Texas A&M, Prairie View students hone construction proposal skills

Construction science students at Texas A&M joined their counterparts at Prairie View A&M spending part of their 2011-12 winter break visiting industry professionals for tips on crafting a property development proposal for a National Association of Home Builders student competition.

The students were readying for the NAHB’s [Residential Construction Management Competition] (http://www.nahb.org/generic.aspx?genericContentID=93770) , part of its annual International Builders' Show in Orlando, Fla. where the students, broken up into one Texas A&M team and two Prairie View A&M teams, will present and defend their proposals to a group of construction industry professionals in front of an audience.

The competition gives students the opportunity to apply skills learned in the classroom to a real construction project by submitting proposals for a vacant, 22-acre parcel in Huntsville, Ala.

Students had to create a financing plan to purchase the land, develop the property and build the homes. To obtain financing, students had to provide a construction estimate/budget, construction schedule, cash flow projections, project management and organization, marketing and risk analysis, site and land development plan and “green” building initiatives.

To aid in their proposal preparation, the teams met with homebuilders Dec. 28-29, 2011, in Dallas, who passed along industry knowledge and critiqued the students’ development proposals, which they submitted to the competition Jan. 5.

At the top of their Dallas field trip, Troy Rohr of [Darling Homes] (http://www.darlinghomes.com/) provided students a close look at semi-custom home building on a tour of the Newman Village community in Frisco where he discussed lot development, home construction, site logistics and new home sales.

Students then met with Steve Nellis, [Meritage Homes] (http://www.meritagehomes.com/) ’ director of construction, and Meritage’s directors of sales, purchasing, estimating and land development; students then went to see five homes being built at a Meritage construction site.

They also met with former student Keller Webster, president and founder of [KWA] (http://www.kwaconstruction.com/) Construction, who talked to them about an alternative financing option for their projects that greatly improved the profitability of their traditionally financed plans. Webster earned a Bachelor of Science in Architectural Construction degree at Texas A&M in 1969.

Students felt the trip to Dallas was very informative and helped their entries, said Ben Bigelow, the Aggie team’s coach and visiting assistant construction science lecturer.

The trip was paid for by a grant from the National Housing Endowment’s [Homebuilding Education Leadership Program] (http://www.nationalhousingendowment.org/generic.aspx?sectionID=1783&channelID=1407) , which aims to increase the number of qualified college graduates entering the residential construction profession.

The teams began their preparations with a project kickoff tailgate in October 2011, where former construction science students Jesse Durden ’05, Matt Howard ’06 and Eric Mach ’99 spoke to the teams about their industry experiences; in November, students met with developer Bryan Kaminski ‘04, who critiqued their proposals.

Texas A&M’s [Department of Construction Science] (http://cosc.arch.tamu.edu/) also hosted one of Prairie View’s teams for a dress rehearsal of their conference presentation to a group of Aggie faculty members and industry professionals.