Gareth McGlynn: Alan Dunbar, welcome to the Preconstruction Podcast.
Alan Dunbar: Thank you very much. It’s great to be here.
Gareth: Delighted to have you. For anybody who doesn’t know Alan, he is set in Seattle and 16 years with Skanska, Senior Vice President and Preconstruction Lead for the West Coast. Is that right?
Alan: Yes. I have Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. I also lead the technology and preconstruction group for our precon group.
Gareth: Wonderful. Well, we had your two of your “compadre'” John and Will Senner, and Mr. Stouthamer. So, looking forward to get into that in more detail. Before we do that, Alan, from the accent I think everyone can-- just about get it, it all started back in Glasgow. What was it like growing up in Glasgow and then obviously going to junior doing your QS degree?
Alan: Glasgow is a beautiful city. I think it’s a little bit misunderstood, always getting a bad rep in comparison to Edinburgh but I think it’s got a little bit more character than Edinburgh. The people are just amazing. They will tell you about what’s on their mind and they have just a wicked sense of humor. So, it is a great place to grow up. We actually went to South Africa for three years growing up. My dad was an Electrical Engineer who got an opportunity to go down there and build a grid down there. So, we got an opportunity to see a little bit of it back in the 70s. I grew up in a little village just outside Glasgow with about 4,000 folks everybody knew everybody. Then, I did a Bachelor of Science In Quantity Surveying at Glasgow Tech. For those who don’t know what Quantity Surveying is, it is basically the financial and legal side of the construction industry. So, math had always been pretty simple to me. It always came easy to me and it just seem to-- probably is gonna be the right fit for me.
Gareth: Brilliant. And with the construction aspect of it in Math, you could have done it to a number of things with good Math, Physics, or whatever it may be, what kind of draw you the construction industry?
Alan: Growing up, my dad use to buy flats or what was known as condos over here. He would renovate them and rent them out. I was always getting dragged along to do work, free work for him and I just got interested in that. It just seem to hit a spot and when I went to college, the year I entered kind of made my head spin. Everything is coming out great salaries, great jobs. When I graduated in ‘93, it was the bottom of the recession, I think four of us got jobs coming out of college. It completely flipped on us. I think my first job with a local construction company was paying me 5,000 pounds a week. It was-- a year, sorry. Yeah.
Gareth: [Laughing]
Alan: [Crosstalk] $7,500 a year, which is, wow!
Gareth: Wow! That’s amazing, isn’t it? Was it just a case of this and then you get down here to get some experience, get your feet dirty and find out what this is all about?
Alan: Yeah. I was lucky that one of my neighbors was a building surveyor, so basically, an architect to those renovation work. He hooked me up with a construction firm in Glasgow, a guy who can build a company from ground up. The guy gave me a job. I and he gave me a job. Then, I graduated just so I had a job. What he told me is the only reason he was giving me a job was to go find another job. So, that was really good. He believed that you needed two mentors in your professional life. You need to tell them to teach you the professional side of your profession. Tell them also to tell you how to play the game. He said, “I can tell you how to play the game but you need to go about the professional side of it.” So, it was great value to me. It worked really well. Yeah.
Gareth: Yeah. You were lucky and everyone can, especially at the beginning, everyone needs that helping hand and it doesn’t have to be a direct mentor who’s gonna mentor you for 10 or 15 years but just that, that several bit of advise to go on, whether it be going to get experience, site experience, get in the office, and the whole quantity surveying thing, it’s kind of a lot of office and my listeners and our listeners in the preconstruction podcast are Americans that come through with a construction management degree, and several with electrical and mechanical degree, they don’t understand that-- well, not that they don’t understand but they have never experienced a purely quantity surveying degree. Just give us a quick high level overview of how different it is to like a construction management degree in the US.
Alan: Well, a lot of focus on, obviously, cost control. How you set up about quantities so that people [inaudible] price increase. Primarily, at that time, what we get procured through contractors has been given [indiscernible] quantity. So, a list of all the [indiscernible] in the project and quantities alongside them and you race against each other and that will be, um, that would be your offer to the client, and ultimately, it will all get re-measureed during the project to make sure that It is a fair process for everybody. So, there was a lot of diligence and teaching on how to prepare these bills and quantities, and a lot of rigor in the process. You have construction process, law process on contract law and basically economic process as well. A lot more focus on the set of process, the rigor that goes into the setting up a project financially.
Gareth: Brilliant. Yeah and slightly different, I mean, the opposite touch on estimates and preconstruction in the Construction Management degree but it’s, to me, there’s not enough focus and hence, the reason that there is such a lack of good talent in the US market and I think we’ve got to change the education system in some way to try and get something more focused towards preconstruction and estimating because as you and a lot may guess, it is gonna be that the place where the single most important decisions are made within the project. I just hope that they address that. So, you have qualified quantity surveyor and ready to rock and roll, go and earn some money and yeah, 7,500 a year, you kind of spent some time then obviously South Africa and in the UK. What about 2006? What brings you to the US?
Alan: Yes. Um, I had a, you know, I think my parents always encouraged me to go see the world. They kind of set up, you know, when we went to Africa. They were so keen to go see the world, to live with the extended family. And, I’ve always seen America as a great place. I’ve always seen it on TV. It was always looking really great.There was a bunch of QS firms in the US who advertise for quantity surveyors and I applied. It was funny, one of my close college buddies actually got offered the job. And--
Gareth: Right?[Cross-talk]
Alan: -- he didn’t want to move. He decided-- he then[cross-talk] to leave.
Gareth: [Chuckles]He got cold feet. He didn’t want to leave [cross-talk]
Alan: Yeah, he got cold feet.
Gareth: Yeah.
Alan: And so, I got offered the job. I could have been in Phoenix, Las Vegas or Seattle, and it was Seattle. And I, actually I got cold feet and my dad said to me, which is probably some of the best advice I ever received. He said, “Go give it a year, son. Go try it and don’t ever look back and say you never tried, and if it doesn’t work out, come on back. Your buddies will still be on the same bar stools. They’ll just see you as having had a vacation in the US for a year.”
Gareth: Yeah.
Alan: “But don’t look back in 20 years and say, I wish I tried.” I think now, I think sometimes you need the work of a helping hand just to push you over in the edge and that’s what I needed at that time, and it was-- I looked back and said, “That was a brilliant advice.”
Gareth: And he hasn’t seen you since? You haven’t been back since? [Chuckles]
Alan: [Chuckles] Yeah. I haven’t been back for three years at the moment.
Gareth: Right. Good. I should probably example, it was probably the reassurance that you need. You probably knew it was the right thing to do. But, I mean, what age would you have been back then? You were still, still a young man.
Alan: Yeah, I was 26 when I came over.
Gareth: Okay. [Inaudible] I mean, I always think-- you always think of the generations that have gone past, especially Irish, even from the UK. They all went to the East Coast like it was-- It just seems a little bit of an easier move to New York, Boston, even Chicago is not a million miles away, but Seattle, San Fran, LA, it’s like-- it’s almost-- it’s the same again, if you know what I mean. Coming 7 hours, fair play to you for taking that chance.
Alan: Yeah. Certainly. It’s but also the people are different, I think, because you’ve had so many immigrants on the East Coast. There’s and you tend to stay where you’re on, you know, pretty nearby. Then, there’s the personalities and characters that are a lot more similar to the Irish and Scottish, Italians. So, they are a lot more direct and, you know, that’s one thing you get around being on your own when I came to the West Coast. I had to learn to back down a little bit and not be so direct.
Gareth: Yeah, yeah. And it’s, I mean, you’ve been able to pick that up as a skill in itself. I remember, we came from, before we got to New York, we came from Perth, Australia and Perth, Australia is like so secluded it’s like an outback town and where everything is just relaxed, taking it easy, relationships. Let’s not get tied up in the particulars but then go from New York. It was like chalk and cheese and it is. It’s different. And is that what drew you to Seattle other than the other options, Honolulu? Or, were you given advice on that as well?
Alan: I’ve seen a TV program about Vancouver, BC, which looked just awesome. I can’t remember if it’s a BBC TV program. I can’t remember the name of the travel program but it was all about the city, their music, their lifestyle. I was just attracted.
Gareth: Brilliant.
Alan: And Seattle was the closest that I could get.
Gareth: Brilliant, brilliant. Great. And, though it’s 16-- I think that you have been there for 16 years and that you haven’t moved.
Alan: Twenty-four years this year.
Gareth: Wow.
Alan: ‘98, uh, when-- Yeah.
Gareth: So, give me an idea. You’re obviously a young Scottish guy, coming over, the world’s your oyster, you get you’re break at Skanska. Tell me about that kind of evolution of Alan Dunbar, climbing the ladder-- climbing the ladder quite quickly. What was that like and how did Skanska facilitate that? How did they allow you to grow so fast and so quickly?
Alan: When I first came over, I joined Rider Hunt for three years and then I worked for Davis Langdon for four years. I had a lot of opportunity to work on some great projects at Seattle Mariners Stadium Field. I worked on that for a year or so, and. They were building the campus in Seattle and I went there and ran the financial side of that project. Skanska happened to be the contractor on the project and I got to know the people. I got to know the people. I also was doing a bunch of third party estimating on public projects. I have been negotiating numbers with the GCs including Skanska. So, I got to know a bunch of folks at the company and I really enjoyed the people. There was a chief estimator there by the name of Curt Burks and he-- I always thought that I could learn from him. I’ve always thought that was important. Then, I’ve had the option that I could control at the most to-- I wanted to work for people that I can learn from and I always admire Curt and so I can learn from him. So, he called me one day and I was standing on the at the airport and he said to join the com-- if I want to come and join them at Skanska. I was going through my Green card process at that time and I didn’t want to so I just told them that I couldn’t move at this time. I was on when he talked to me. He said, “Well, just call me when you’re ready.” So, a year later, I called him and he is one of these guys who’s really hard to get hold of. I got to his voicemail and I said, “Hey, Curt, this is Alan. I just quit my job at Davis Langdon. I come to join you over there in two weeks. Give me a call much if you’re going to see me.”
Gareth: [Laughs]
Alan: That literally was a voicemail and he called back [cross-talk]
Gareth: Brilliant.
Alan: --later on and said, “Cool. See you in a couple of weeks. Don’t worry about the money.” And I joined Skanska 16 years ago and I’ve stayed because of the people.
Gareth: Brilliant. I--
Alan: [cross-talk] Awesome.
Gareth: I love the direct approach. You obviously uh-- you didn’t know it too much. [chuckles]
Alan: No, not at all
Gareth: [Chuckles] Brilliant. But yeah. I get that, I mean, speaking with Steve Stouthamer and Will Senner, and everybody that we deal with in the Skanska team. There is a thing that they do hire good people and it’s an easy cliche to say that we hire good people but good, smart, tuned in people I’ve spoken about in Skanska ahead of any other company. So, I can see why you did that. And then, obviously, you were able to grow, I mean, it’s all well being able to work with smart people. You got to be at that level yourself and then to be able to grow within that team, you obviously have something special about you. How was that process because you did grow fairly quick in the 16 years?
Alan: Yeah. So, when I joined, I joined to work, you know, I just had a-- I joined Curt and some of the other folks within a year of me joining. Curt would go out to take over the West Coast for Skanska. So, he started being on the road a lot and I started taking on more responsibilities in the department. And then, the year after that, in 2008, he got the national leadership role which Steve Stouthamer is now in. So, he was gone all the time so I had to learn very fast to step up. Another gentleman by the name of Eric Pent[?]. He and I were interviewed for the vice president role in 2009 and he got the role. It was humbling at that time but probably one of the best things that happened because I was, in retrospect, I wasn’t ready for the role. So, he was coming in from the operation side and I was at the preconstruction side. He had a tough first day for he had to, you know, I’ve lost and he had won and he had to win me over on the first day. What he said to me was, “I wanna build a department that attracts clients to us, both internal and external. I don’t want-- I don’t want people to be told they have to use our service. I was them to use our service because they believe we add value and makes their job easier and better.” And I’ve always thought that was very clever, you know, I’ve always tried to, um, think about that as how do I keep making our group better, our service stronger. How do we attract clients to us. So, I worked with Eric for 10 years or so, and he’s-- him and I often come to the same answer but we come at it with different ways. So, we had to learn the personalities and hope to finally get to the right answer or hope to be a team together and we became a pretty good team together and enjoyed working with each other, challenging each other. I think in terms of my own growth, I’ve always been someone who has been honest with our clients. If they have a project that can’t meet the budget, let’s have a conversation about what the options are. Let’s not take them down the road assuming that they can afford something they can’t while they’re not gonna get it in time to looking for. Let’s be honest and talk about what we can do and what are the issues at hand. I think that has always held me in good status. I think I have a reputation for just being honest and straightforward and, you know, sometimes you might not like the news but, you know, I care about our projects. I’m gonna help you get there.
Gareth: Yeah. And to getting to where you need to be, you got to be honest and transparent. There’s no point in wasting time and, in some cases, preconstruction in months and years in preconstruction on something that is not gonna ever come to fruition or not gonna be building-- able to build it. And then, the relationship between yourself and Eric, you mentioned about preconstruction data within Skanska and I know Steve and Will mentioned on their podcast but it was pretty evident that you were kind of part of the visionary team or one of the visionaries that-- to say that, “Right. This is the way we’re gonna go down. This is the route that we’re gonna go down.” Can you talk about the early days of that? The reason I asked that is there are so many contractors, small, mid, large contractors, all over no one in the preconstruction data is-- if they haven’t already started it they know that it’s gonna be crucial. You guys have got a head start, for me, on almost everyone. Eight or nine years ago, you had this idea, the preconstruction data was gonna be so important. Walk us through that, that kind of thought and process.
Alan: The interesting piece of it is that, you know, we just talked about being honest with clients and if you should talk about five years or over five years, you need to-- when you give a client an opinion or costs, it needs to be based on something you need to-- that needs to be believed, and to be believable, you need the data backed up, right? So, there’s one thing to say here, I think this. It’s another thing to say, “Here’s five similar projects and here was the outcome of those.” You go from having an opinion to being an expert and when you can get to that point being an expert, people trust you, right? And you can start moving forward. So, we have all these projects that we were doing throughout the country and we’re capturing a lot of data, right? So, you are learning new every single time. We started, you know, more and more clients were saying, “Well, what did that building cost? What does that building cost?” We never really had a structured system for capturing data. We decided, as a kind of national group, that we needed to have a bench-marking system. And, I think, the initial concept was, we want to know how much something costs. We very quickly came to the realization that you’re never gonna equalize what something in national cost from something in San Francisco or something in Chicago. Basic construction, the cost of construction, the way that it’s procured, the available labor union, nonunion, etc, it just-- you can never equalize it. We came to an approach very early on that we’re gonna capture data. We weren’t necessarily gonna capture cost, so we’re gonna capture, for instance, if we’re talking about skills, we’re gonna capture the relationship between number of classrooms and number of restaurants. We’re gonna capture the floor to floor heights. We’re gonna capture how much exterior facade of the building. And in capturing those, that data, we can start to build reliable, conceptual cost estimates, right? Because I think that’s-- that one of the most important thing is to get a reliable number as early as you can and the only way to do that is to have bench-mark data upon which you can start composition of the design team about, you know, how much concrete should be in the foundation as what should we assume, and many kinds of steel in super structure. So, we started to build a list of what these potential data items were. I think we now have did that 400 or 450 pieces of data that we capture on every single project. And then, we have it in our database system that we can solve and present very clearly.
Gareth: And the 40, obviously, you didn’t start with 480 data points. What--what-- how many did you start with and those data points, did you go back through historical bids or did you just go right, “We’re starting from here. We are going forward.”
Alan: We actually came up with the-- when we rolled out, we had the 450 pieces of data and we haven’t changed that since we started.
Gareth: Wow.
Alan: And that’s been-- and we have gone back-- we went back to about seven or eight years and captured important projects before being imported in the system. But the method of capturing the information, it was really important that we came up with some rules to say the data is captured in this way because, you know, we have 150 people in our group and we are all capturing-- they all want to do it their own way. And we came up with a set of rules and said, “This is a rule to make information reliable. It’s got to be-- all be captured in the same way.” We go through a lot of QA/QC to make sure the data is correct and make sense because once you have a couple of outliers are obviously wrong, it skews all the data.
Gareth: Yeah. And Alan, you know as well as I know that’s a serious investment even for a company the size of Skanska because there’s a lot of time and effort, and a lot of senior people spending time doing this and organizing this. What was the key kind of sell for senior executives or leadership be able to say, “No. This is the way to go. This-- You have to do this.”
Alan: I think there was a-- I think there were two moments of realization for a company. One was the fact that we had all these data and we’re not using it and here’s a format that we can capture, and everyday was on board with that. And then, when we start to growing out Skanska metrics as a product, people just loved it. Our business development team, our clients, it really is a differentiator for us. I think-- So, I think, there’s two, one of the big -- one of the big hurdles we had to get over was how do you present the information because you have these folks who are very technical in terms of estimating our preconstruction folks. Then, you got to present a [indiscernible] that clients can understand and easily trust it. There was a lot of time invested in graphics on how present this information in a very simple format.
Gareth: And, correct me if I’m wrong, is that probably how you’re going to use to present it?
Alan: Yeah. That’s probably how and, you know, it’s intere-- We-- we-- when we’re going to present numbers to the clients normally our marketing team has helped to sell a project and they do a very great job of a very polished product. And then, preconstruction is the first ones through the door. I mean, you got to go to this constancy, that they have hired what they have seen in this very glossy marketing documents. So, we had to bring our product up to that level. So, we brought in our marketing team, our branding team to really help us develop some products and some deliverables that were of that quality.
Gareth: Brilliant. Proper collaborative approach, yeah. And, I mean, how powerful has it been, I mean, you’re now seven or eight years in to have started it? How powerful is it now when you go and sit with the clients? I would imagine a lot of the three-P business but new clients, are they like blown away or are they like, “This is something we need?”
Alan: Yeah. A lot of our clients are very interested in it, right? What starts as a kind of presentation becomes a discussion because at some point during the presentation, we all hit on something that they are interested in and then we just dive right in. It’s a live file so we can throw up different projects that we find and get into them and it becomes a conversation about their project as opposed to the software. And that is exactly where we are trying to go.
Gareth: Yeah. And it comes back to that question that you and Erick start doing and discussed. It’s about building something that clients want to use and they want to come to ask because they know they’re only gonna get it to you.
Alan: Absolutely. It’s, you know, it’s one tool that we have that is very powerful and differentiates us better. It’s how you use that information to build the initial cost model and to be able to present it to the teams so they have trust with you and you can start drive a project forward.
Gareth: Yeah. And Alan, back then, seven or eight years ago, preconstruction and estimating was, some people say, still a necessary evil but it brightens out, it’s held in so much with high regard in the whole process and it’s so important. I know not every company relies on preconstruction but anybody that’s thinking further down the line, the biggest decisions were made within preconstruction and preconstruction tech can help us build the bones that we need, bigger, better and safer. Has it always been Skanska’s idea that preconstruction was gonna be invested in that it was the most important part because it means-- they must have been one of the first to invest so much time and money in such a technology?
Alan: The company’s leadership sees preconstruction as a differentiator. Done well, it can do several things. It can really drive a project forward. It can set a client up for success. But also it can set Skanska for success, right? It means that we are preparing a plan as to how we’re actually gonna execute a project to be-- as a working project. And if we can concentrate during preconstruction of developing a plan that makes a client successful, everything else has a tendency to fall in place. If a company has put a lot of resources into our technology capabilities and to capturing data, you know, there’s a lot of things that we’re working out in terms of the next level, you know, from a point of view of capturing schedule information or if you’re capturing QA/QC issues, sign documents. We recently really looked to how we’re procuring work to make sure that we’re consistent in procuring work across the country really, a consistent work product.
Gareth: And that was my next question. You beat me to it. What-- what preconstruction technology-- there’s always a new shiny tool running around the market, start-ups telling us they can do this stuff and. What-- is there anything out there that is, you know, you’re thinking this could be another game-changer without giving away any state secrets or any company secrets?
Alan: There’s a couple. I’m looking forward to being able to use the intelligence of the Skanska metrics feeding it into a model or running different solutions for a project. Being able to see that both visually and from a point of view. So, I’m really interested in that. I think the other one is just being able to run some software, over the top of design models and seeing real pieces are incomplete because I think that having the ability to do that and give our construction team a more coordinated set of documents, it takes some pressure off them in the field and I think trying to take some workload off them is extremely important as well.
Gareth: Right. Yeah, I love it. Because there is a lot of talk about machine learning and BIM models and assemble, and I think, there’s a very few that have got it right. I think it will take time to get it 100% right but as you say it, you’ve got the data and collected already, seven or eight years of it. Your models get more of a chance of success.
Alan: Absolutely.
Gareth: Yeah. Love it. Okay. So, let’s, uh, we did hear from Steven Williams on the East Coast. What’s the plan for Skanska West Coast? You’re over quite a big region. What are you guys going after? What’s the plan for growth and what’s exciting you?
Alan: Well, besides Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, Seattle life is going gangbusters. Lots of the tech companies are here. They’re growing dramatically. There’s a lot of work and Seattle, over the last ten years is going from a provincial town to an international city. It’s a gateway to Alaska. It’s a gateway to Asia. A lot of big companies are based here. Microsoft, Amazon, Starbucks, Costco, absolutely significant port bringing in goods from Asia. And then we have a lot of companies coming in on the back of them such as Google, Facebook, Apple’s of the world looking for tech folks. The city is growing dramatically much more city, a lot more more high-rises going up. Everything looks rosy again for the moment and we have a very significant presence here. Traditionally, we are one of the top, one of two GCs in the town on an annual basis. Backlog usually was strong. It’s just really great people. We are a well-oiled machine. LA and San Francisco were more developing our offices and our things down there. We have some really great people. We focused over the last four to five years really hiring local great experience, supplementing them with folks like myself who understands Kanska who have the history, have the connections within the company to help out local folks, bring them processes, protocols, and it’s just how we do things at Skanska--Skanska values.
Gareth: Yeah.
Alan: Who we are as a company, who we are as people. So, we brought those kind of two groups together and we’re starting to build some really great projects down there. We have our commercial development team in LA and we have our civil team in LA. We have three sites for our commercial development group but we will continue to look at more. We have groups in healthcare, aviation work, higher ed. work, and especially about in commercial office work. So, the group is drawing a nice precon team there but we can add a couple of members to that. And then, I just took over San Francisco in December and start to learn who the folks who are there and what we’re doing. San Francisco seems to really-- I think it’s, you know, three or four years ahead of our Raleigh team. They are pretty a well-oiled machine as well. All right. So, some really good people, again, just honest, hardworking folks willing to really think about what’s best for the client. We have some good new projects there. Some tech clients there are providing us with some nice works. So, they’re growing, you know. We want to get LA and San Francisco up to the-- you know, slowly. The control up to where Seattle and their teams are. It is really a great growth opportunity for us, probably one of the best opportunities to grow throughout the company is in California.
Gareth: Brilliant and I love it. It is something that I’m always interested in, obviously one of the old firm here at NICHE SSP is management style. We talked a bit off the air before we came on about your own management style. I’m sure you’re like me. You just learn from people who you, what you like, what you dislike. I mean, you’ve obviously taken on San Francisco, I mean, I’m sure that’s added more to your plate. How do you manage so many people and keep everyone-- keep everyone honest, keep everyone happy, and build them a successful team, I mean, me and you love a sports analogy it’s like building a football team like you can’t have 11 Tom Bradys or Ally McCoists or Henrick Larssons. You need a bit of this and a bit of that to make the soup nice. You need a certain chemistry. How do you do it? How do you go about that?
Alan: Several ways. When I’m hiring folks, I very seldom get involved in the hiring unless it’s at the top of the tree. I let my people hire their teammates and make sure that if, you know, there are precon directors who are hiring their precon engineers. Our senior precon engineers that-- our existing precon engineers get to meet those folks ahead of hiring them so that they are bought in to who they are going to be sitting alongside and their teammates. We’re very vested in our intern program where we look to bringing our interns, either one or two years before they graduate, have them continue to be part of our team, invite them along to events and then hire them, and start to grow them up organically in the company. That has been really successful in Seattle. Probably a third of our teams come through that approach and then we start that process in LA and also in San Francisco. So, we’re growing people that way. And then I think it’s my job to throw people in the deep end and give them the opportunity to be successful and learn their way. I’m not a big fan of completely guiding people down the path. I want them to learn what the path is. I kind of watch and monitor and push and give them a little bit of advice. You know, I wait til they are starting to drown a little bit before putting the hand in and helping them. I help them out and then throw them back in. So, really giving people the opportunity to grow and I think that I can make my people successful and I did pretty well myself. So, I concentrate on my folks. I sit down with each of my direct reports for 30 to 45 minutes every week just to catch up and see how they’re doing. Sometimes we talk about projects. Sometimes we talk about the family but I just get to know them better and they get to know me better and it creates a more open relationship. It really helped with our, you know, when you look at our survey results of people believing that they’re going to get a good feedback on where their career has gone or what their next steps are, and how they are being perceived throughout the company. So, I think it’s been a great approach that we’re looking to expand on.
Gareth: Brilliant. Exciting time. So, Alan Dunbar, you’re working flat out for Skanska in the West Coast. What do you do to relax because it seems as if you got your plate full?
Alan: Yeah. Definitely. I try and travel as much as I can. We were just in Maui for a week at the end of January. It was just fantastic.
Gareth: Nice.
Alan: We have been able to walk along the beach in January. It is not something you get to do too often when you’re from Scotland.
Gareth: [Laughter]
Alan: And it was beautiful. It’s just-- it was-- left email at home and I played some golf. You know, ate some great food and just spend time with the family.
Gareth: Brilliant. You can’t beat it and you got a big family, Alan?
Alan: No. I don’t actually. It’s only myself, my wife, and my mother-in-law over here being-- yeah. All my family’s back in homeland. My mother-in-law is Korean. She came over from Korea in the 70’s. So her family is back there and then my wife is one of two daughters. The other one is in London. So, we have a very small, compact family.
Gareth: Lovely. Yeah, very nice. There’s nothing better than walking on a beach in January, I can tell you. I’ve feel your pain as an Irishman. We’re not used to-- white skin doesn’t last very long out there.
Alan: Yeah. I have shades of pink, I think I have.
Gareth: [Chuckles] Yeah. It’s just, uh, it’s part of the course. Well, listen Alan, thank you very much. This has been incredible. I’m really looking forward to getting this out to the audience and just if there is anyone out there, what’s the best way to contact you-- what’s the best way to get to you?
Alan: Probably through LinkedIn I think, you can just send an email to me through that. Also, you know, we start to, um, if you can post my email address on- with the podcast, that would be fantastic as well.
Gareth: Wonderful. We will do, Alan. Well, listen, for everyone here at The Preconstruction Podcast, thank you very much.
Alan: Thank you. Great. Great to be with you.
[End]
