UVU team members (L-R, top row): Yahir Narciso, Andrew Weight and Jacob Chugg; (L-R, bottom row): Alec Spottiswood, Joseph Robins and Drew Christensen.

Utah Valley University's (UVU) Smith College of Engineering & Technology (CET) Construction Management program recently sent more than two dozen students to the Associated Schools of Construction (ASC) competition in Sparks, Nev., and took home multiple accolades. This nationwide competition featured more than 1,600 students, making up more than 200 teams, from 57 participating universities, across 24 states, from Alaska to Arizona and from California to Virginia.

The four-day competition began where students listened to a guest speaker and we're treated to a buffet-style dinner, followed by a raffle where they got their first win.

The Construction Management program sent the following four teams: Heavy Civil, Commercial, Mixed-Use and Project Management — plus a category for ‘alternate' contenders, who competed with students from other schools in their own category.

Later, the teams reported to its industry competition problem sponsor where it was given its competition problem. The Heavy Civil problem was a complex highway expansion project in Hawaii. The Mixed-Use problem was a new gothic-style tower and building on a college campus. The Commercial problem was a professional sports stadium and the Project Management problem was the refurbishment of a downtown office building.

Not only did UVU finish third place nationally in the Mixed-Use category (team members: Yahir Narciso, Andrew Weight, Jacob Chugg, Alec Spottiswood, Joseph Robins, Drew Christensen), where they had to compete against 11 other teams — but one student, Wyatt Baum, earned first place as an alternate, of which there were more than 300 participants.

Each problem category required teams to create a construction schedule, estimate, site logistics plan, risk analysis, safety plan and strategy for a real-world multi-million-dollar project as part of the competition. Students presented their solutions to the project in a formal presentation to the industry judges, who had recently constructed the very projects the students were given. These presentations lasted throughout the day with a meet-and-greet with representatives from the industry.

Students also were able to visit vendor booths to learn about the construction industry and collect ‘swag.' There were more than 120 national companies attending — all for the purpose of recruiting students to their respective companies. That same morning during the recruiting fair, students, staff and faculty gathered in the ballroom for an awards ceremony.

UVU competed against other construction management program teams from all over the United States, including Auburn, Purdue, Stanford, Berkeley, BYU, UCLA and Colorado State, among others.

To learn more about the CET Construction Management program, visit https://www.uvu.edu/ct/cm/.

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