With Phil Ledent's help, we continued to support the team at Sciame on the Bronx Borough Jail this month with a second meeting.  The architecture team joined this meeting and Phil reviewed suggestions related to rebar size and spacing that would lead to cost savings...suggestions were well-received.  Some other items were discussed, and the meeting ended on a high note...I fully expect to hear from Sciame in the future and will be following up with their architect for this project for an in-person meeting to further educate them on BDC's service offering.

As mentioned in my last report, there were not a lot of formal education events in April, but I have been sharing our intro presentation with more and more firms and the word is spreading that free project support for CMU is available.  I have two webinars and one L&L scheduled for May...so the outreach is paying dividends.

April was slow at the start--I was on vacation from 3/27 - 4/3.  

Upon returning, I had several internal meetings and did not get out to see anyone until the week of 4/13.  

On 4/14, I attended the AIA CNJ Design Awards Cocktail Party in Princeton and saw some familiar faces- David Von Stappenbeck (Chapter President) and Vince Scozzari of V.J. Scozzari & Sons, a regional GC who does a lot of work in higher ed as well as K-12.  

On 4/15, I attended the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee Meeting for the New York Building Congress and met Reza Ghasemi from Mott Macdonald, who is interested in meeting with me to learn more about the BDC.  Also saw Jen Switala from Dattner Architects there who I worked on one project with a few years ago...she welcomed the idea of an in-person meeting to learn more about BDC...so it was a good meeting.

On 4/16, I attended the 12th Annual NJ Apartment & Multifamily Conference hosted by the Mid-Atlantic Real Estate Journal (thank you, Amy Hennessey for the invite).  There were four panel discussions and I had time to speak with Rich Gatto from CBRE, John Calabrese from Russo Development, and Alex Craig from IMC Construction...in the process of follow-up with all of them.

4/22 - 4/23 was the New York State Concrete Masonry Association's Spring Conference held in New York City...Alicia Hodges was in town for this and delivered a great update on Checkoff happenings...I spoke briefly about a couple of recent projects the BDC assisted on in Region 1.

On 4/28 Tino and I arrived in Boston for the SE2050 Summit, held on 4/29.  On 4/28, we met with New England Trowel Trades Association and learned about their mission--to implement curriculum for masonry in high schools...and they would like to scale their efforts nationally but they are just getting started in New England.  

The SE2050 Summit on 4/29 was great- several breakout sessions and I also sat in on the Blast, Shock & Impact Committee meeting for SEI...some interesting discussions in there as well!

To close out April, on 4/30, Phil Ledent and I met with Sciame and Urbahn Architects to continue discussing the Bronx Borough Jail in New York...it was a great meeting.

Work on our K-12 Presentation continues with Shawn Mulligan.  Shawn and I have met twice and the work he is doing is outstanding--I will be presenting to Shawn soon (mid-May) and he is on track to complete the presentation before June.

Many of you have heard me mention the work I do with the ACE Mentor Program.  I sit on the Board for ACE in NJ and I mentor high school students with Gilbane (CM), JBB (MEP engineers), Marvel Designs (architects), and Gilsanz Murray Steficek (structural engineers).  

May is the crazy time for ACE...final presentations!  The NJ students already presented--9 teams and the event was held at New Jersey Institute of Technology...the students did great.  

New York's presentations are on various dates because there are usually over 50 teams.  Our team presents on May 19th when I will be in Ocean City, but the students have worked very hard throughout the year.

Finally- the team from Middlesex, NJ competed in a Construction Industry Round Table competition in Washington DC on April 27th.  85 teams entered and New Jersey was awarded 1st Place.  Their project was a Net Zero Data Center.

If you have an opportunity to get involved with the ACE Mentor Program, please do it.  (Some of) these students are literally the future of the design and construction world...and they need our support!