UMaine Engineers Excel in Bidding Competition

Contact: Philip Dunn (207) 581-2326; David Munson (207) 581-3777

ORONO, Maine – Eighteen students from the Construction Management Technology and Civil and Environmental Engineering programs competed in the 17th Annual Associated Schools of Construction Region I Bidding Competition held in Fairfield, NJ on November 9-12, 2006. Facing tough competition from more than a dozen schools, UMaine teams finished second in both the Heavy Civil and Design –Build categories.

The ASC is a nationwide organization of schools that offer construction management programs to promote and teach the standards of the construction industry. The greater construction contracting community sponsors the event with major contributing sponsors serving as the coordinators of each of the competition categories. Major sponsors provide actual project information to students and act as the judges for student team entries within their respective competition. Student teams use that information to prepare a full construction bid, means and methods, and schedule to build the project that is presented to them.

The team advisor was Philip Dunn, Jr. PE, Assistant Professor of Construction Management Technology at UMaine. Other sponsors participated in a job fair that offers each student participant the opportunity to learn about potential jobs with the represented companies.

Students competing in the competition from UMaine included:

Heavy Civil:  Ben Winsor (Sr. in CIE), Brayden Sheive (Jr. in CMT), Zachary Davis (Jr. in CMT), Ryan Levesque (Jr. in CMT), Matt Morin (Jr. in CMT), Michael Morneau (So. in CMT)

Design-Build:  Kate Hurley (Sr. in CMT), Jeff Kelley (Sr. in CMT), Jesse Nash (Sr. in CIE), Brock Bessey (Jr. in CIE), Travis Hamel (Sr. in CIE), and Brandon Blake (Jr. in CIE)

Commercial Building:  David Manz (Sr. in CMT), Pat Skall (Sr. in CMT), Brandon Cummings (Jr. in CMT), Jason Jendrasko (Sr. in CMT), Kabe Mickon (Jr. in CMT), and Rob Sampson (So. in CMT)

Special assistance came from Mr. Tim Sommers and Mr. Garret Bertolini of Pizzagalli Construction, Mr. Brian Watson of Cianbro Corporation, and Assistant Professor Ann Joles of the Communications and Journalism Department.