Week of February 23, 2009
Showcasing their abilities to tackle challenging real-world construction engineering problems, a team of Cal State Long Beach (CSULB) students recently took first-place in the “Design/Build” category of the Associated Schools of Construction’s (ASC) 2009 Student Competition.
Sponsored by nearly all of the nation’s leading construction companies, the competition took place in Reno and featured more than 1,300 students who competed by solving real-life construction-related problems developed by professional companies in a variety of construction categories (Commercial, Heavy Civil, Residential “Multi-Family” and Design/Build).
CSULB’s Design/Build team, which took first place in the Far West Region-Region 7, consisted of construction engineering management students John Hallgarth, Scott Mosier, Nicholas Tasich, Alec Grassel, Dustin House, Jeffrey Goodermote and alternate Ismar Ibrahimpasic. The team was coached by professors Elhami Nasr, Tang-Hung Nguyen, Tariq Shehab, Michael Pulley and Gary Rafferty.
“Winning felt great. It was a lot of hard work and all our dedication as a team paid off. We had a lot of support from so many different sources, especially those from Cal State Long Beach and industry sponsors,” said Mosier. “We basically had 24 hours, and if we weren’t as prepared as we were for this conference, the challenge would have been incredibly more difficult. It was all about all of us working as one team to make it happen.”
In 2005, the CSULB’s Design/Build team also placed first in the Far West Region-Region 7 (universities from California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington) and third nationally. This year’s first-place finish enables the team to compete nationally next month in San Diego.
The Design/Build team’s problem statement, proposed by Swinerton Inc., challenged the team to develop solutions for a private university looking to expand its campus by increasing its capacity for classrooms, the auditorium, student housing and parking.
“This is an annual competition where our students compete at a very high level by utilizing what they have learned in our construction management program and will be using in their professional careers,” said Nasr. “In our curriculum and in competitions like these we emphasize the importance of teamwork. This success is a reflection of cooperative effort among students, faculty, and the companies within this industry that support our program We are also well supported by our College of Engineering, our department and at the university level.”
Hallgarth, the Design/Build team captain, credited the win in part to the extensive amount of time the team spent preparing for the competition outside the classroom.
“The entire team was completely committed in preparing to compete in Reno. We spent a lot of our own time working weekends, evenings and doing practice runs,” said Hallgarth.
The ASC is an international association representing the interests of both academic and industry professionals interested in institutional construction education. The organization focuses on the advancement of construction education, where the sharing of ideas and knowledge inspires, guides and promotes excellence in curricula, teaching, research and service.
“The problem statements proposed at the competition are real projects the sponsor companies developed and built, which took them between two to six months to prepare. These are projects they bid for against other companies,” said Nasr. “Our students had to put forward and extreme effort to go through the entire planning and proposal process within 24 hours. This effort by our students reflects what our university is all about, preparing students to work under pressure in real life situations while functioning together as academically sound team players.”