Qualifications: Required to be licensed, have good people skills, manage communications between the University and the General Contractor, and be willing to help resolve problems on the spot. I learned very quickly in real-time how to deal with conflict resolution and how to improve documentation so it’s easier to build the next time. I learned so much about accountability; How to try to defuse problems in the field; Project cost and their impact towards my Client; Trying to make everyone happy and most of all; How to LISTEN.

I also learned a lot of expletives I had never heard of! The challenges of this project made me a better architect, as well as a better husband and father as my family lived with me as well. The lessons learned in transforming drawings to reality was invaluable. I made a lot of life-long friends who I still talk to today, twenty years later, and I will always remember a construction worker who lost his life on this project, and never got to see his first child born. This job earned me a promotion upon my return home and many discussions with staff on how “Not” to draw a detail if you cannot rationalize how to build it yourself.