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Reprinted from The Voice, Spring 2008
They've done it again! This time, under the leadership of Conference chair Doug Graham of Boeing Corporation, and Conference co-chair Jocelyn Scott of Dupont, the CURT National Conference was a great success. Forgoing the tempting lure of the warm Florida sunshine in November and the gentle Gulf breezes of the nearby beach, over 500 conference participants, speakers and exhibitors engaged in two and a half days of intense discussions on the future direction of the design and construction industry.
From the insightful, if not pretty picture of the current state of the industry presented by Ed Merrow, to Dow Chemicals' best practices presented by Margaret Walker, all the way to the concluding remarks on leadership by Sam Donaldson, the Conference afforded us all the opportunity to learn, teach and share our experiences, our success, and our lessons learned.
In the process we were able to greet and hear organized labor and listen to the recently elected President of the Building and Construction Trades, Mark Ayers, as well as the President of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Ed Hill. As always, their frank and honest presentations were warmly received by the participants. We also received an update on the economy, the 3XPT Strategy Group, and a host of other important, if not critical, issues and challenges that we all face. And within all of the hard work, we still took time, as always, to celebrate the industry's accomplishments in safety, work force development and technology over the past year.
But as successful as this Conference was, it held for me, a particular sense of loss. For two retiring founding members of the Construction Users Roundtable, both past presidents of the organization, this Conference probably marked their last official one as members of the Board of Trustees. To say that Bill Tibbitt, of Johnson and Johnson, and Tom Weise, of Intel, have been exceptional leaders in their profession and in the industry may be accurate, but it does not begin to describe the indelible mark they leave behind. The capital assets that they help manage and deliver for their respective businesses span the entire world. And still, throughout their professional careers, they each have taken the time and interest to help build better processes and relationships in order to improve the delivery of capital construction projects globally for the rest of us.
Together with a small group of colleagues from the recently disbanded construction committee of the Business Roundtable, these visionaries put into motion an idea that, some seven years later continues to blossom as the premiere voice of the owner to the construction industry. And for that we will always be indebted.
More importantly for me, however, I have gained greatly from their leadership skills and keen insight. And my life has been enriched enormously by their friendship. I know that both Bill and Tom will continue to be engaged with CURT, both in an advisory role, as well as hands-on with anything we request of them. In the meantime we wish them both well, joy, health and success. They sure deserve it.
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