Registration

Luncheon & Program Welcome

Keith Fox - view bio»
President
McGraw-Hill Construction

Luncheon Keynote Address: Midterm Elections & Politics in America

John Heilemann - view bio»
Co-Author
Game Change
National political correspondent and columnist
New York Magazine

Luncheon Sponsored By:

Keynote: The Economic Outlook

The recession ended last summer, but the climb out of the hole is proving even slower than usual.  The recovery has to fight against too many headwinds.  The consumer has been the lead in the latest two economic expansions, but entered this recession with a record low saving rate and record high debt.  The overhang of homes available for sale, either through foreclosure or otherwise, will make it difficult for housing to lead the expansion.  The government has been taking the lead, but the problems in Europe show that we cannot maintain current fiscal stimulus without risking financial disaster.  The huge job losses and retail restructuring have created a surplus of private office and retail space, and with rehiring slow, there seems little likelihood that commercial construction can lead a boom.  These headwinds will not prevent a recovery, but they will keep the recovery slow and fragile.  A dip back into recession is still possible, especially if Europe deteriorates more.

Kathleen M. Camilli - view bio»
Founder & President
Camilli Economics, LLC

Green Outlook & Global Trends: Opportunities in the Construction Marketplace

With the current economic downturn, firms are looking for trends that will help serve as market differentiators in the very competitive construction marketplace. MHC regularly tracks trends and offers insights into where opportunities exist for the industry. Over the past five years, the shift of the construction market toward more sustainable design and construction practices has escalated. In 2005, MHC first sized the new construction market for green at 2% of commercial and residential construction activity. In 2008, we saw that growth increase to 15% and 10% respectively, and in 2009, for the first time ever, MHC forecasted the opportunity for green building in the existing building marketplace, predicting growth at rates faster than green would penetrate the new buildings market. This presentation will include MHC’s latest market sizing – in both new and existing buildings, as well as an outlook providing an estimate of the market in five years. The presentation will also reveal major global trends driving the construction industry marketplace.

Harvey M. Bernstein, F.ASCE, LEED AP - view bio»
Vice President, Global Thought Leadership & Business Development
McGraw-Hill Construction

The Outlook for Homebuilding & Residential Remodeling

The housing market was central to the overall collapse of our economy during this past recession, and has been slow to respond to the economic upturn. Why has the housing market been so slow to recover? What issues need to be resolved before we can have a normal housing recovery? How will the industry change as we move into the next upturn? This presentation will look at the prospects for and key issues facing the homebuilding and remodeling sectors.

Kermit Baker, Ph.D., Hon. AIA - view bio»
Chief Economist
The American Institute of Architects

Industry Perspectives from a Building Product Manufacturer

Sandy Diehl, Vice President of Integrated Building Solutions at United Technologies Corporation will share his perspective on the economy, viewed as a building product manufacturer, based on his experience through the business cycles over the last 30 years. He’ll address how the slowdown in construction has impacted the BPM industry, as well as other relevant trends and predictions for the future. Mr. Diehl will also speak about how his global firm has gained substantial leverage from the new economies and emerging markets. United Technologies is the parent company of Otis Elevator, Carrier, and UTC Fire and Security.

Sandy Diehl - view bio»
Vice President, Integrated Building Solutions
United Technologies Corporation

Networking Cocktail Reception & Sponsor Exhibits

Breakfast

Keynote: Emerging Trends in Technology, Design & Innovation

Digital technologies have transformed virtually every industry. Manufacturing has evolved from using CAD to applying functional, photorealistic digital prototypes. Today's blockbuster films routinely employ computer animation and virtual cinematography. And AEC is embracing BIM. In each case, new tools are dramatically increasing productivity and reshaping how creative professionals think and work. However, digital technologies are evolving faster than ever. What will the next generation of digital tools look like and how might they work?

In a visually rich, dynamic presentation, Autodesk Fellow Tom Wujec will show how several key technology trends will impact designers, engineers and builders. Infinite computing will provide unlimited processing power available to any designer—thereby opening up possibilities to give form to virtually anything we can imagine. The capacity to digitize reality, exchanging real-world data and environments into virtual worlds and back again with surprising ease, will help designers do a better job creating solutions for today's challenges. New design paradigms will produce remarkable approaches such as computational geometry, biomimicry - even biological computation. Join Tom Wujec to peek into the future and see how the next generation of digital tools will redefine what it means to design.

Tom Wujec - view bio»
Fellow
Autodesk

Building Materials & Labor Cost Trends

Economic theory holds that demand and supply will seek equilibrium.  Supply shortage and / or excess demand push prices up while excess supply and / or lack of demand drive prices down. The current deep and long-lasting recession has demonstrated this clearly. However, demand and supply are neither static nor equal across all product classes. Some building sectors simply use more of one product than others (significantly more drywall used in residential construction than in industrial) and so a change in activity in a single sector may disproportionately impact demand for a particular product. The use of some products is fading (either no longer fashionable or a better substitute has become available) while others are coming into vogue (sometimes in response to regulatory change) while the march towards truly sustainable design is impacting product selection in new ways. External factors such as long-term availability of commodities and its new-best-friend, speculation, distort prices for commodities and therefore supply and demand for particular products. These things combine to make an interesting kaleidoscopic view that can be hard to make sense of. The presentation will investigate these factors, identify the trends and outline their impact on the construction industry as a whole.

Julian Anderson, FRICS, CCC - view bio»
President
Rider Levett Bucknall

2011 Construction Outlook

The construction industry is currently seeing improved activity for some segments, though not all. Single family housing hit bottom in early 2009 and since then has shown modest, if tenuous, improvement. The lift to public works from the federal stimulus act has broadened from highways and bridges to include more environmental work. However, tight bank lending and the eroding fiscal health of states and localities remain as substantial constraints, affecting the construction of such structure types as offices and schools. The backdrop is a U.S. economy which is once again seeing expansion, but at the same time still faces headwinds, which have kept the recovery fragile. This presentation will assess the prospects for the construction industry in 2011, as reflected in the construction start statistics for major sectors – housing, commercial buildings, institutional buildings, manufacturing buildings, public works, and electric utilities.

Robert Murray - view bio»
Vice President, Economic Affairs
McGraw-Hill Construction

Program Close

Keith Fox
President
McGraw-Hill Construction