Services

Across the U.S. construction market, four titles, owner’s representative, program manager, project manager, and construction manager, get used interchangeably. The confusion is more than academic; it’s how owners end up paying for a role they think they’re getting and aren’t. Here is exactly how I define each role, and what it means for you, plus a fifth, district engineer, specific to Colorado’s special districts.

I act on your behalf across the full arc of a project, from concept and feasibility, through programming, design development, and construction documents, into construction, commissioning, and the transition to operations. I’m embedded in your interest, interacting with the key decision-makers and shaping the directives that keep the project aligned to your goals. I’ll lead the interview and selection of the design firm, general contractor, inspectors, and other experts who form the delivery team.

What this means for you: one person whose only allegiance is to you, present at every level, from the first feasibility question to the final closeout.

When you have a collection of related projects, a multi-phase development, a campus plan, a capital program, I provide leadership and oversight across all of them and their separate teams. The focus here is master planning and budgeting, and it’s hands-on: identifying and marshaling the resources to deliver on the program’s commitments. I can augment your internal staff and lead the people who deliver the underlying services, project management, construction management and inspection, procurement, cost estimating, scheduling, and change-order and claims analysis.

What this means for you: a single mind holding the whole portfolio, so the projects don’t compete with or contradict each other.

This is day-to-day operational oversight of a single project. I advise on design, constructability, and value engineering, on scope, cost estimating, and contractor prequalification, and on scheduling and construction. I support the selection, negotiation, and oversight of the design consultant and general contractor, and I own the project schedule that serves as the control standard for measuring performance while keeping the team collaborative, proactive, and pointed at a shared definition of success.

What this means for you: the project runs on a plan, against a schedule, with someone accountable for both.

I make sure what gets built matches the contract, the construction documents, the approved submittals, and the jurisdiction’s requirements, tracking the work against the master schedule with quality control and assurance throughout.

One important distinction, because it’s often blurred: a construction manager provides management oversight and assurance that the work meets the contract requirements. A construction inspector, who typically holds specific certifications or licenses, observes and confirms that individual installations meet an industry standard or testing requirement. They are different roles. I provide the former, and I coordinate the latter.

What this means for you: the standard you’re paying for is the standard that actually gets built.

For Colorado’s special districts and authorities, I serve as district engineer, guiding public infrastructure from formation and service plans through design, construction, and bond reimbursement. I run the RFPs and select the consultants and contractors, manage the design engineers, review submittals and pay applications, resolve RFIs, oversee construction, inspection, and survey, and handle the cost segregation that determines what municipal bonds can fund. I also carry the district’s engineering voice before the jurisdictional authorities.

What this means for you: one engineer who understands both the infrastructure your district depends on and the Title 32 framework that funds it. (See the Developers page for more on special-district work)