CoSci students get up-close look at contractor procedures on tour

Two leading contractors and a company that’s been manufacturing bricks for more than a century gave 160 upper-level construction science students at Texas A&M a close look at their operations during daylong construction site tours in Houston and Austin March 30.

Students in Houston toured a 20-story high-rise site in the Galleria area, a medical imaging facility and a hospital addition and parking garage, all projects by Sweden-based Skanska, which operates in 12 nations on three continents.

They also learned about Skanska’s history, their commitment to safety, the challenges posed at the different sites they visited and the strategies Skanska personnel took to overcome them.

They also visited a project Manhattan Construction is building for Trio Electric, a Houston electrical contracting firm for commercial manufacturing and industrial projects.

The Austin group of students traveled to Acme Brick, the Lower Colorado River Authority’s Lost Pines Power Plant in Lake Bastrop and the state capitol building, which underwent extensive renovations in the 1990s.

“The brick plant tour provided the students with a deeper knowledge of the manufacturing processes that included an older, more labor-intensive process and a newer high tech computer-controlled and robotic process,” said George Eustace, construction science lecturer. “They also gained an appreciation for the plant’s quality control processes in plant to ensure the materials meet established construction standards.”