Hello and welcome to the Introduction to the Engineering Construction Industry. My name's Gregory Sauter, president of Crossroads Advisory, founder of Smart City Works Infrastructure Accelerator and an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University. It's a pleasure for me to talk on this topic today. A topic that I am passionate about. I've had the good fortune to work in this industry for over 30 years, starting with a construction company nearly 30 years ago. And then having worked with some of the biggest and best architecture engineering construction firms in the world. And an opportunity to participate in and be part of some of the greatest projects of our generation. I'm excited to be here today. When we think about the engineering and construction industry, it is one of the most important industries in society. No other industry has a bigger impact on the human condition than the engineering architecture and construction industry. Today I'm gonna talk just a little bit about the history. We're gonna go through some key projects that were some of the turning points in the industry, and introduce us to the modern world of engineering and construction. We're gonna talk about the various types of construction. So when we talk about construction projects, what do we mean? What kind of buckets and categories do they fit into and what are the industry characteristics? How would we describe this industry? We're then gonna talk a little bit about some of the challenges and opportunities in the industry. And then I'm gonna spend a few minutes just talking about what's next, what's to come. So let's start on our journey. This is a special industry. It impacts each and every one of us on a daily basis. It puts roofs over our heads, it brings clean water into our homes, it provides us electricity for all of our daily activities. It's responsible for our skylines, it's responsible for our landscapes, energy, transportation. So many things that we as a society take for granted but it's also not a very well-known industry. This industry is hugely important to commerce. It is the backbone that allows us to have [COUGH] global economies, to be able to share resources, for us to be able to get to work, for us to be able to create centers of manufacturing. Also the importance to our health and welfare. Some of the most photographed items in the world are the great structures of the world. If we were to create a bucket list of those places that we'd like to see in our lifetimes, think about where you would go and what you'd like to see. So in addition to those great landscapes, think about places like the Roman Colosseum, the Taj Mahal in India, the Great Wall of China. Places like Machu Picchu, going to the top of the Empire State Building in New York and taking in the skyline. Those are the things that stir the hearts of man, that excite us and those are the things that attract people to this industry time and time again. Since the dawn of man, we've been building structures for warmth, for protection. The Bronze Age, some 5,000 years ago, ushered in a new era, allowing us to use effective tools to build much more precisely, much bigger, and much more consistently. But as man started to gather in collective towns and small cities, other problems grew out of this, the need to address sewage, the ability to provide clean water to larger and larger communities. The need to make their infrastructure more dependable, more resilient. With the advent of writing and advanced mathematics, the ability to engineer solutions on a much grander scale became more and more significant. While the pyramids were created as a tomb and a monument, the scale, the precision, the size, what they were able to accomplish, is just incredible. And it stands as a testament to what man can do. These pyramids stood as the tallest man-made structures for nearly 4,000 years. It's just incredible what they were able to accomplish. Now let's look at a few iconic projects which ushered in the modern era of engineering and construction. The Brooklyn Bridge. You look at the Brooklyn Bridge and it is just an absolutely beautiful structure. Built in 1883, took 20 years to build. New York had wanted to build something that could connect the island of Manhattan with the borough of Brooklyn, but heretofore hadn't had the technology and the ability to do it. The Roebling family came in, was able to do this. Look at those beautiful granite towers and you think about what they had to go through placing that in the East River, connecting a span of 1,600 feet from tower to tower. The longest steel suspension bridge in the world. Absolutely incredible what they went through. 24 people died in the creation of the Brooklyn Bridge, including John Roebling, who was the original inspiration of the bridge. His son wound up taking over and finishing the bridge along with his wife, who was also instrumental in the construction of the bridge. This is a bridge I've got a particular personal connection to. As part of the overall integrity reviews on the bridge a number of years ago, the organization I was with was responsible for doing bridge inspections on it up close. And the way that was done was actually by rappelling bridge inspectors from the top of the bridge to look at all of the masonry, all of the stones, and all the masonry joints in between it. It was an incredible undertaking, but it gave me such an appreciation for what went into the making of this incredible iconic bridge. The Panama Canal, one of the greatest engineering and construction feats of the 20th century, absolutely incredible. I had an opportunity to visit the Panama Canal a couple of years ago. And standing there at the entrance to the sea and seeing the size, the grandeur, what they were able to accomplish, the effort that went into it. And when you look at the history of what it took, 40,000 men at that time, working in incredible conditions, 50 miles across. And an absolutely incredible feat and you have to be there to appreciate what it takes to accomplish an incredible feat like this. When you consider the technologies that were available in the late 1800s and the ability to do this. The stories of George Washington Goethals, the chief engineer on the project, and what it took to achieve this great feat are just inspirational. In 1889, Paris hosted the World's Fair, celebrating the 100 year anniversary of the French Revolution. Gustaf Eiffel won a competition to make this the centerpiece of the event. The thing that's interesting is this was supposed to be a temporary monument. But if you've ever been to Paris, this calls to you from across the entire city. The Hoover Dam. Wow, what an incredible undertaking. I mean, this is on par with, and if you think about when this was constructed in the 1930s, I mean, this is on par with pointing to the moon at the time and saying yes, we're gonna put the man on the moon. I mean, this is absolutely incredible. Built in the 1930s during the Great Depression, the stories of the physical and engineering effort that went into the structure are just incredible. 660 feet wide at the base, 700 feet high, 6.6 billion tons of material in the dam. And what this created, it provides energy for 20 million people. It opened up the West to the growing number of people in the US and really became one of the things that provided a gateway to the development of the West.
