The construction industry is poised to grow dramatically during the next decade. In Arizona, there is demand for every type of structure from affordable houses to large industrial complexes, not to mention roadways and bridges needed to serve everyone now calling Arizona home. In order for those buildings to take shape, there is a connected demand for the skilled trade workers and the construction management personnel who are vital to each project’s success.
“People are getting hired left and right,” says Anthony Lamanna,
the Del E. Webb School of Construction Programs Chair and Sundt
Professor of Alternative Delivery Methods and Sustainable Construction.
“We could graduate three times as many students and there would still
be jobs available.”
For the past five years, Lamanna has held the role of overseeing the Del E. Webb School of Construction, a part of the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, one of the seven Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering.
He says the connection to the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment gives the Del E. Webb School of Construction an edge because it is not only home to the construction management and technology and construction engineering programs, but also the civil engineering, environmental engineering, and sustainable engineering programs. He says the unique collaboration enables faculty, students, alumni and industry partners to address and solve issues related to the construction and sustainability of the built environment in our communities, both locally and globally.
Construction and sustainability are two subjects that have been at
the forefront of Lamanna’s research since he earned his doctorate in
civil engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has
sought to establish standards for repairing and retrofitting existing
buildings and designing structures for adaptive reuse. For example, he
has looked at adapting a building once used as a funeral home and
turning it into a bookstore.
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