CEA Awards Annual Grants to Universities

SACRAMENTO -- The Construction Employers Association presented CSU Sacramento with the Donald L. Warmby Leadership Award in recognition of its first place grant award. The school received the grant to develop CDs, construction props, samples of construction materials and to catalogue the contents of their construction library. In addition, CSUS received funding for its student academic-achievement scholarship awards.

The late Donald Warmby, the former chief executive officer of San Francisco-based Hathaway Dinwiddie Construction and a past president of CEA, was instrumental in initiating CEA's Construction Management University Program, designed to support and promote quality construction management education and to develop long-term relationships with the participating universities.

Additional grant awards were given to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, to fund the CEA Faculty Professional Development Endowment Fund; CSU Chico, to fund the development of Smart Lab Classrooms; Stanford University, to fund consulting professors and field trips; and UC Berkeley, to fund the development of video-based case studies of construction operations in Northern California.

CEA awards grants annually to deserving universities as part of its Construction Management University Grant Program.

For the 2002 program year, the CEA Construction Management University Grant Program Committee evaluated grant applications from five universities based on such factors as impact to the building construction industry and quality of the grant proposal. The following universities that applied for grants received funding from CEA: UC Berkeley, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, CSU Chico, CSU Sacramento and Stanford University.

ASA Declares 2003 Payment Advocacy Year

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - The top three payment issues that subcontractors say have an impact on their businesses are slow final payment, pay-if-paid clauses and late progress payments, according to a survey of American Subcontractors Association members conducted in 2002. In order to address these and other persistent payment problems, ASA has designated 2003 as Payment Advocacy Year (PAY!).

"During Payment Advocacy Year, subcontractors are looking carefully at the causes of payment problems and developing solutions to address them," said 2002-03 ASA President Anne Bigane Wilson, CPC, PE, president of Bigane Paving Company in Chicago. "Unfortunately, the construction industry is plagued by laws, contracts and traditional practices that reinforce the untenable position that nonpayment, or late or partial payment, for work properly performed is acceptable."

"PAY! focuses both on educating subcontractors about how to cope with, and make progress toward eliminating payment problems, and on how subcontractors can make the case to enact new policies and legislation wherever necessary. PAY! is nationwide and encompasses the federal, state and local levels," said Wilson.

Through the PAY! campaign, ASA is providing subcontractors with tools to combat unacceptable payment practices on construction projects. ASA has over 50 state and local chapters that are participating in PAY!, and ASA is distributing a monthly newsletter in 2003 for state and local construction industry leaders.

For individual subcontractors, ASA is posting white papers, articles and frequently asked questions sheets about payment on its Web site at www.asaonline.com.

AGC Constructor Awards Entry Deadline Nears

WEST SACRAMENTO -- The entry deadline for AGC of California's annual awards is Friday, Jan. 31. The 2003 AGC Constructor Awards honors outstanding California construction projects that were substantially completed in 2002. All entries must be in AGC's state office in West Sacramento by 5 p.m. that day.

Only projects completed or substantially completed in California in the calendar year 2002 by AGC member firms are eligible to compete in the awards program, which is sponsored by Gallagher Construction Services.

Small and large projects are considered equally, and the sophistication of the presentation is not part of the judging; rather, it is the merits of the project that determine the winners of the coveted bronze Constructor statuettes. Only one entry per category may be submitted by each member firm. Entries are limited to two categories per year, and each category must have a different project. There is a fee of $200 per entry.

There are six categories for this year's competition:

• Excellence in Project Management, Projects $5 million or below
  
• Excellence in Project Management, Projects over $5 million .
  
• Innovation in Construction Techniques or Materials
  
• Contribution to the Community - This category might be a contractor whose project, through the contractor's primary efforts, benefited the community or a charitable organization.
  
• Meeting the Challenge of the Difficult Job, Builder Classification
  
• Meeting the Challenge of the Difficult Job, Heavy Engineering Classification.
  

The Awards Committee will conduct first-round judging early this year and expects to select finalists in each category and notify them of their selection by the middle of March. Judging of the finalists will then be undertaken by a panel of seven judges, consisting of the three AGC Division Chairs, three members of the Awards Committee and one individual from the public or private sector allied with the construction industry, as selected by the Awards Committee.

All finalists will be honored at the AGC Constructor and Achievement Awards Banquet to be held on Saturday, April 5, at the Renaissance Long Beach Hotel. Winners will not be announced prior to the dinner program.

For entry forms or more information, contact AGC's State Office at (916) 371-2422.