DBIA

Leadership

Report on DBIA-Southwest Region Annual Conference

by David Bloxom

Albuquerque, New Mexico April 24-25, 2008

Thanks to Tom Statzula, our New Mexico District Coordinator, and Jennifer Matthews, of our SWR Austin office, for making the recent annual meeting an outstanding success in beautiful New Mexico. Some 40-plus individuals representing 25-plus companies and organizations attended this year's conference.

Lee Every, President of DBIA-National, spoke to the group about the exciting changes occurring within DBIA and its focus to promote design-build in the marketplace for 2008. The National Conference for DBIA will be held in Las Vegas November 3-5, 2008. Put that date on your calendar now to attend and hear three quality keynote speakers. Also, a newly-established golf tournament to benefit DBIA research will be held on Sunday, November 2.

Barbara Jackson, of Cal Poly and the California Center for Construction Education, gave us an outstanding presentation on "Making the Mental Shift in Design-Build." She shared some insightful data and characteristics about the students entering today's design-build workforce and how we "older" folks can best manage for success.

Tim Triplet, our web designer for DBIA-SW, educated us on our new "user-friendly" and "information packed" Southwest Region website. I encourage everyone to visit it often, and please send pictures and brief descriptions of your company's successful design-build projects within our Region.

Attorneys John Nassen and Kevin Sexton gave us a current law and legislative update on alternative delivery methods, including design-build, within our five-state region.

Finally, we closed the conference with a highly successful design-build project case study of the new Santa Fe Residential Indian School. We were fortunate to have the owner, builder, and designer present for the review and questions of this award winning project.

Prior to the all-day Friday conference, your SWR Board met the afternoon before. Two new members, Frank Callahan, Architect, of Fort Worth, and Homer Guy of San Antonio. were nominated and elected to the SWR Board to serve out unexpired terms of one year (all terms are two years by our bylaws). Since the board meeting, Ryan Miller, our SWR board secretary and Houston district coordinator, submitted his resignation due to new job responsibilities. We appreciate Ryan's dedicated service to our Region these past years. His replacement will be taken up by the Board in our May meeting.

The Board further acted in our April meeting to reaffirm our standing committees as follows with chairpersons noted:

Chairpersons Noted:


  1. Legal - John Nassen
  2. Education - Hugh Sanford
  3. Legislative - Doug Herbst
  4. Membership - John Shanks, with Julie Capville as staff support
  5. Marketing Public Relations - Ben Martin, Doug Herbst, Drew Yaggy, David Bloxom

If you are interested in serving on any of the above SWR committees, please contact the chairperson.

The Board acted to establish our local, geographical areas as "districts" (i.e., "D-FW District of the SWR," etc.) rather than "chapters."

The next Southwest Region Board Meeting will be held on May 20 at 10 a.m.

Thanks to our district coordinators for their work in planning and having DBIA-SWR meetings in their respective areas so far this year. Both DFW and Albuquerque have informative meetings coming up with particulars available on our web page.

Until next time - "Build better with Design-Build." I welcome your comments and suggestions for the DBIA-Southwest Region. Please email me at dbloxom@speedfab-crete.com. Also, let me know if you would like to become more involved locally or in the Region.

Sincerely,

David Bloxom
President, DBIA-Southwest Region



President’s Report to DBIA Southwest Region’s Members


State of the Chapter Address

It has been a great honor and pleasure serving as the Southwest Region President this past year (2007). With the continued great leadership of our executive committee and board, 2008 will be an exciting growth year for our region.

I want to share with you our goals to accomplish in 2008 and ask you to help us achieve these in volunteering some of your time/talents.

The leadership of the Southwest Region has three specific goals to accomplish in 2008. Along with the activities proposed to achieve these goals, they are as follows:

Goal One


Improve the value of membership in the Southwest Region for current and new members.

Establish more consistently active (3-6 meetings per year with worthwhile topics/speakers) chapters in Texas (Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, Houston) and establish newly active chapters in New Mexico (Albuquerque) and Oklahoma (Oklahoma City/Tulsa).

Actions:

  1. We have/are identifying key DBIA members in each chapter area to commit to plan and implement 3-6 chapter meetings in 2008.
  2. We currently have an active, committed coordinator in each of those markets. We have budgeted region funds to support these chapter meetings.
  3. Our Southwest Region annual membership meeting is scheduled for Albuquerque on April 24,25 with a quality program including Lee Evey and Barbara Jackson. This meeting will be promoted statewide in New Mexico with hopes to "raise the profile" of DBIA in that area, add new members, and kick off more frequent chapter meetings.

Goal Two


"Raise the profile" of DBIA-SWR, the D-B project delivery method, and highlight successful Design-Build projects within our region.

Actions:

  1. Scheduled and staffed half-day informational mini-seminars in five cities for interested individuals, companies, and public agencies in Texas on the new HB 1886, which allows D-B on public horizontal/civil projects in Texas.
  2. Southwest Region website is being developed and should be online by spring 2008. It will allow membership communication and will feature D-B projects in our region.
  3. Press releases will be issued to industry-related media, highlighting the DBIA education courses to be offered in our region and the ability to obtain "designation" by July 31 within our region area.
  4. Southwest Region press releases to industry media, highlighting successful D-B projects (public and private) within our Region by our members. A public relations firm has been interviewed and will be retained on a regular basis once funds are available.

Goal Three


If we are successful in Goals I & II, we plan to grow the Southwest Region new membership by a minimum of 10-15% (24-36 new members).

Actions:

  1. Improved value as outlined in Section I will add new members.
  2. Attend industry-related shows to expose DBIA and membership.

Goal Four


Continue active State legislative efforts to promote and expand the use of D-B in all five states in the Southwest Region.

Actions:

  1. Standing legislation committee established by the Southwest Region Board in 2007-2008.
  2. Presenting a session at the 2008 Southwest Region annual meeting on the status of D-B legislation in all five states and input from members on what we need to plan for future legislation.

I welcome your comments and suggestions for the DBIA-Southwest Region. Please email me at dbloxom@speedfab-crete.com. Also, let me know if you would like to become more involved locally or in the Region.