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engineering

Is Your Engineering Consultant Speaking Your Language?

Have you ever gone to France and tried to communicate with a local using the French you learned in High School, while he tried to communicate back with the English he learned in grade school? (I know, think back to pre-Covid times when you could actually travel internationally). How does that language barrier affect your trip? Wouldn't it be a bit easier to get around if you were speaking the same language?

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It's not all Engineering - How Important is Project Controls to the Engineering Process?

I have had the great privilege of working in Project Management and Project Controls in Canada, the Middle East, South America, and in both the DJ Basin (Colorado) and the Delaware Basin (Texas). My experiences have included engineering firms, industrial construction, and pipeline installation companies as well as with an Oil & Gas operator. One thing I have learned, sometimes the hard way, is that good Project Management requires good Project Controls. One coupled without the other is a potential for poor project execution, cost and schedule overruns, and the development of a project without an understanding of what risks could occur and how best to mitigate them.

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Think Integrated

My wife is a PGA Golf Professional.  She’s also an adjunct distance-learning teacher at The Yost Household Kindergarten and Middle School for our 6 and 13-year-old’s, but that’s a story to be shared with other parents in the same boat…over one (or three) glasses of wine.   Her career as a golf professional is slightly different from that of the golf pro that runs a country club, who sets up tournaments, merchandises, and schmoozes members.  She chose long ago that her passion was to provide solutions to help golfers become better golfers.  She’s a golf instructor, a golf driving range owner, and the golf coach for the men’s and women’s teams at Fairmont State University in West Virginia, a small Division II school.

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Is Land Administration the missing piece to your puzzle?

Through this strange year of 2020, puzzles seem to have made a serious comeback.  One strategy to complete: identify the outside pieces and build the framework, then fill in the rest.  The outside pieces are the easiest to find and put together.  But you don’t get the full image until you fill in the complicated middle pieces.  What good is a puzzle with just the framework?

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What Does A Three-Legged Stool Have To Do With A Pipeline Route?

I spent a good part of my childhood growing up on a farm in West Virginia, both on our farm and my grandparents’ farms.  We had friends down the road who had a small herd of Guernsey cattle that they would milk, by hand, twice a day (this was the late 50’s and early 60’s).  Milking was quite an interesting process for the outsider (me) to watch as, in this case, the farmer, his older children, and a helper worked diligently to milk all the cattle as quickly as possible.  Cattle were brought into the barn, milked, and then lead out like clockwork.  One of the simplest (but essential) tools used in the milking process was a three-legged stool. 

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You Want Fries With That - YES, Integrate it!

Integrated vs. À La Carte Land Services - 

When you plan a multi-phase project, do you take the integrated or à la carte approach to your land services?  No phase or stage of a project is an island unto itself.  Many stages of a project build on the deliverables created and provided in earlier stages.  Each is mutually supporting as they are elements of a larger and more complex goal – the successful completion of the project.  So why not allow a single land company to manage each of those stages?

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