Two Construction Project Failures That Shaped How I Lead

Here’s the deal. People ask me about a project failure early in my career that shaped how I teach now. I will give you two answers. I do not like that they happened, but I really like what they taught me. One is about quality, and the other is about people.

Short answer: Two construction project failures shaped how I teach. On a cancer center project, I caught a utility conflict in coordination but never verified the fix made it into the installation drawings, and it cost a $350,000 lift station. On a federal prison project, I blamed a trade partner instead of supporting them, and they went out of business. Now I follow through on quality, and I believe our job is to support trade partners, not hurt them.

Failure One: The Duct Bank and the Sewer Line

This one happened at the cancer center in downtown Phoenix, the project I have written about before. I was super excited. I had a lot of training in BIM. I was Revit certified and AutoCAD certified, I knew Navisworks Manage and Tekla and coordination processes, and I believe I was CM-BIM certified through the AGC at that time, or within a couple of months of it. I was leading all of the coordination efforts on that design-build project, and I was jamming.

One of the things I was most proud of was the model of the civil underground for the utilities. We caught a really cool conflict. Arizona Public Service (APS) was going to run their duct bank, and it was going to conflict with the inverts on the sewer line, the sewer connection to the building. I said, we have to dip this down. I was so proud of that catch. We showcased it everywhere.

I was the area superintendent over that work. One of the first things we did was the APS underground duct banks and upgrades, and enabling the switches and transformers to get the site ready for power. We had a great engineer with APS. We installed it, the building went up, and we were jamming on a beautiful project.

Then the plumber went to hook up to the city sewer line, and they called me. As soon as I walked up, I knew what had happened. The pipe was going right through the duct bank, and they had it all exposed. They asked, what do we do?

I am not proud of this, but my brain said, just ask them to run it through the duct bank and bury it. And I said, we are not going to do that. So I walked into Brad Nelson’s office, and his face and his heart just sank. I said, Brad, I messed this up.

We had to install a $350,000 lift station, at our own expense, to make it work. We routed the line down, underneath, and back up high enough to connect to the city. That was a nightmare in and of itself, with the shoring and everything else. If I walk downtown to this day, I can still see that lift station.

What Did the Lift Station Teach Me About Quality?

That failure taught me about quality, quality, quality, and follow-up. It turns out we did the coordination, but I never verified that the new APS installation drawings had the dip in the line I had asked for. They did not. That was the problem.

Was I ahead of it? Yes. Did I follow through? No. Catching a problem is only half the job. You also have to verify it and follow up until the fix is actually in the field. And when it goes wrong, walk in and own it, the way I had to walk into Brad’s office.

Failure Two: The Trade Partner I Hurt

The other failure has to do with people, and it is a real story. When I was first in construction, I was dating Kate. I thought she was the most beautiful woman on the face of the planet. I used the women’s bathroom key as an excuse to go talk to her, and one day I finally got up the courage to ask her out.

Her father was the Division 17 contractor on our federal prison project, and I was assigned to oversee them. Because of the pace of the job, some of their conduits were being filled with concrete. On a federal prison, the security devices all have to have a home run. You cannot daisy-chain them. The panic devices, the alarm keys, and the door keys all have to run back to the security electronics room on their own lines.

I did not know any better at the time, and I blamed everything on the Division 17 contractor. There was probably more to it. Defects happen. But the bottom line is that I was responsible for running her dad’s business off the job. They were supplemented because of my reports, and they went out of business. It was a horrible thing.

And then I married his daughter. Because I became part of the family, I saw firsthand the effect my behavior had on them: their debt, their morale, everything.

How Should a General Contractor Treat Trade Partners?

That is when my mind switched. It is my job, working for a general contractor, to help trade partners, not hurt them. We have to stop bullying trades, stop immediately sending cure notices, and stop blaming everything on them. We have to support them, help them, and make sure they have full kit.

If their conduits are getting filled with concrete, why is that? Has the glue on the conduit even had time to dry, with how much time we have given them? Those are the questions a trade-supporting general contractor asks.