Page 35 - Colorado Construction & Design

Construction Careers Now (CCN):
The CCN programs offer a free, four-week career boot camp for under-employed construction workers and exploratory learners. Participants earn a 10-hour
OSHA certificate, explore a variety of trade programs, and participate in a job fair filled with face-to-face interaction with eager to hire commercial contractors from across Colorado.
“Right now is the perfect time to start a career in construction,” finishes Cook. “Workforce growth
is inevitable, and construction is one of the few industries where you don’t need a college degree to get started and work your way up pretty quickly.”
Dr. Barbara Jackson has been in the construction industry her whole life. The daughter of a journeymen carpenter, she started a Virginia-based Design-Build contracting company in 1984, nine years before the Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA) came into existence, and long-
before the industry as a whole recognized the benefits of negotiated delivery strategies. In 1997 she migrated to academia, where her intimate knowledge of alternative- delivery methodologies formed the backbone of the Design-Build curriculum she developed first at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) and now at the Burns School at the University of Denver.
Dr. Barbara Jackson
“Before Design-Build, construction seemed mired in adversarial processes that are the inherent outfall of competing agendas
and adversarial contracts,” says Dr. Jackson. Now in her eighth year as the Executive Director
at DU’s Franklin L. Burns School
of Real Estate and Construction Management, Jackson sees a basis in business as the fundamental
underpinning of an effective understanding of what it takes to succeed in today’s construction industry.
“The program at DU is part of the Daniels College of Business, which makes the most sense to me because both design and construction begin and end with money. I believe a well-rounded understanding
of finance, land economics, and capital markets is fundamental to success in construction.”
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