A Q&A with DBIA’s Anieca Lord and Erin Leahy

Specifically tailored for educators, the Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA) will host a Design-Build Educator Workshop from August 4th – 8th to help university faculty understand the key elements and value of design-build, as well as ways to incorporate important DBIA Best Practices into their existing curriculum. Funded by the Charles Pankow Foundation, the five-day workshop will be led by faculty from universities that already fully incorporate design-build into their core curriculum, including Washington State University, California State University – Long Beach and Colorado State University.

We sat down with Anieca Lord, DBIA’s Region Relations Manager, and Erin Leahy, DBIA’s Education Programs Manager, to discuss a little bit about their efforts to put on the program.

1. Could you describe in your own words what the Educator Workshop is and why it’s important?

Anieca: It’s a classic “educate the educator” format. With design-build becoming more and more mainstream, students are getting ahead of the traditional curriculum when it comes to trends, including design-build (which is now almost 40 percent of the non-residential market). DBIA promotes design-build done right, so who better to bring the education to the educators in order to make sure the next generation is hitting the ground with the foundation needed to be marketable?

2. What was your role in organizing this program?

Anieca: We were in charge of purely logistics and planning. Erin brought her experience from DBIA’s education side, and I from the faculty and student side, which really worked well to put all the moving pieces together in order to plan a great event that is being made possible by the Charles Pankow Foundation and Colorado State University.

3. What was one of the main challenges you faced in setting this up? How did you overcome it?

Erin: I’ve never been to Colorado State University/Fort Collins (or even Colorado)! Luckily we had some great help on the ground. Kristin Haller and Natalya Bowen have been tremendously supportive. They work in the Department of Construction Management office at Colorado State University and their experience, knowledge and expertise has been invaluable.

4. What is the aspect you’re most excited about?

Erin: I love seeing a program or event come together. Mere months ago, this was just an idea. Next week, it’ll come together in living color. Ideas will be exchanged, knowledge will be gained, people will form new relationships; it’s exactly what I came to DBIA to help accomplish.

Anieca: Believe it or not, I’m excited to see it not only come together, but to see and hear the educators’ opinion on the material and design-build as a whole. I think their reaction will be a good indicator as to how successful we will be in ensuring design-build is a staple in academia.

If you have any questions or comments about the program, please email us at DBuniversity@dbia.org