competitions. In the Open Division, CM students competed in Project Management, Concrete Solutions and the alternates competition.
Awards were presented Saturday morning in front of over 1,300 competitors and industry professionals.
For more info on UVU’s Construction Management program, visit uvu.edu/cm.
Fourth region (Section 1)