Building UGA: Coordinating Campus Construction

This week we're re-airing a conversation with had with Melanie Ford last year. 

Introduction - Melanie’s backstory
Melanie Ford is the Senior Director of Construction for the University of Georgia Office of the University Architects. Before her move to the university, she worked for 20 years as a contractor and a Vice President of Whitsel Construction Services. She’s the Georgia Chapter President for the Construction Owners of America and one of the co-founders and current President of Athens Area Women in Construction.

Melanie shares about how a stressful project in an architecture class drove her into building science. She shares about how the dean of a professor told her that a woman wouldn’t be able to tell “some 50-year-old, hard-hat-wearing man where the hell he can put his steel.”

She shares about the challenges of finding a position in construction when she graduated, but a couple decades later, she is still happy with her choice to go into construction. She then tells us a bit about her family’s move to Athens, Georgia.

Melanie’s work at UGA
Melanie explains what it is that she does at the University of Georgia. She oversees all construction on campus, including major capital projects and major renovations. She and her department are responsible for ensuring architectural and construction continuity across campus.

She tells us a bit about the significant increase in sports-related construction, including large softball and tennis stadium projects. In addition to that, there are the ongoing renovations of buildings constructed in the 1950s.

Eddie asks about how the challenges differ between different types of projects. Melanie talks about a few of her favorite projects.

Project Managers 
Eddie asks Melanie to provide feedback to project managers from an owner’s perspective. She starts with thoughts about the importance of doing your research ahead of time in order to be aware of current conditions in a building set for renovation. She talks about timelines that were unnecessarily extended due to school-year schedules.

She points out that many PMs tend to keep information and problems to themselves. This can be frustrating to people in positions like Melanie’s because they often have resources and connections to solve those problems.

Eddie asks about the bidding process in the university domain, which leads to a conversation about task-order contracting. She explains how this approach works with smaller contracts and lists of pre-approved contractors. We explore the ins and outs of the approval process for this group of contractors and how it is used by various governmental entities. Melanie says that owner-contractor relationships result in task-order projects being completed on time more often than hard-bid projects.

Melanie discusses the types of feedback she provides to contractors who ask what changes they could make in order to increase their chances of future work with the university.

Project initiation and design-build
Eddie asks about the process a project goes through from the point of conception to completion. Melanie talks us through the process that sometimes involves legislators, wealthy donors. She gives an example of an unexpected connection between botanical gardens and a porcelain collection. She then walks us through the steps of a hypothetical project.

Eddie asks Melanie for her opinion on design-build. She explains that she’s not a huge fan of this approach in most cases. She says that she feels like the owner loses a certain amount of control because of the chain of command that results. She prefers for the builder, the designer, and the owner to perceive one another as peers. She also mentions that the historical character of campus architecture can suffer as a result of design-build dynamics.

Eddie shares about a complicated, somewhat messy arrangement he experienced in a project a few years ago and asks Melanie for her thoughts. She shares her insights about the vision-setting, information exchange, and communication complications that can arise with unusual arrangements. Melanie shares a humorous story about how she was introduced to Bluebeam. Eddie shares some thoughts about the importance of old-school communication: actual talking. We discuss the different outcomes of different forms of communication–email vs. actual voice conversations.

Megaphone message
We’re all on the same team. It’s all about taking a team approach. If you have your best intentions, we don’t have to have adversarial relationships. Also, support each other. Melanie shares about the importance of mentorship, especially for women in construction.

Bonus content
Eddie shares some crazy facts about university protectionism regarding mascots and rivalries.

Find Melanie Online: LinkedIn, Construction Owners of America

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