January 2023
While 2022 was a busy year for all of us, Project Manager, Phil Matthews, added even more to his jam-packed schedule. Phil who works as an electrical construction project manager out of our Rochester office, was nominated by our senior management team to attend the NECA Innovation Institute, a year-long executive level leadership course made up of ten contractors from across the country.
The cohort met virtually once a week for one-on-one sessions, bi-weekly with the entire group, and quarterly in person. Homework was mandatory also, as the group was assigned required readings and discussion topics including political involvement, labor, human resources, industry best practices, and pre-construction methods. Everyone completed a capstone project as well.
Phil’s capstone project was “Accubid Takeoff to Microsoft Project – An Accurate, Time Saving Solution to Reliable Schedules”. In short, Phil’s goal was to efficiently export information from our estimating software to Microsoft Project, which could then be used to generate an accurate, usable project schedule. Phil worked closely with a small team of individuals, including Brian Shaffer, Director of Estimating, Matt McDonald, Chief Estimator, Brendan Reilly, Project Analyst, and Brian Rittenhouse, Vice President of Rochester Construction and Construction Services.
Phil presented on his project to the cohort several times throughout the year. The final results of his project will be shared amongst our project management teams in coming months, and we hope to eventually implement a few new and updated procedures in O’Connell’s work methodology.