Learn about what interesting subject matters will be covered in the 2024 Symposium Project Management (PM) and Construction Management (CM) Track. Track hosts Melvin Price, Senior Associate Principal ORAT Practice Lead at Jacobs, and Annabelle Tran, Project Manager at Jacobs, share about their backgrounds in PM/CM and what they are looking to share and takeaway from Symposium. Melvin and Annabelle share with Max and Carrie how they are diving deep into ORAT, GMP, and the Seller’s Market during Symposium. If you want to learn (or a refresher!) on these terms and abbreviations, give this episode a listen and check out the PM/CM Track at Symposium.
The Hold Room, Season 2 Episode 17
Transcript
[Intro Music]
TJ: Welcome to The Hold Room with ACC: a quick update on all things relating to airport development as well as the Airport Consultants Council.
Laura Canham: This episode is part of the Passenger Experience series hosted by ACC’s Terminal and Facilities Committee. In this series, we are collecting the experiences and perspectives about the future of passenger travel, including changing demographics (such as the U.S. population aging and becoming more multi-cultural), new technologies, labor, and supply chain shortages, and what the future may have in store. Thank you for joining us in the Hold Room!
[Intro Music End]
Carrie Wojcik: Welcome back to the Hold Room. Hi, I'm Carrie.
Max Vale: Hi, I'm Max.
Carrie: And we are joined today with Annabelle and Melvin from Jacobs. They're going to take time to introduce themselves and their roles.
Melvin Price: Melvin Price, I’m with Jacobs. I helped to lead our practice. I have been in aviation for the past 24 years. My degree is in electrical engineering. I have an MBA. And I have worked on projects all over the United States and some parts of the world. I have been a member of ACC since I became a consultant in 2018. Happy to be here. I have presented at ACC and AAAE Construction Symposium a couple of times. This is my first time as a track host, but none of this would be possible without my colleague Ms. Annabelle Tran.
Annabelle Tran: Hi everyone! I'm Annabelle Tran. I've been with Jacobs for about two years now. I was working for our Denver office as a project architect and then transferred over to LAWA [Los Angeles World Airports] for PM/CM for wayfinding. I don’t have any experience with ACC, but since Melvin has brought me on, it's been quite a ride and I'm learning a lot about what this organization is and very excited to see where we go from here. A little bit about me, I. We have about 10 years of airport experience on airport campus facilities, both domestic and international. The different project types I've done include airport terminal renovations, expansions, airline clubs, signage, wayfinding, and tenant and hold room interior outfit. Since I have been working as an aviation professional, I haven't gone to any symposiums or been on any committees, so this is all brand new to me and it's been quite interesting so far.
Max: To educate some of our listeners who may not be familiar with some of the terminology we say like PM/CM, can you take just a brief moment to talk about what those different abbreviations stand for?
Melvin: What they mean? Yeah, so I will tackle ORAT, and interestingly enough as an industry, ORAT means a lot of different things. I just got back from Washington DC, and I was selected for an airport cooperative research program panel specifically on ORAT. We have determined what the letters and ORAT now mean for the industry. It [ORAT] means “Operational Readiness Activation and Transition”. It is the art and science that take a static construction project and bring it to life and it [ORAT] ensures opening day success for that facility and its stakeholders. PM/CM is “project management, construction management,” essentially it is the team of people that are responsible for the scope, schedule and budget of the project. They are in fact the team that you may hear referred to as the “delivery team,” so those are the people that manage the project construction, do everything to ensure that they maintain scope, scheduling budget for the owner.
Max: Very good. Thank you.
Carrie: I think your backgrounds are really interesting electrical engineering and, Annabelle, wayfinding and terminal design, so I'm excited to hear your different perspectives as we go through these questions and learn more about your track. Can you tell us a little bit more about the 2024 ACC AAAE Symposium track you are both involved with?
Melvin: Well, it is actually the PM/CM Track. It's all about constructing things. It was refreshing that they chose ORAT specialists to lead the PM/CM track, because they those efforts really do go hand in hand in delivering a functional project program to the owner. The impetus of our group is to kind of highlight a lot of the things that go into delivering projects from design, construction, cost, personnel, and a bit about operational readiness. We feel it's a very well-rounded track and we look forward to people being able to come and learn about. We will discuss how things are done, how things can go right, how things can go wrong, and sharing knowledge and experience. It will be very enlightening.
Max: Tell us a bit about the sessions that are part of this [PM/CM] track. What the topic is and a brief description of each session?
Melvin: Yeah. Well, let me just go through some of them. One of the sessions is about GMP or “Guaranteed Maximum Price”. Last year, there was a track on CMR, so GMP's and CMR [or Construction Manager at Risk] typically go hand in hand. But we want to do a deeper dive on the efficiencies of GMP. To provide owners with tips and tricks on how to make the GMP work best for you. The next session is titled “It’s a Sellers Market”. One area in the aviation industry, and all industries is its workforce as a whole. There's very much a limited number of qualified professionals. There are new people coming in, but when you're looking at large capital programs. For a capital program, you want seasoned professionals. This session will teach the ability to identify and hone in on talent coming from the next generations. Annabelle?
Annabelle: There was the one session about The Seller’s Market.
Melvin: That was the one I just reviewed. Do you want to give more context of what you think about that one? You’re [Annabelle] in that seller's market. You are that demographic of coming in. You have some experience with this one [the seller’s market] both in architecture and ports. You [Annabelle] may have been only with our company [Jacobs] for two years, but you have a lot of aviation experience that makes you the person you are today. That’s why we're [Jacobs] happy to have you [Annabelle].
Annabelle: You did say that it's [Session “The Seller’s Market”] about how to get the best team for your project and being involved with wayfinding for projects we are always looking for the best teams to come and work on our project. There is a lot of work to be done beforehand, including laying out everything, going through the best practices, etc. We have to talk to these teams and create excitement and then make sure they know exactly what they're getting into and how we are able to receive the best and most complete proposals from all bidders. The Seller’s Market is about the do's and the don'ts along with different lessons learned. There is a lot that I can still learn from a lot of these different programs.
Melvin: The next session is “Lessons Learned: Designing, Implementing, and Constructing a New Single Terminal at KCI [Kansas City International Airport]. Kansas City and KCI has a special place for me because that is where I started my career in aviation and in the workforce in general in the year 2000. I worked there from 2000 to 2013, and I just wanted to give a shout out that I got a call on Sunday that the person that taught me a lot about what I know about stakeholder engagement, empathy, and just understanding people passed away on Sunday. Shout out to Rich Williams. He has helped me get to where I am right now, and he will never be forgotten. The last session is “Exploring Innovation and Best Practices in the ORAT Program”. This is looking at innovation and best practices and what you should be looking for in your operational readiness programs, so that that outlines all the workshops that we have in our PM/CM track at the ACC AAAE Symposium.
Carrie: Yeah, those are some awesome topics. I'm curious what track you're looking forward to, but also like what are you hoping to take away from this experience?
Melvin: Well, for me it's honestly, it's less about what I want to take away and more about what we want to share. I firmly believe that high tide raises all boats. When you have an organization like ACC and AAAE working together to further the industry [aviation industry] with knowledge transfer for, you know, wonderful, wonderful suite of offerings from every aspect whether it be innovation, PM/CM, or the plenaries. It's [ACC AAAE Symposium] about being able to share this information, gain valuable insight from others and then being able to use that information as soon as you get back to work. With a lot of topics, you're going to find it in these sessions, you'll be able to put into play. Also, just being able to have the camaraderie of being in-person at these events. I think we've all learned a lot over the past few years about how lucky we are to be here. It’s icing on the cake. Then, what is my, the track I’m looking forward to the most? For me, it's title is “Integration Done Right: The Design Builders Guide to Aviation, Design Management Synopsis.” Your design is one of the key indicators of how good your project is going to go, the better your design, the better your project will go, and I'm looking forward because it incorporates a University of Florida professor and creating some of these design-build standards, so that is one I'm really looking forward to. I think the more we can have that full range of information from academia all the way to execution really highlights the integrated nature that airports are looking to have.
Carrie: That that was great. Annabelle, what about you? Do you have a track you're looking forward to most or something you're looking to share or gain from this experience at Symposium?
Annabelle: It'll be my first symposium. I know that there are young professionals out there that sometimes may not get the opportunity to go to some of these conferences or symposiums and I'm interested in learning about the different tracks. There's a lot of information that's going to be put out there and I don't get a lot of exposure to that. I think that going to the Symposium as well as my involvement with the team and planning this has extended my knowledge base already. What's great about the Symposium is that it offers a platform for everyone to showcase their skills and learn from each other and benefiting from the experience of other experienced professionals in the in the field. And sometimes you learn something at a conference that you might be interested in that you might find yourself on a different career path because you're inspired by someone.
Carrie: Agreed. I always leave inspired.
Max: Melvin and Annabelle, thanks for joining us to tell us a bit about the PM/CM track and what folks can look forward to and we'll look forward to seeing you all in Salt Lake City..
[Outro Music]
Wendy: Thanks for joining us in the hold room for this special podcast series exploring the new passenger experience. You can find more from this series on the ACC training hub that's training.aconline.org/The-Hold-Room, or wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc. Follow us for more content from the Airport Consultants Council. You can support this podcast by leaving a rating or review and by telling your friends and colleagues about the podcast. Thanks again.
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