Buzzworthy – What the Construction Industry is Saying about Kahua

December 11, 2023

Nicholas Johnson

It has been three very busy weeks for the Kahua team. Six important conferences in three states and the District of Columbia. Here’s a sampling of what we’ve seen and heard …

Kahua Regional Business Manager Todd Procaccini participated the annual Southeast Region Association of Physical Plant Administrators (SRAPPA) conference in Tampa, just days after Hurricane Ian ravaged the southernmost gulf coast of Florida and did some serious damage to the City of Tampa also. Obviously, damage control and restoration were important topics. This group, part of the larger APPA community, helps college and university staff improve the way they plan for and operate their many facilities.

SRAPPA is good people doing good work to make higher education more accessible, more affordable, and more enjoyable. — Todd Procaccini

The P3 for Education Conference was held in Washington D.C., and we attended because Kahua is primed to help improve project outcomes on P3 (public-private partnerships). Along with our ecosystem partner Superset, we’ve developed a robust suite of tools for the unique processes P3 brings with it. There was consensus at this conference that the public agency involved should use an advisor, especially if it is attempting its first P3. There was also consensus that using P3 simply as a means of keeping project financials off of the public agency’s books is a recipe for a bad project. In other words, use this contract vehicle when it will deliver the best project results, not simply when you don’t have the budget to build what you want to build.

Panelist at the Project Controls Expo in Washington D.C.

Later the same week and also in D.C., the Kahua team was present for the Project Controls Expo at Washington Nationals Park. This event has gained a great following in Europe, Asia and Australia. But this was the first ever event in the U.S., and it was a successful launch. The focus was on scheduling and cost controls. One of the best presentations we saw was offered by another Kahua partner, Terri Maginnis, a practice director at Project Partners, LLC. Project Partners is a recent addition to the Kahua family and Terri did us proud with her presentation on getting started using earned value management.

“We’re excited to be a Kahua Ecosystem Partner. It’s an exceptional platform for building applications and the potential is incredible.” — Terri Maginnis

Photo of Kahua’s Nicholas Johnson courtesy of CMAA

The Construction Management Association of America’s (CMAA) national conference was held in San Diego, California, the second week of October. It’s really good to see crowds returning to these kind of events. CMAA offered three days of excellent networking and educational sessions.

Lots of Kahua partner companies were in attendance, like Parsons, CBRE, Heery, Turner & Townsend and AECOM.

Many of them participated in the teaching sessions. I had the honor of facilitating the final panel discussion of the week. A big shout out and thank you to our panelists for “Leveraging Technology to Reduce Risk and Improve Project Outcomes”: Rose Hall of AXA XL; Andrew L. Mittleman of Jacobs; Alicia Nowaczyk of Vanir; and Raaj Patel from the State of California Department of General Services.

The same week we moved up the California coast a bit to Newport Beach to attend the CASH Fall Conference. CASH is a fun name for an important group, the Coalition for Adequate School Housing. This group was formed in 1978 to fight for proper funding for

K-12 facilities. It still does just that, but it has also become the primary industry group for K-12 construction professionals in California. Again, there were many great learning sessions lead by members and supporting companies. Among the most interesting was a panel discussion how to select the best contract type for your K-12 project. A group that included three lawyers, two contractors and Kahua’s friend Frank Camarda, who represented the K-12 owners on this panel, debated the pros and cons of each type contract. Frank is the COO at San Juan Unified School District near Sacramento.

The team from Kahua for Subcontractors headed to Austin, Texas, for the National Association of Electrical Contractors big show. NECA 2022 featured almost 300 hours of educational sessions, which were offered with virtual and onsite components. This is one of the larger specialty contractor shows anywhere.

“Kahua is not a one-size-fits-all solution like so many others. We’ve developed tools focused on the needs of specialty contractors. We are here at NECA because we are committed to help this critical part of the construction market.” — Jeff Burmeister, General Manager Kahua for Subcontractors.

Look for the Kahua team in the coming days and weeks at Infraday Canada, DBIA, London Builds, Project Controls Expo London, SAME, CUTA and COAA. We’ll be there to learn and serve.