HANDS ON
Construction management alumni help build campus projects
ECU construction management alumni are building the $122 million student center set to become the new “front door” to the university on 10th Street. It is scheduled to open in 2018. (Video by Rich Klindworth and photos by Cliff Hollis, ECU News Services)
Some East Carolina University construction management alumni are working on the biggest project ever built on campus.
The $122 million student center set to become a prominent gateway on 10th Street is scheduled to open in 2018.
But it isn’t the only building some ECU alumni have had a hand in constructing or renovating on campus. The soccer and track complex, the baseball and football stadiums, the basketball practice facility, numerous residence halls – these projects and less visible ones were built by Pirates.
“I’ve touched most of them – the baseball stadium, football stadium, Minges Coliseum,” said David Philyaw ’98, senior vice president with T.A. Loving and ECU construction management advisory board member.
The 210,000-square-foot student center and adjoining 700-space parking deck is a joint venture between T.A. Loving and Barnhill Contracting companies, together employing approximately 60 ECU alumni, and many of those are construction management graduates.
ECU’s construction management program in the College of Engineering and Technology has graduated more than 2,500 students since it began in 1985. It’s the oldest and first accredited program in the state, and one of the largest in the southeastern United States.
While most of the work on the student center so far has been 20 feet underground – the foundation, basement and installation of power, water, sewer, storm water and communication lines – passersby will see more above-ground activity beginning in January beyond the tower crane that already looms overhead.
“It will ramp up really quickly after the first of the year,” said Matt Ruffin, ’14, project engineer in Barnhill’s building division. “There is a lot of innovation and features that no other buildings on campus have. It’s definitely going to be a centerpiece.”
As an ECU student, Matt Ruffin studied, used the computer lab, bowled and ate lunch at Mendenhall, where he still eats once or twice a week now as a project engineer with Barnhill Contracting Company.
T.A. Loving pre-construction manager Scott Wynne ’92 helped set the work in motion more than two years ago, planning logistics, schedules and more for the 14-acre site.
Based on meetings held with students during the design phase, elements such as multiple study rooms and lounges, a gaming center, 24X42-foot outdoor digital display screen, food court and at the top of the list – Starbucks – were included.
“A lot of the things that students said they wanted have been incorporated into the building so it’s a student building,” Wynne said. “I think it’s just going to be awesome for the students here now. If I was a student in high school, it would help me make a decision to come here.”
The building will replace Mendenhall Student Center, which was built in 1974 and will be repurposed. Another student center being built on the health sciences campus is set to open this spring.
“Once we bid it to subcontractors, I passed it along to the team,” said Wynne, who has now turned his attention to planning the Dowdy-Ficklen football stadium expansion.
Wynne spent three years as a computer science major before switching to construction management after working on a framing crew building houses while in college and “never looked back,” he said.
Wynne said the program paved the way for his career today. “It’s all there,” he said.
ECU’s undergraduate and graduate degree programs prepare students to enter the construction industry, including 500 hours of required internship experience before graduation.
The program has grown from about 250 to 430 undergraduate students in just the past three years, said Dr. Syed M. Ahmed, chair and professor of construction management. Faculty have experience in architecture, construction management, civil and mechanical engineering, which prepares graduates to manage, plan, organize and control construction projects of all types and sizes. The average starting salary is $55,000, which can double in 10 years and increase with more experience.
“Our graduates are fully prepared to meet the current and future demands of an ever-changing and evolving workplace,” Ahmed said. “The construction industry actively seeks our students to work in their organizations as interns or full-time employees because they know that our graduates can hit the ground running and be productive workers from day one.”
Tom Daniel ’92, ’11, T.A. Loving senior project manager for the main campus student center, was one of the first graduates of ECU’s construction management master’s program. Today he handles finance and contract administration, supervising 46 subcontractors and 400 people working on the project.
“There’s a lot of pride in that we’re building the new front door of the university with the construction of the student union,” Daniel said. “There is so much satisfaction in working hard every day and being able to look back and see what you’ve done at the end of the day.”
Working in the center of campus is challenging, where parking is at a premium for students, faculty and staff and the builders of the new student union. There is only room for one parking space per trade at the construction trailers on 10th Street. Craftspeople and materials are shuttled in. “I’m coordinating materials for a few days at a time,” Daniel said. “We’re the orchestrators of the process.”
Being in the heart of campus has required fencing and a gatekeeper to maintain safe travel around the construction zone. “Students have made wrong turns and been curious but they have been extremely respectful,” Daniel said. “We’re trying to make it so students will be successful.”
Another project, the renovation of 10-story Clement Residence Hall, is also centrally located. T.A. Loving Superintendent Rusty Woolard ’07 works directly with subcontractors to ensure what is on paper is done in the field.
He worked on the first phase that was completed over 78 days this summer, as contractors ran two shifts for 24 hours a day, to renovate the core of the building including all bathrooms and study lounges. The second phase will upgrade the outside of the 44-year old building, removing any hazardous materials, fireproofing and putting on a “new skin,” Woolard said. The second phase has required almost 400 students move out for the spring semester, but it will be ready for occupancy again in the fall.
A popular walkway between Clement and West End Dining Hall will be closed to pedestrians for safety reasons during the renovation this spring and summer.
As a student, Woolard worked with ECU athletics grounds crew and WIMCO construction company. He grew up on a farm in Belhaven.
“I knew working with my hands was something that I was going to do,” Woolard said. “We built our first home when I was teenager and we did a lot of the work ourselves, so it gave me a good foundation.”
Like Woolard, Philyaw grew up in a small town, Comfort, in Jones County. “When we weren’t farming, we had a concrete business,” he said.
“My mother was a student here three times,” Philyaw said. “She got her third degree when I got my first one.”
Philyaw transferred to ECU after two years in the architectural technology program at Coastal Carolina Community College and met Daniel his senior year when they both worked at CA Lewis.
He said one of the best things that ECU’s construction management program requires is internships.
Ruffin, who accumulated more than 3,000 internship hours working part-time while in school, said ECU’s labs, surveying, soil and estimating courses provided a solid foundation for much-needed field experience. “This is a hard industry to learn,” he said. “You’ve got to be hands on. It’s very hard to learn this in a classroom setting.”
ECU graduate Jason Knoernschild ’13 is a project engineer on the new Vidant cancer center being built next to ECU’s health sciences campus.
Another graduate, Jason Knoernschild ’13, is a project engineer on the new Vidant cancer center being built next to ECU’s health sciences campus.
He worked construction in high school and college, which confirmed his career choice. “I really had no connections to ECU, but I fell in love with the campus and school spirit,” said Knoernschild, who is from Fuquay-Varina. “I felt it was a great fit for me.”
He’s responsible for quality control and inspections of subcontractors working on the 415,000-square-foot, 96-bed cancer center to be completed next December.
“It’s going to be a world class facility with top flight equipment that will serve the eastern part of the state,” he said. “This will be the place to come.”
To see drone video of the construction site, visit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9uDqHR_Z1E.
ECU construction management alumni, left to right, Scott Wynne, David Philyaw, Tom Daniel and Rusty Woolard stand in front of the 14-acre ECU student center site.