Auburn's building science program received national attention when its team of six Auburn students won the project management award at the Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc. competition in San Antonio, Texas in April.
Kathryn Crowley, Jeremy Bolton, Daniel Chapman, Chelsey Jacobs, Seth Slatton and Charles Powers represented Auburn.
The team was given a project to present in front of judges in San Antonio weeks before the competition was held.
"We spent a good 50 to 60 hours on that project," Chapman said. "We were assigned a school in Maryland and had to come up with a company."
The team had to figure out the costs and the building plans to renovate a school in Baltimore.
They focused on 24 hour safety on the site and getting the local community involved. The team proposed local business owners to be hired along with local minority women.
The team was told the school had been vandalized and caught on fire. The judges gave the team 6 hours to respond to the damages done in their projects.
The proposed solution was to rearrange storage areas and modifying the site utilization plan. The solution added one week to the entire schedule of 10 months.
The final budget proposed was $5.6 million.
"Most of us had done construction internships so we were all well prepared for the fire damage in the building," Crowley said.
After the team presented how they would handle the damages done to their project, they were given the next day off.
Auburn was announced the winner for project management on the final day.
"We balled out the presentation," Crowley said. "We were cohesive in the question and answer portion and the judges thought our presentation was the best."
Crowley said the win should give Auburn's building science program national recognition.
"It helps get students jobs out of college," Crowley said. "It gives our building science program a little more credibility when students are trying to decide on a major too."
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