The AEC Disruptors

What is fractional leadership? Is it a growing fad or already part of mainstream business concepts? How is the Great Resignation going to affect your industry? Find the answers to all of these questions and more on this episode of The AEC Disruptors with host Christopher Riddell and Guest Beau Billington. Beau Billington is the Founder & CEO of strategic recruiting firm The Free Agent and host of Finding that Next Gear and the Free Agent Podcast. Beau's wealth of experience across industries has allowed his business to "be the connective tissue between high-value leaders and the companies that need them for extraordinary journeys."

The rapid growth of technology products and solutions coupled with the disruption of the pandemic have created a perfect storm for rethinking how people within organizations learn and ultimately spread and share the knowledge they learn and create. In some respects, it is the lifeblood of success for design firms. Suzanne Miks is leading the way in design technology learning innovation. With almost 20 years of experience in the industry, she is a passionate advocate for learning and development and has seen first hand how it can make or break an organization.

We're a half-century old in episode years. That's a unit of measurement, right? Over the past few years, disruption as a concept has moved from strategic thinking to mission critical for organizations, and we have been honored to cover it all over the course of 50 episodes. Listeners, thank you for joining in to hear about the 10-day hospital, the rise and fall of Katerra, sustainability, leadership and company culture, digital twins, and so much more. Here is to 50 more jam-packed episodes and beyond.  

With the onus of engagement being mostly on employers to encourage engagement, what responsibility falls to the individual? How much should a manager rely on direct reports to speak up and keep track of their own engagement? Find the answers to these questions and much more during our second jam-packed episode with Debbie Phillips. Join host Christopher Riddell with guest Debbie Phillips as they discuss employee engagement, even more management books to read, the 'Genius Zone', and much more. Debbie Phillips, Ph.D., CPM is the President of The Quadrillion. She is an entrepreneur and real estate professional with over 30 years of industry experience. Debbie has a multi-faceted career managing diverse real estate assets, including developing world-class leadership development programs and talent management strategies.

When it comes to adopting new innovations, the industry is hesitant. How can we change that? Join hosts Christopher Riddell and Jackson Sensat with guest Satpal Kaur as they discuss the current difficulties in designing with sustainability, how we can start changing industry mindsets, the necessity in embracing new technologies, and more. Satpal Kaur is an innovative designer and building systems thought leader with over a decade of experience implementing cutting edge technologies. She uses a holistic approach in integrating clients to actively become part of the sustainable revolution pursuing comfortable and healthy living environments at zero additional construction costs in NYC. Her expertise has branded her as a high performance building Activist with a 40 Under 40 Award by Building Design+Construction.

Join hosts Christopher Riddell and Jackson Sensat with guest Ed Newton as they discuss the rewards and conflicts inherent in the construction industry, distinguishing your company in the growing world, what the leadership of a general contractor should look like, and more. Ed Newton is the President/Executive-in-Charge at Newton Group Ltd. He has over 25 years of experience uniquely encompassing a wide range of projects from conventional Industrial, Commercial, Institutional (ICI) construction to innovative parking structures; prefabricated buildings; precast concrete bridges; and solar power design and installations.

Sure, we use devices and software, but are they also using us? Join hosts Christopher Riddell and Jackson Sensat and guest Randall Wilson as they discuss the hidden world of finding out how customers interact with interface, the psychology behind user design experience, and the creative minds that are behind “making things work.” Randall Wilson II is the Co-Founder of the HUE Design Summit and a LEGO Master. He has additional experience as a Creative Director, Design Lead, and Freelance Graphic Designer. He currently lives in Chicago, Illinois.

When you step back and think about it. Many technologies that have been here for years and even decades are still being used, but the way they are used have changed. In this episode, Steve Lindsey and Dave Studdert CTO and CRO of LiveView Technologies join us to talk about how safety and loss prevention on a jobsite have turned, like many other technologies, into a business intelligence tool. Lindsey joined LVT in 2011 after leading technology, software, engineering, and development teams at multiple companies including i3 Technologies and Novell. He holds a bachelor’s degree in electronic and information technology from Brigham Young University. Studdert officially joined the company as a consultant in order to expand the clientele to state governments, departments of transportations, and other government agencies. Soon, he was appointed LiveView Technologies’ Chief Sales and Marketing Officer with a particular emphasis on business development. He holds a degree in international law and diplomacy from Brigham Young University

How do you make time to innovate and improve your processes? A lot of the times this question circles around cost, both time and money. Can you afford to innovate or can you afford not to innovate? Suffolk Construction's Alexis McGuffin joined us on the show this week to show her process for bringing new thinking to traditional problems and then scaling that inside of an organization. Alexis now leads Business Development in New York For Suffolk, one of the nation’s most cutting-edge Construction Management firms. In her current role, Alexis helps define strategy for the New York office while cultivating client relationships and increasing Suffolk’s visibility in the market. She focuses on bringing outside-the-box solutions to traditional problems and educating clients on how developments in technology can help better realize their project goals.    

Where does your food come from? Wouldn’t it be nice to build community and create functionality out of the space we have at the same time? Join hosts Christopher Riddell and Jackson Sensat and guest Jim McCutcheon as they discuss vertical farming in landscape architecture, biophilic design, what happened to the farms we used to see, and “bringing farms back into the city.” Jim McCutcheon is the President of Copiana and CEO of HighGrove. With over 30 years of entrepreneurial success, he provide a wealth of knowledge in Business Management, Sales, Client Relationship Development, Team Development and Management, Operations and Creativity.

Another industry podcast joins the show today: Forging Manufacturing! Hosted by Dave Hampton and Jason Flores, we continue to bring different perspectives onto The AEC Disruptors. This dynamic duo shares a wealth of manufacturing industry knowledge and advice, as well as an in-depth look at how AEC and manufacturing are both converging and diverging. Dave Hampton is the Director of Manufacturing at Applied Software and the host of the Forging Manufacturing Podcast. He focuses on trends, opportunities, and challenges that large AEC and manufacturing companies face in order to drive significant business value. Jason Flores is a Strategic Industry Consultant for Applied Software. He focuses on manufacturing initiatives like facility layout, supply chain optimization, cost reduction, and more in order to bring value to large organizations.

Rene Morkos, founder and CEO of ALICE Technologies joined us on this episodes and he has one of the most unique perspectives of any guest on the podcast. Earlier in his career, Rene was working for a company that did construction in Afghanistan. He said "construction is the antidote to destruction." When you build something in this part of the world, you can see a huge tangible impact. If you are building a factory, it might be the first of its kind in the entire country. If you lose a bag of nails, you might be delayed for weeks because there is no market in which to buy another. The stakes are totally different. René Morkos is the founder and CEO of ALICE Technologies and teaches at Stanford University’s Ph.D program in Construction Management. The son of a civil engineer, René grew up in the construction industry. He has worked on construction projects worldwide. His professional experience ranges from working as a project manager in Afghanistan to building an underwater pipeline project in Beirut, from driving automation engineering on a $350 million gas refinery expansion project in Abu Dhabi to leading the development of a virtual design and construction model for Amsterdam’s cruise ship terminal.. René received his Ph.D in Construction Engineering and Management from Stanford University, his MSCE in Construction Management from USC, and his BS in Civil and Environmental Engineering from American University of Beirut.

You heard that right, hemp is here and here to stay. Bob Escher, founder of Escher Design, Inc. and the United States Hemp Building Association gave us the rundown of hemp as a building material. He says that this carbon negative plant is the key to solving a lot of the problems around climate change and sustainable building. You are guaranteed to come away from this episode enthusiastic about the future, having learned a bushel of new information. Bob Escher is the owner of Escher Design and founding president of the United States Hemp Building Association. His son, Alex, introduced him to industrial hemp in 2017, and since then he has espoused the merits of this miraculous material.

In her work with the Panama Canal Authority, Ilya Espino de Marotta has seen the importance of managing a lot of moving parts. In this episode Marotta explains what it’s like being a high-level manager sporting her pink hardhat and safety vest in the engineering field, which has traditionally been thought of as a production-centered man’s world. Marotta also shares some wisdom on managing large operations with a varied set of stakeholders across many disciplines. In addition to large decision matrices, skilled operators, and the need for efficiency and safety, at the end of the day, clear communication keeps everyone on the same page.

Every heard of embodied carbon? It's all the energy and carbon emissions associated with making and placing a material. Skanska's Mark Chen sets the table in this episode for real goal-setting and goal achievement in sustainability. The secret is pretty simple: break down the larger sustainable goals into smaller pieces and start with what's important to your company. Mark is a Senior Sustainability Engineer with the general contracting arm of Skanska in Seattle, WA. In his current role, Mark oversees Skanska’s project-specific construction site carbon, water and waste accounting and reduction measures, embodied carbon efforts, healthy materials research, and green building certification project delivery.

What gives you a sense of place? Is it that intangible feeling of right-ness? This seemingly intangible feeling is becoming more quantifiable by the day with the advent of data intelligence and location intelligence. Sara Maffey describes her work at Local Logic as akin to creating a digital twin of cities. Thousands of factors like trees, walkability, parks, and more play a part in scoring different locations for real estate investment and consumers. Sara Maffey is the Head of Industry Relations at Local Logic, a location intelligence company, where she combines her passions for real estate development and placemaking with data analytics and PropTech

Are you familiar with digital twins? How about how they can improve your job? Not many people are aware of the benefits that come with adopting them. Join hosts Christopher Riddell and Jackson Sensat and guest Danielle O’Connell as they discuss the definition of digital twins, the overwhelming influx of unused data in the field, and making the leap to embrace innovation and disruption.  Danielle O’Connell is the Director of Emerging Technology at Skanska USA Building. She has experience as an Account Services Manager, a Project Manager, and a Manager of Design Technologies Integration. She holds a BFA in Architecture and Design from UMass Amherst.

Healthcare design is moving towards functional scenarios. We are no longer just planning for the current space, but rather what the space could be in 5 or 10 years under an entire matrix of different scenarios. This is precisely where evidence-based design comes in. Architects in general are good at keeping information behind the curtain, but what if they were to publish their findings? Together we can grow the evidence base and elevate the practice altogether.  Josh Crews is a healthcare architect and serves as the Regional Healthcare Practice Leader at Nelson Worldwide. His career lead him to Georgia Tech where he studied evidence-based design. He has used this discipline to design everything from small healthcare buildings to high-rise hospitals.

How do IT Directors sleep at night? We keep hearing new stories about the increasing number of ransomware attacks on large companies. Engineering firms are especially vulnerable to these attacks due to the sheer complexity of operations. An IT director joined us on this episode to tell us just how he and others like him are able to sleep peacefully knowing that their data and files won't be compromised. Clay Pilkilton is the IT Director for M&S Engineering, a professional and full-service engineering firm whose humble beginning started in a shed on 23 acres near Bergheim, Texas. Clay has led the charge at his company to leave servers behind and move the business to the cloud. Jason Schmidt is an AEC industry specialist and Technology leader, with over 29 years of progressive IT & Design Technology experience, helping enhance AEC processes and workflows. He has the experience to interact and communicate effectively with a diverse range of individuals and groups, including all levels of management.

Automation can help not only workflows for designers, but also those in construction management as well. Paul Wintour cautions that despite what you may think, money isn’t usually hindering the progress of construction, there is usually something deeper going on under the surface. In this episode, we take a look under the surface of big projects and uncover hidden inefficiencies.   Paul is the founder of Parametric Monkey and a registered architect in NSW and the UK. He is a member of the Australian Institute of Architects (AIA) and has a detailed understanding of the complexities within the construction industry, having worked extensively in Australia, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, and The Netherlands. He has taught at the University of Technology Sydney, the University of New South Wales, the Queensland University of Technology, the University of Hong Kong, and the Architectural Association.