People of Construction

PERSPECTIVE: I started my after-college career with Kummer Construction Company in 1968.  We grew into HBE Corporation and designed and built over 1800 medical and financial facility buildings throughout the United States.  As Controller and Chief Financial Officer, I managed all the cash for this company through the growth and the mad-dash heyday years, working with owners to establish payment terms and conditions that worked for all parties participating in their projects.  We were paid by the tenth of each…

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I propose that this industry’s definition and continued practice of withholding retention is an outdated concept.  With the changes in payment practices, retention is no longer the safeguard it was designed to be; it is now merely another “cost of capital” arrow in a quiver of inequities. Retention was designed to be a form of contingency for owners in a time when monthly applications for payment were prepared off a twenty-line-item list of descriptive work items and roughly approved by…

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By:  Ron Unterreiner, PEOPLE of Construction When diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging were the talk of the industry, I recall many conversations where leaders in our industry, including the major owners and general contractors, would publicly say that diversity was an important ingredient to the success of a project.  A diverse workforce and inclusion of minority and women-owned firms was a positive and needed step in the right direction, regardless of the requirements placed on a project to meet certain…

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