I first heard the words value engineering in 1982 when the wastewater plant I designed was value engineered by Jim Hudson and a band of Virginians. Told to “not let them change our design”, I was hooked when I saw the process develop an improved site plan, after we had considered 16 of them. I talked the boss into having Jim teach a 40 Hour Training Workshop the next week. With 18% savings and an improved project, it was love at first sight! Soon, with Jim Hudson as our CVS, we won a Sacramento District COE VE contract for 13 studies over two years. VE team members doing design review for the massive Fort Drum project in Northern New York urged us to prepare a gratis VE report for a Fort Drum project, leading to a meeting with the General and a contract for 19 studies. In a sea of VE and loving it, I joined SAVE and attended my first SAVE Conference in Sacramento in 1984. I owe Jim more than I could ever repay for his mentoring, friendship, and lessons in both life and VE.
With success in VE and achievement of a CVS came promotion to Managing Engineer. As QA/QC Coordinator, I incorporated VE into the firm’s project management scheme. Although adopted by firm management, the scheme was poorly implemented, a fate of many expensive TQM programs at that time. My boss liked VE for profit, but never believed in it for in-house use. To this day, it is a source of amazement and frustration to me that this powerful set of tools known as VE is so under appreciated. Becoming Environmental Division Manager, it became difficult to break away for VE studies. Moving out on my own in 1995, VE became my full time gig. It was then I learned what a God given blessing it is to love the work you do.
In 26 years of VE, and 24 years in SAVE, I have had many notable learning moments. At the Indianapolis conference, I helped lead an impromptu brainstorming session on how to improve SAVE using mind maps to record the ideas. In a conference where the “if you don’t use FAST it’s not VE” argument raged, it was a fun and exciting session and showed the youth of VE people, no matter what their age. At the same conference, Charles Bytheway shared that he never “finished” a FAST diagram, a reminder that it’s function that matters and there are many tools and many approaches. The raging argument died down and we have all generally embraced that flexibility. The Chicago conference led to an Irish Pub with English Canadian Martyn Phillips, Indian icon S.S.Venkataramanan, and an Irish waitress three weeks removed the old sod. That led to a more international outlook, a love of Guinness and, in time, the Team Focus Group. Just thinking of Martyn reminds me every day that the value methodology is still evolving and we must be more adaptable in unleashing its power to the world around us.
As the Head of Value Management for Faithful+Gould, I get to continue a tradition began as Hanscomb over 30 years ago. We have increased our VE workload, our involvement with SAVE, and our training of personnel. I have also trained many clients over the last few years and have become a mentor for a few up and coming VE professionals. This is my attempt at repaying Jim Hudson and many other Fellows that helped me along the way. There is no greater honor I could seek than to be welcomed into the College of Fellows – fine fellows all.
A graduate of Cornell University with a Bachelor of Civil Engineering and Masters of Engineering in Agricultural Waste Management, I have led 240 VE project and training workshops with nearly $2.5 billion of value improvements on projects totalling over $13 billion. I have also trained nearly 400 personnel in a Module I. I am a CVS (Life), a Professional in
Value Management (PVM), and a Professional Engineer. I currently serve on the SAVE Certification Board and am the President of the Mid-NYS Chapter of SAVE. I am also Vice President of the Canadian Society of Value Analysis (CSVA).
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