re: Construction Managers

I have a couple of buddies that are construction managers with a focus on data center builds. They make a damned nice living.

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Market is already saturated and oil isn't going to be $100/barrel

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until Iran nukes Saudi

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Managing Construction

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I wish I actually managed Construction!
On the commercial side the lack of reliable subcontractors and shitty work force you spend more time baby sitting and doing every one else job. The commercial Construction industry has gone down a very steep hill in the 20+ years I have been in the industry and getting exponentially worse!

Glorified babysitter, honestly

CM is a degree that you can pretty much do anything you want in construction. Residential, Commercial, Industrial, Heavy Civil, Piping, Structural Steel. etc. etc. You can either work in project management of some sort or estimating. What was said earlier about being experienced to be a manager is correct. Working in the field, you'll start out scheduling, writing daily reports/RFI's, timesheets/payroll, or purchasing and spending as much time as possible doing walk-down's and trying to learn the field you are in. If you're in estimating you'll be sending out RFQ packages, preliminary schedules, and doing takeoffs. The downside is you're a desk jockey 95% of the time with the occasional site visit or out of office meeting. The positive for that is you work normal hours, out of the heat/cold all day, and usually work from a main office instead of traveling from job to job. I've worked both field project management and estimating now in my 12+ years and prefer estimating, you have to be a good people person to be a PM. It really is a babysitting job most of the time whether it be your own people, subs, or clients. Eventually you get tired of working with some of those people and the bullshite they bring to you on a daily basis at 6am after you drove and hour to get to the jobsite. With estimating you get a package on your desk, usually bid it within a month or so, get instant results of your work win or lose, then move onto the next one. Depending on what size company you're with, you may have to help get the project going with contract buyouts, submittals, and purchasing. Smaller company PM's usually wear all the hats, estimate & manage. Being a traveling PM has benefits in pay, but not very conducive to family life.

Main thing is CM is knowledge based, knowledge you learn outside of school. If you've worked in the field at all, which is preferable, use your knowledge to expand in that field. You could always change fields, but you'll have to learn a whole new type of construction. I.E. going from commercial interior work to heavy civil/structural.