Estimator of the Year Announcement

Even with the lockdown due to Covid-19, our Chapter has been busy with giving and submitting for multiple awards.
We awarded five scholarships to incredibly deserving students in construction or architectural college programs.
We submitted documentation for earning the second highest National Chapter Award to the ASPE home offices. Our submittal outlined all the programs our local chapter had done over the last year to serve our membership and our industry.
And very importantly, we awarded the highest award a Chapter can give to a member – the “Estimator of the Year Award”. The recipient of this award is Jason Emerick of Hallmark Stone. Two years ago, Jason had never even attended an ASPE meeting. He attended an AGC Estimators Forum meeting our chapter had requested to discuss our programs to the AGC group. After hearing what ASPE and our chapter was all about, he not only joined the ASPE organization, he agreed to serve on our Chapter’s Board of Directors. He brought a newcomer’s energy to our board and some needed expertise in social networking. He set up and updates our website (aspe19stlouis.org), administers our EventBrite meeting notification account, set us up with Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter, provided the sound system for our Trivia Nights, among all else he does so willingly and cheerfully. We are grateful for all he has done for the chapter.

Every year our American Society of Professional Estimators Metro St. Louis Chapter 19 advertises to students in colleges and universities studying in construction related programs to apply for a $1,000.00 scholarship. This year we had some absolutely outstanding applicants.

Thanks to the generosity of several construction general contractor and subcontractor companies who donated money or objects for our silent auction and for the wonderful attendance at our 2^nd annual Trivia Night on March 7th, our Metro St. Louis Metro Chapter of the American Society of Professional Estimators (ASPE) is able to award not one, not two, not three, not four, but five scholarships this year!

The highest scoring applicant was Lydia Juengling who attends Kansas University in the school of architecture. She will be awarded a check for the $1,000.00 scholarship we typically award.

As the Trivia Night was so successful in raising funds for our scholarship, we are happy to award $500.00 to each of the next four highest scoring applicants.  They are Nicole Martindale (Iowa State), Benjamin Steger (University of Missouri – Columbia), Nicholas Raush (Drury University), and Anna Schwartz (University of Missouri – Columbia).

We wish all who applied great success in their future endeavors. They are each perfect examples of the people who are needed for the future of our industry.

We hope to hold our scholarship fundraising Trivia Night next March once again. Check our website www.aspe19stlouis.org early next year for the announcement and join in the fun. 

The results of our election for next year’s board is in. Returning board members are: John Smith, CPE (The Lawrence Group) as President, Everett Myers, CPE (McCarthy) as 1^st Vice President, Mary Rotter (Golterman & Sabo) as 2^nd Vice President, Jim Stukenberg (Freelance Estimator) as Treasurer, Cyndi Walker (Golterman & Sabo) as Secretary, and as Directors: Jason Emerick (Hallmark Stone); Jeff Judge (C.E. Jarrell); Diane Rinck (Paric); and Fred Waldrop, FCPE (Clay Pipe). We welcome new board member directors Cameron Beattie (Holland Construction) and Kyle Hoefel (Bazan Painting). The first board meeting of our new Chapter year will be a virtual meeting on Friday, May 15^th to swear in our new board, plan our upcoming activities and announce our “Estimator of the Year Award”. We look forward to a successful 2020 / 2021 year. Be sure to check the website often for meeting notices – you may be interested in the topics to be presented starting in September and we urge you to join us.

The ASPE Chapter 19 St. Louis Board wanted to thank McCarthy for hosting our October Chapter meeting and Ryan Molen, Josh Gaghan, Jaime Perera, and Monica Bailey for talking about the importance and how to create High Performance Teams for large-scale construction projects.

For those interested in the Outreach for the McCarthy/HITT NGA project, more details can be found here.

Our chapter is growing and attendance has been steady now for over a year!  We want to thank all of those who come and invite you to our next monthly meeting at the AGC Construction School relating to Master Specifications by Steve Gantner of Cannon Design and the CSI.

ASPE St. Louis is also teaming with the AGC Estimators to have a forum at 7:00am before our chapter’s meeting on Fri, Nov 15, 2019 to discuss issues facing construction estimators.  If interested contact us.

Click here for more details about November’s meeting…

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by Cyndi Walker, G&S Architectural Products

Our first meeting of our 2019 – 2020 year featured Mr. Ron Wiese, VP at Alberici; Mr. Frank Kutilek, FCPE (Fellow Certified Estimator) a founding member of our Chapter in 1976; scholarship winners Ms. Megan Spaunhorst and Ms. Samantha Wickes; and our new board members. Not a cast of 1,000 but a good start to our new year of activities.

Ron presented his topic “Tariffs – How they affect Construction projects from the perspective of Owners, General Contractors, Subcontractors, Suppliers and especially Estimators”. He made a lot of good points, gave people in attendance a lot to think about and used graphs and charts and everything.

Before Ron’s presentation, Frank performed the swearing in ceremony of our recently elected new board members. Even though the board has been meeting over the summer to plan our meetings and events for this year (more to follow in this article, I promise), they are now official.

The 2019 – 2020 Chapter officers include second term President John Smith, CPE of The Lawrence Group; second term 1st Vice-President Everett Myers, CPE of McCarthy; a new position for Mary Rotter of Golterman & Sabo, Inc. as 2nd Vice-President (moving up from a Director position); our longtime Treasurer, Jim Stukenberg will continue in that position as will the Chapter Secretary, Cyndi Walker of Golterman & Sabo.

The six newly elected Chapter Board of Directors include Jason Emerick of Hallmark Stone (2nd year on the board and the developer of our new and improved website www.aspe19stlouis.org and master of our EventBrite reservation service); Rich Ullrich, Lifetime CPE and owner of Everest Estimating (also 2nd year on the board – and in charge of developing our future Estimating Academy); experienced longtime board members Diane Rinck, Senior Estimator for Paric and Fred Waldrop, FCPE, Business Development for Clay Pipe; and new board members Kevin Suiter of Murphy Company and Jeff Judge of Charles E. Jarrell Contracting Co., Inc.

We presented checks to our 2019 Scholarship award winners. We had two such outstanding applicants we decided to provide two scholarships this year instead of our usual one award. Ms. Megan Spaunhorst, now in her junior year at Bradley University studying Civil Engineering, was presented a check for $1,000.00 and Ms. Samantha Wickes, a senior at Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla, was presented with a check for $500.00. These two women are well worthy of receiving our scholarship awards as they have accumulated great grade averages, are active in their campus lives, industry organizations, and charitable endeavors. We wish them well in their future and are glad we could contribute a little financial aid.

Now, as promised, back to our plans for upcoming meetings and events.

October’s monthly meeting (October 18th at McCarthy’s office) will be presented by Mr. Ryan Molen on how McCarthy assembled and developed their design build team for the NGA project. Click here to register.

On November 15th, Mr. Steve Gantner of Cannon Design will talk to us about UNI and MasterSpec Specifications.

On January 17th, we plan to host an Open House/Job Fair for students from area colleges and trade schools to meet representatives from contractors for possible internships/employment.

February 17th and March 20th meetings will be a 2-part topic on 3D – 3D Models for Estimating and 3D Printing.

On March 7th we will hold our 2nd Annual Trivia Night with proceeds to help fund our scholarship for 2020. At last year’s Trivia Night we had lots of fun and had a really good turnout – we hope to see you there.

April 17th we will hear about legal issues in our industry as presented by Mr. Dan Gabris, a St. Louis lawyer who knows about Change Orders, Liens, Contract disputes, etc.

The May 15th meeting will be presented by members of the SAK/Goodwin team about their tunneling project.

We will also have a Night at the Races at Fairmount Park, always a good time, with the date to be determined once the track’s schedule is announced and reservations opened.

We are also working on planning an “Estimating Academy” which will be held in four ½ day classes. Rich Ullrich is chairing that undertaking. If you would like to help, please email your contact information and willingness to help to cyndiw@golterman.com.

The American Society of Professional Estimators serves construction estimators by providing educational programs, fellowship, and the opportunity for professional development. The certification program can lead to the ultimate goal of personal growth and professionalism. We hope you will join us and become active members in our Chapter to better our St. Louis construction industry.