Following my Spring semester of my freshman year I headed to Indianapolis to work for Meyer Najem Construction. I was able to obtain the position of assistant superintendent after first, meeting with one of their project managers/recruiters at the Spring 2010 career fair at Purdue University and an in person interview at their home office in Fishers, Indiana. Once I had the position offered to me they notified me that I would be working under two superintendents on a job site daily. The site I was assigned was a new $22M OrthoIndy 23-Hour Stay Orthopedic Hospital in Greenwood, Indiana. The project was 75,000SF and housed surgical, clinical, and office space including: 4 surgery suites, 42 clinical exam rooms, 15 medical offices and an MRI room to give you a better idea of the overall space. Meyer Najem acted as the construction manager on this job and was hired by the investment firm having the space built, OrthoIndy was just the lessee of the space.
As I mentioned earlier, I worked directly under two superintendents that had already been on-site for about 9-10 months at the time of my arrival. I also worked under the project manager of the job, which happened to be the recruiter who hired me. Between the three of them I was assigned a number of different tasks. I was given a Summer long assignment to keep in mind and compile over my 12-weeks with Meyer Najem. I had to monitor the progress of the lobby/receptionist area of the building documenting work done, issues, solutions, materials, and so on. With this information I made a final presentation to my co-workers and supervisors at their office in Fishers the last week of work (Included as a link).
Other daily tasks included maintaining and updating paper work that included: blue prints, RFI's, change order's, and proposal requests. I also kept a daily log of work progression in my area of interest, gave safety orientation paperwork and videos for new workers, ran errands, and would help the laborer on site if needed. Other activities that occurred were weekly sub-contractor meetings, bi-weekly owner meetings, maintaining and inspecting quality control items that included: casework, fire stopping, flooring (VCT), and acoustical ceiling systems. Each day I would conduct an informal safety walk to ensure that everything was in proper working condition and signage was correct. Then each week when our safety administrator was on site I would do an official safety walk with her and monitor the types of items she was looking for and analyzing possible solutions to current hazards and/or brainstorming to eliminate future issues.
Overall, I was so blessed to have been able to be in the field each and everyday because I was able to learn so much from not only being told, but physically seeing the processes in action. It was a great experience and set my learning curve much higher especially since it was my first construction related job position. The knowledge I obtained over that Summer has benefited me not only in the classroom back at school but my future internship the following summer!
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