Beavers to Participate in Unique CE/CM Hybrid Program

The Beavers Charitable Trust is participating in the funding of an endowed professor for the new Granite Heavy Civil Engineering and Construction Program at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. This program will be a unique partnership between the Civil Engineering Department in the College of Engineering and Construction Management Department in the College of Architecture and Environmental Design.

This new program will produce students from both CE and CM disciplines with a heavy construction focus.

Ron Fedrick, chairman of the Beavers Charitable Trust, notes that in surveys of Beavers members Cal Poly SLO has consistently been one of the most popular schools for recruiting and hiring. This new program will produce students from both CE and CM disciplines with a heavy construction focus.

Granite Construction is providing the major initial funding for this new initiative and has invited The Beavers and other industry members to complete the funding of the endowment so this will be self-supported going forward.

Renovations of the Civil Engineering Pavements and Advanced Materials Lab and Construction Management Concrete Lab are also included in the overall program.

A new cross-disciplinary minor in Heavy Civil Engineering and Construction is being created involving CE students taking 12 units in CM and CM students taking 12 units in CE. Both groups will take 12 units of combined advanced coursework. The minor will also require a student to complete at least two heavy civil construction/engineering industry internships, for which they will earn a $1,000 scholarship.

Students will apply to the program at the end of their freshman year and 12 CE and 12 CM students will be accepted each year, resulting in 72 students in the pro- gram when it is fully implemented.

Since many Beavers members already actively recruit at Cal Poly, the Trust is confident members will participate by providing the required internships, especially since these students will obviously be interested and focused on the heavy construction sector of the industry.

Granite Construction is also com- mitted to promoting diversity in heavy civil construction and has included $3,000 recruitment scholarships for underrepresented groups.

The Beavers Charitable Trust will provide partial funding for the new Granite/Beavers Heavy Civil Engineering and Construction Chair Endowment. This professor will have 5 to 10 years of supervisory experience in the heavy civil industry and will hold joint appointment in both the Civil Engineering and Construction Management Departments. Granite Construction has agreed to provide funds for the professor salary and program start up costs so that this can be implemented immediately versus waiting until the endowments are fully funded.

Jim Roberts, CEO of Granite Construction, sees this unique program as the template which could be replicated at other schools around the country to meet the growing demand for trained heavy construction employees.