http://www.cordconstruction.com

Cord Construction Company

Assistant Project Manager/Superintendent

June - August 2018 • Rockford, IL

What I liked

Cord was very welcoming of me starting my internship. Everyone was eager to have me there and wanted to help me in anyway they could throughout my time there. The first month I was there I shadowed a superintendent during the closeout process of a $17 million elementary school that they had just built. During this time I worked on the punch-list, updating and adding to it using Oracle: Pimavera software. Once my work was done there I went to the office to start the estimating portion of the internship. The rest of my internship consisted of estimating three small jobs (less than $100,000) and one plan-spec job. I used Timberline and On-Screen Take0ff softwares for all my estimates. Conducting the estimates consisted of contacting subcontractors to discuss the bid and the scope of work they needed in their bid. My plan-spec job that I estimated was a hard bid. With a hard bid I had to clarify scopes with all subs to make sure each trade was doing what and had it un their scope. To end my internship I was the apparent low bidder for the plan-spec job and was eventually officially awarded it. After that I began working on contract agreements for the subcontractors I used in the bid and purchase orders as well. Unfortunately by the time I had to go back to school, the project was ready to get underway and I was not able to be onsite for any of the building of the project.

What I wish was different

I would like to have more superintendent experience during the middle of construction during a job. I'm still not exactly sure what their super's do as I only saw the end process where most of their work was paper based. I also would have liked to do a stage 1 or 2 bid with no spec book or plans and estimate a project from the ground up without bids from subcontractors and come up with my own number. I think these kinds of estimates would be the most beneficial way of learning the estimating process. Unfortunately Cord didn't have anything like this available at the time of my internship.

Advice

I couldn't have asked for a better experience from Cord. Everyone was welcoming and wanted to help. My advice for going into an internship is to not be afraid of confrontation. Communication is KEY especially in the construction business. That goes for ideas as well. Throughout my internship there were a few times where I suggested something be done different or a certain way they had not thought of and it worked out better.
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