Students Enjoy Career Success

Before Kris Musgrave graduated, before he’d even started his summer internship, the CM senior was hired to be a project engineer with RK Mechanical.

Amy Farrell, too, was hired before graduating. When Farrell completed her internship with Kinetics last summer, the company offered her a well-paying full- time job, which she began after earning her degree last December. It’s no secret that CM graduates are in high demand and are commanding starting salaries averaging between $45,000 and $55,000.

Graduates attribute their success to the quality of their education – in particular, to the industry experience they received from teachers who cared about them. Aaron Saunders, ’06, a ield engineer with TIC, says he found especially helpful “all the little things that our teachers brought to our classes – stories about speci ic construction issues that they’d had to deal with.”

Mechanical Systems, a course sponsored by the Mechanical Contractors Association of Colorado, is an example that puts students in direct contact with speci ic industry issues. John Thomas, vice president of Trautman & Shreve Mechanical Contractors & Engineers, teaches the course, sharing his 24 years of experience as a mechanical contractor.

“I think it’s important for students to understand concrete and steel, mathematics, English, and history – and also to have an understanding of what the mechanical industry is all about,” says Thomas. The MCA has a need for people who are interested in the mechanical contracting ield, Thomas continues. “It’s important for us to develop that interest in these students.”

The Phelps Placement Office (PPO) also plays a large role in matching students with appropriate internship and employment opportunities. Anna Fontana, coordinator of the placement of ice, teaches a pre-internship seminar students must take before applying for their internships. Carol Gentry, who also works in the PPO, prepares a bound book of seniors’ resumes, which she copies and distributes to the 250 companies involved in the Professiona Development Advisory Board and on- campus recruiting activities.

The internship requirement is an excellent marketing tool, says Fontana adding that 50 percent of internships lead to permanent jobs.

Dan Starr, vice president of operations with GE Johnson, agrees. “The mandatory internship is one of the major factors why we recruit from CSU and gives the students a leg up on some of their peers.”

Jack Miller, administrative manager wit JE Dunn, says the internship program allows students to observe and be part of the JE Dunn culture while allowing the company to observe the students’ quali ications and capabilities to serve specific positions. “We have found the CSU students to be well educated in construction management and equipp with the tools necessary to begin a career in the industry,” says Miller.

Cream of the Crop

The CM department welcomes Anna Fontana as the new interim coordinator of the Phelps Placemen Office. A 1997 CSU construction management graduate, Fontana say her prior position recruiting CSU students for DPR Construction, Inc., i California gave her experience helpin students learn how to interview and present themselves to future employ

Carol Gentry coordinates the CM Career Fair and on-campus senior recruiting activities. N working on her seven career fair, Gentry sa she likes working with people and enjoys the opportunity to work with industry and CM students.

 

---

Revamped Curriculum Debuts This Fall

n Introduction to Construction Management, undergraduate students entering the CM program this fall will learn what the CM program is about, what construction managers do, and the types of careers graduates can pursue with a CM degree. This information will help students identify their interests, so they can then tailor their education to meet those interests.

The new required course is one component of a major overhaul made to the CM curriculum.

Over the last two years, a departmental curriculum committee sought input from faculty, students, staff, advisory board members, industry, and alumni about ways to improve the curriculum. “We received a lot of student feedback about the existing curriculum,” says CM Professor Angela Guggemos, who served on the committee. “They really had a sense of what worked well and what didn’t.”

		Nichole Hall, ’04, key academic adviser (left) and Kimberly Poore, ’06, assistant academic adviser

Changes include better course sequencing, revised course content, more integrated concepts, and more timely delivery of materials. Take Project Administration, for example, which Guggemos used to teach to a class composed of both students getting ready to do their internship and students who had just completed their internship. Because the material is more useful to pre-internship students, the course was melded with a contracts class, and students are now required to take the new course, Construction Contracts and Project Administration, prior to their internship.

Mike O’Reilly, a licensed structural engineer and assistant CM professor, made significant changes to the structural engineering courses he teaches.

“The new courses are now more applicable specifically to CM students,” says O’Reilly. “While constructors are responsible for the construction, but not the design, of permanent structures, they are responsible for both the design and the construction of temporary structures that provide support until the permanent project is finished. Yet both types of structures obey the same laws of physics.”

The updated courses will train CM students to apply engineering principles to the design of temporary steel and wood structures and will also expose them to general engineering design of structural components and systems. This understanding will enable them to communicate more knowledgeably with engineers and architects.

The revised curriculum goes into effect this fall. A transition plan is in place for students in their sophomore through senior years.

Advisers in the CM advising office worked with students, faculty, staff, and the campus community to implement the transition plan.

As of mid-July, CM advisers had met with more than 850 students to help them update their CM check-sheets, create an outline for the remainder of their time at CSU, and address any other advising needs they may have had.

“It was important that we took the time to work with each student, because college can be overwhelming at times, and to throw in new requirements on top of everything else can add to a student’s stress level,” says Nichole Hall, key academic adviser. “We’re offering as much support as possible to our students while also empowering them to take responsibility for their individual academic journey.”

Information about the new curriculum changes appears on the CM website at: www.cm.cahs.colostate.edu/Advising/

Student Competition Results

NAHB Competition, Orlando

Residential Construction Team
Second Place, National – the highest award
CSU has received in 15 years of participating
this competition

ASC Competition, Reno

Graduate-Level Problem Team – First Place,
National
Mechanical Team – First Place, National
Heavy Civil Team – Third Place, Regional
Commercial Building Team – Third Place,
Regional

---

Lab Prepares Students for Heavy Construction Jobs

Representatives at the ribbon cutting for the Colorado Asphalt Pavement Association Asphalt Laboratory are CAPA president Steve Peterson, Lafarge West, Inc., Denver; Bill Kaufman, Colorado Department of Transportation commissioner; Larry Grosse, CM department head; Vice President Joyce Berry, CSU Advancement and Strategic Initiatives; and Ken Coulson, CAPA secretary, Coulson Excavating, Inc., Loveland, Colo.

Last November, the CM department held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to of icially open the new Colorado Asphalt Pavement Association (CAPA) Asphalt Laboratory, the only laboratory of its kind in Colorado.

The department and CAPA share a goal of giving students the opportunity to develop, improve, and advance the quality of asphalt pavement products for use in countless road and highway projects across the nation. To create a facility where such research can occur, CAPA donated $55,000 in funding to establish the laboratory and provided approximately $150,000 of state-of-the-art hot mix asphalt testing equipment on a long-term loan basis.

“Initially, the laboratory will be equipped for undergraduate teaching,” says CM Professor Scott Shuler, who was hired three years ago to develop a heavy construction concentration within the CM program. “Research capability will come later as we develop the undergraduate program and get more students interested in possible graduate studies in asphalt pavement construction.”