Every construction project is made up of millions of different elements. From the building permits to the architectural drawings, the subcontractors and the building materials, there’s a lot that’s involved with every project.
At Henderson, Nev.-based Tutor Perini Building Corp., Daniel Vandersteen is the man in charge of the procurement process, or purchasing all of the trades on a given construction project.
As he puts it: “you are soliciting the highest quality product for the lowest possible price, so that you can deliver a quality product to the client at the end of the day. We’re looking for high-quality products at a fair price.”
Depending on the stage of a given project, Vandersteen says his responsibilities can vary. “Generally, my days consist of assembling bid packages for specific work scopes, having subcontractor scope review meetings, subcontract award meetings, meetings with ownership, reviewing procurement tracking logs, monitoring scope changes and subcontractor change order pricing, etc.,” he explains. “Every day is different, and rarely can I work on any given task for more than 20 minutes at a time without having to shift to another responsibility.”
Wearing Many Hats
On any given day, Vandersteen says he can be wearing many different hats when he’s in procurement mode. He works with both the project operations and estimating teams as a sort of liaison. Once estimating has done its job of securing the project and arriving at a budget, and before the operations or field workers are able to build the project, Vandersteen is responsible for finding all of the required subcontractors.
To do this, he assembles bid packages in which he needs to have an understanding of the scope of each trade. He puts together a written narrative and assembles all of the documents and exhibits to send out to the subcontractor bid list. Once the bids are returned, Vandersteen and his team review them for completeness and accuracy and level them out so the bids can be compared apples-to-apples. When the bids are leveled out and all include the appropriate scope, Vandersteen makes a recommendation to ownership of whom the package should be awarded to for each specific trade. Ownership takes the recommendation under consideration, reviews the bids for themselves, and then handles the final negotiations with the subcontractors. A reward is then made to the subcontractors, and throughout the course of the project, any questions about a particular scope or subcontractor comes back to Vandersteen.
“I have to keep good records of what was discussed, what subcontractors included in their bids,” he explains, “because through the entire course of the project all the way to the end of the job, people will always come back asking who owns which scopes, what did the subcontractors commit to, what do we need to hold them responsible for. And if nobody is responsible for it, then it becomes a change order, which we try to avoid.”
“Sounds kind of dull on the outside, but is very active,” he says. “There’s a lot of pieces and parts to juggle.”
On any given day, Vandersteen could be meeting with Tutor-Perini executives, and, later in the day, owner representatives, or, on another day, the preconstruction vice president. “That’s probably one of the major challenges of this job, is identifying who your customers are and satisfying all of their needs,” he notes. “You have to have a pretty good ability to manage your time efficiently.”
Communication with all of the entities involved on a project is very complex and must be well thought-out, he notes. “When communicating I always need to be aware of the recipients’ role, level of responsibility, motives, personality, etc.”
A City within a City
Last year, Vandersteen moved to New York from Las Vegas to work on Hudson Yards, the largest private development project in New York since Rockefeller Center. As the single largest piece of undeveloped property in Midtown Manhattan, the 26-acre mixed-use project will feature more than 13 million square feet made up of more than 6 million square feet of commercial space, approximately 5,000 residences, a new public school and luxury hotel. The $15 billion project is being developed by Related Companies and Oxford Properties Group.
Vandersteen is currently working on budgets for a commercial tower and residential tower, as well as the seven-story retail center. Budgets have been finalized for Tower C, a 1.7 million square-foot, 47-story office tower, and the platform over the rail yards on which many of the buildings will be constructed.
A Different Perspective
Before getting into the procurement business, Vandersteen attended the University of Utah and received a degree in architecture. During his senior year, he realized that architecture wasn’t the path that he wanted to follow, so he moved to Tempe, Ariz., and attended two years of postgraduate school at the University of Arizona in construction management. After college, Vandersteen went on to work at a local general contractor, first as a project engineer and then a project manager. “As time passed I found myself leaning to more of the preconstruction and procurement positions,” he says.
While architecture may not have been Vandersteen’s true calling, it has helped him in his current job. “I feel like my design background has given me insight into the design world so that I can better understand their perspectives, their interests and the demands that they have put on them,” he explains.
This also helps him to better understand what architects are trying to communicate during meetings or teleconferences. “Communication is key,” he says. “That sounds very cliché- communication is key-but it really is, especially when you’re dealing with hundreds of different entities to get a job done, because not everybody speaks the same language.”
Always Active
Vandersteen notes that this is a very active business and generally cannot get to his to-do list until sometime in the afternoon, if not later. “Each morning there is a new issue that needs attention, another surprise meeting that is scheduled, or someone on the team that needs help with a task,” he says. “Important character traits to have in this line of work are the ability to manage your time well and know how to prioritize your tasks. Every day has its own unique and uncharted path so understanding how to navigate the process is essential to success.”
“I typically enjoy the pace of this type of work,” Vandersteen adds. “It is very active and changes from day to day. There is a surprising amount of information that can be learned in this industry and the learning curve is very long. Simply put, I enjoy this business because it is active,
