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Holle, Champions of servant leadership, science, technology, engineering, math, all coming up right now on Alabama STEM Explorers.

Hi.

Welcome to Alabama STEM Explorers.

I'm Mitch, and I'm here today at a construction site with my new friend Jacob from Brasfield and Gorrie.

So, tell me about what this company does.

Yeah, so, Brasfield and Gorrie, we're a general contractor, so construction is kind of the name of the game with us.

So you kind of think of it, we build it.

We build all across the southeast.

We have offices across eight different states.

A lot of exciting stuff.

So residential offices here.

We have a research building, we're working on a new biotech research building.

Wow.

It's a lot of fun.

You never know what you can get into.

So, what kind of construction do you do?

So, for me in particular, I'm a project manager, and so we're kind of handling more the kind of office side of things, working alongside the superintendent in the field, who's really everything inside the fence is kind of the superintendent's piece on that.

So we're working alongside him, kind of doing the planning, working through schedule, cost, estimating, kind of managing a lot of the budget and having a lot of fun that way.

So, what kind of project are you doing here?

So, here we're currently working on a new biotech research building.

So it's a really exciting project where they're really kind of at the forefront of a lot of research in infectious disease and everything on kind of science and technology market.

That's just really exciting stuff to help build something that gives back to the community here.

So, how does just basic building work?

How does it work?

Well, so a really important part of every kind of building is the foundation, and kind of a part of that foundation is concrete, which is always an exciting piece that we self-perform.

We do a lot of our own concrete work with our own Brasfield and Gorrie labor we're always excited about.

So, concrete is a really exciting thing that's kind of been around since the Roman days.

So it always goes to a very important part of the foundation.

And you see it every day in walls, foundations, columns, every different sort of parking decks, roads, and a lot of fun from there.

So concrete is always a pretty exciting thing to talk about.

So tell me more about how concrete works.

So, as you can see here, we got us a pretty good little demonstration.

Concrete, it's a lot like baking a cake.

So that's kind of what we have here in front of us.

So kind of the key parts that go into concrete are always cement, sand, aggregate, and water.

And so that's kind of a similar thing we kind of got here in front of us and so similar to the cake side of things, what makes concrete exciting is instead of an oven, as you know, it's a chemical reaction.

So you kind of mix all those ingredients together and here you have concrete.

Concrete, the part of baking a cake, is part of the water, how important it is.

So too little water makes it weak or too much water makes it weak as well.

So you got to get that right mix and make sure you get everything in there just right so you can get the right combination of things.

So in baking, what would those four different things be equivalent to in baking?

Yeah, great question.

So kind of got it's always a little tough when we kind of mix around here, but kind of your cement will probably be very similar to your actual cake mix here.

So cement is made up of some limestone and also some kind of waste material as well from steel and iron.

So that's probably your more cement side of things.

You see, I'll reach out and say your eggs are probably similar to your aggregate.

So a lot of your crushed rock, you have different kind of types of that depending on what the kind of mix is.

So your crushed rock probably like your eggs a little bit and then your water, I will say will probably be similar to your milk and your oil here on that side of things.

So kind of mix it all up kind of based on there's different kind of levels of mix so you can kind of get a different strength and kind of things like that.

Okay.

You kind of mix up those all different things and get that chemical reaction.

Creates a great thing called concrete.

Concrete is kind of a lot like baking a cake.

So I'm no expert as much on the cake side, but we'll take a little bit of cement here.

So here we're going to kind of treat this a lot like our concrete truck here.

So we're kind of mixing everything in.

I'm sure you've probably seen a concrete truck going down the road a few times.

So we'll take a couple of eggs, kind of mix it up.

We'll say this is a lot like our aggregate that'll work from there.

So you kind of have some different kinds of rock from that.

So you kind of mix that up.

We'll put a little water in here as well and we'll consider this to be kind of on the water side as well.

Still here.

I think sand was the only thing we're missing, but that'll get close enough.

So we'll put a little bit in there.

Looks good, doesn't it?

Yeah, it does.

So kind of like the concrete truck we talked about.

So this one's kind of a lot like just mixing it all up.

So every time you kind of see it going down the road spinning, that's it kind of keeping all the ingredients nice and fresh, making sure it doesn't harden or something.

That's right, yeah.

That's a great what is the difference between something like concrete, the aggregate, and the sand?

Is it just like how solid they are or what is it?

Yeah, it's a great question.

So it's all kind of about what we call the mix design.

So it's really about how you get that strength.

There's different kind of types of aggregate, so there's kind of more coarse or more edgy aggregate or you get a lot of fine aggregate as well.

And you kind of got to get the right combination that engineers kind of come up with and kind of come up with the right combination from there on how to mix it all up.

Okay.

Yeah.

As you see, we got that all kind of mixed up pretty well.

So we're going to treat our baking pan kind of a lot like we'll call it form work is what we call it.

So it's really what a lot of the wood and lumber you kind of see on the job site.

So concrete truck shows up, everything all kind of mixed up nice and well together and then basically you see it kind of come out, poured out from there.

And then one important part of concrete you always see.

And so concrete is great in compression, but it's not great in tension.

So rebar is a very important piece you'll always see a bit of steel inside So we didn't quite have anything similar to rebar on this, but you'll always see a lot of steel and everything inside that concrete form work in order to pour that up and kind of help concrete give it strength.

So can you explain that a little bit more?

What do you mean?

Like by compression and tension and that kind of stuff?

So your kind of two forces there are compression and tension.

So compression, concrete can take that pretty well, but expansion and tension on that is what the rebar kind of helps it with.

That because concrete is not great itself in compression.

So that's where they kind of the two work together to create that nice strong partnership there.

And what exactly is the rebar?

The rebar is structural steel.

Okay.

So it comes in kind of all different shapes, sizes, everything from there, different lengths.

And you'll hear it, like I said, it kind of goes in all different kind of sizes and diameters of it kind of depending on the strength of the building that it's kind of going into.

Okay, interesting.

So tell me, like, we've got cement.

Tell me about the other importan parts of building a building.

Yeah, so like I said, concrete really kind of starts at the foundation of it, but it's kind of a lot like everything else in construction.

It's a very teamwork oriented project and industry.

So you have concrete, you have site work which is always a big thing.

So you always see the bulldozers, everybody gets excited about tha moving a lot of excavation and site utilities, kind of pieces of that.

And then as you kind of build that building up, you get into a lot of what we kind of call the MEPs, which mechanical, electrical and plumbing.

So kind of a lot of your nice systems, all your heating and cooling and the electricity side of things, it's always fun.

So electrical goes into it.

Skin which is what we kind of call the envelope piece of it.

So you can have kind of masonry or you can even have concrete in it as well on that.

So it's kind of depending on what the building is for, kind of a lot of different parts and pieces that kind of go into it.

So what are some of the highlights of different buildings that your company has built?

Yeah, so great question.

So one of the kind of important things is we always enjoy the kind of community side of things.

So I've been fortunate enough, worked on a football stadium before.

So that always does a lot of fun.

Something that the community really gets a hold of and really kind of enjoy themselves.

So this one kind of being a research institute is a really exciting thing as you can kind of see what that tangible benefit the community and people near to us actually get a benefit from.

Hospitals are always a really exciting piece as well on that side.

So that's just kind of the fun thing.

You get to see something from taking it from this to something that people get to actually use and work in every single day.

So how does building differ based on the height or the length or the size of the building?

Yeah, good question.

So a lot of times the way a kind of building gets designed is really kind of what the end use of it's going to be.

So for this one, being a very research institute, science kind of based, it's a concrete frame.

So really that kind of concrete helps a lot with different vibration requirements and kind of things of that nature that kind of give you a nice real stiff building.

It kind of depends on what the end use of it really is.

So kind of goes into it a lot of times if you're building around the coast you got to have kind of hurricane ratings and different wind loads and kind of things like that you have to account for that kind of goes into it.

So a lot of different kind of parts go into that.

So tell me about the technology side of this.

Yeah, so technology is a very important piece that we use literally every day about all the time.

So a lot of different ways, it's not quite like building a building was back even, shoot, probably 10-20 years ago now.

So one exciting thing we do a lot with is kind of what we call building information modeling, or kind of virtual design and construction.

So it's a lot of fun from there.

So you basically take a model of the building so, you know, it's not just the flat blueprints or drawings that you ever kind of get to go through and see from there, but it's actually seeing the building on the computer before you ever even get out here to build it.

That's crazy.

Yeah, so it's a great way to kind of see it in 3D, and before you even break ground on a job site, you can be walking through the computer and actually be walking in hallways, kind of show people what it all looks like, kind of get to see how it all really comes together.

So you were telling me about all the people that work here, so tell me some of the jobs that people do.

Yeah, good question.

So like I mentioned, I'm a project manager myself, so I play a very small part on the overall team on this.

But that's kind of the great thing about construction is the different people you get to work with.

So, like I said, we kind of have the project manager.

You'll have assistant project managers from there, and then you also have the kind of field side of things, which the project management team works hand in hand with.

So on the field side, you have our superintendents, who, like I said, everything kind of inside that construction fence is theirs.

And so they're running everything, making sure that people are doing what they're supposed to be doing, helping keep us on schedule.

They're kind of managing the different labor crews from there.

And so we'll have subcontractors we work with.

So other companies, like the electricians, we kind of talked about that they'll be kind of managing the overall progress from there.

And then you have the labor force.

The field side is really kind of the backbone of what goes on.

So I mentioned I'm a project manager, so you don't want me slinging a hammer trying to pour any concrete on that.

So the guys on the field are really kind of the backbone of the construction site, and so they're the ones who are out there pouring the concrete, building forms, installing all the pipe, kind of things like that.

So the field is really the driving force behind everything that goes on out here, and we just try to help keep them going.

We have our safety managers, safety department always kind of making sure everything is safe.

At the end of the day, we always want people to go home kind of the same way they showed up.

So always kind of keeping an eye out for everybody and making sure that we try to limit construction is you're kind of exposed to a lot of hazards.

But that's what we're all kind of here together to work for.

And so you can see you got your PPE on, which is always a great thing that we wear here on the job site to help kind of keep us safe.

Yeah.

So the people that work on the field, so do they have specific jobs?

Yeah, so they all kind of have different jobs, kind of based on their skill level.

So you have laborers, you'll have carpenters, you'll have foreman who are kind of managing those crews.

That's kind of what we like to call it as a crew.

So you'll be kind of mixed up, blending, kind of depending on what they're working on.

Yeah.

Then you'll go kind of from foreman.

You'll have field managers as well, who are kind of helping running multiple foreman, multiple different crews from there to kind of keep growing.

And we talked about the superintendent, who's kind of in charge of it all that help keeping it all together.

I'm concrete foreman with Bradford and Gorrie.

I've had this job for almost 18 years.

One day when first I started coming here, my dad was doing construction.

I started construction.

I started going to work with him and see what he's doing and see that they need some more help and everything what the people was there, and I enrolled with construction work.

Every day we build something.

We had new buildings, and every time we do anything, you can see whatever you're building.

I mean, we do different buildings.

We do hospitals, schools, churches.

That makes you feel good.

You see different buildings going on.

Sometimes my kids ride with me and I say, I built this, I built that, and they get so excited.

Doing construction work is very good.

It's nice to be on it because you're building different cultures, even for your kids.

Like I just say it is for my kids, and they love the different places you can be and you can enjoy construction.

Doing different buildings that people can enjoy too.

The job I do, yes, it takes me different places.

I've been all over the United States with different jobs, and we can be here today and next week, my general superintendent called, and I need you in Texas.

So we get stuff ready, and we go to Texas, and we build different places all over the United States.

When you start a job, you just see the ground.

Then next week, you see concrete going.

In maybe a month or two, you start seeing the building going up, and everything is changing every day.

And they make you go forward because you see the progress.

You see what you're building, and it makes you feel good because you go like, I'm working on that.

And it's different every day you come in.

You could be seeing different things on the job site Check out construction.

See what you like to do in const Focus.

One thing is focus.

See your goals.

What do you want to be in construction?

You can be I mean, I started like labor and moved up to a carpenter, concrete finisher, foreman.

And you can be anything you want to be on the job site.

You can be an engineer.

Set your goals.

Focus on what you are looking for.

Now I'm here with my new friend Mallory from Brasfield and Gorrie.

Okay, so I work in our virtual design and construction group, which actually did not exist when I graduated from college about 14 years ago.

So it's grown quite a bit, quite new.

And so you'll hear the term virtual design and construction, or you will hear building information modeling.

That's basically the same thing in the construction and architecture and engineering industries.

It basically just means everything that revolves around 3D modeling.

So most of what I do is on a computer, but I'm also out on job sites quite a bit, helping support our team.

So let's say 80% to 90% of our projects, our architects and engineers are modeling it on a computer, whereas they used to just even hand draw it on 2D, like paper, or just have flat floor plans where it's hard to actually see and visualize what the building is going to look like.

Wow.

So now we're able to do all of that on the computer ahead of time before we actually come out and break ground on a building.

It's definitely improved.

It has, for sure.

So tell me about what kind of stuff, how you do that, basically.

So a lot of times we will receive models from our architects or engineers.

They build their own models, and then we work with subcontractors that actually help us put in the work.

So, like, mechanical trades do, like ductwork, and our plumbing trades will put in all the plumbing piping.

Our electricians will put in all of the conduit and wire.

Well, they have to actually model all of their stuff so that they know how they can fabricate it.

So if you think about, like, I explain it like Legos to my daughter, instead of putting a bunch of little pieces together, sometimes it's easier to build like bigger chunks and then bring it out and put it in place.

Because the same thing here.

We'll prefabricate a lot of stuff in a warehouse and then ship it to the job site, which allows us to be much safer and have a higher level of quality.

So what does a model look like?

Okay, I can show you.

I actually brought my iPad today.

And this is actually what a lot of our project managers use, like Jacob, we have all of our models now on their devices out in the field.

So what you see here is the building behind you, and we have started pouring the concrete.

And so you can see some of that behind you, see some of those columns formed up.

So you can see these right here.

And so this is the entire model of that structure.

And what you see around you is what's called a point cloud.

And we got that from our drone flight.

We fly a drone every single week out here and then it creates a model, stitches together all the photos into a 3D model, and then we pull that all together to see what they've actually built versus what we've designed and planned on building.

So we track progress along the way.

So you guys already have maps planned out for the future?

That's right, yes.

So for this particular job site, we fly the drone every single week.

And that's how we do it on a lot of our job sites.

And we just heard a helicopter come over, which requires quite a bit of coordination.

So if there's any type of helicopters flying over, there's a lot of FAA regulations.

So flying drones seems like a simple task, and it is if you're doing it like, at home.

But on a commercial type of construction site, it takes a lot of requirements and restrictions that took us years to get through.

And we're finally able to fly them on most of our projects now, every single week.

So now I'm interested, like, how big are the drones?

Are they like the small size?

There's a small consumer grade drones is what we call them, just like you would be flying at home.

And we have special software that allows us to actually fly them automatically.

So we can basically draw a fence around the job site and then tell it what height it wants to fly.

So you see the crane above you?

Like, we don't want to hit the crane, we don't want to fly over people.

So there's a lot of safety things we take into consideration.

And then it'll automatically just make what we call a lawnmower path and fly back and forth and then stitch together a 3D model from all of those pictures that we take.

So what does make it complicated?

Like when a helicopter will be flying over?

Well, you don't want the helicopter to hit the drone or vice versa.

And so what we have created, we work closely with our innovation teams and we've come up with a lot of different types of ways to alert.

Like, there's a lot of hospitals around here that fly helicopters for life flight.

We alert them when we fly our drones by just scanning a QR code, and it sends an alert out to their entire staff so we know if they have anybody coming inbound, we don't need to be flying that day.

That's amazing.

So tell me about what all this and what the future of technology and construction in this place will be.

Okay, so there's some stuff that we're currently rapidly deploying, like drones.

We have other things that are called laser scanners, which are really similar to these cameras.

They sit on a tripod.

And so if we're on a project, like, this is a new building, but if we do a lot of different renovation type of work where we go into buildings that are existing and we don't know, there's either no drawings or we don't have any measurements or dimensions of what's there.

So a laser scanner will literally shoot out a laser.

Millions of points will be collected from that and it'll put together a 3D model so that we know exactly what is there before we go and start building it.

And we use that a lot on a lot of our projects already.

Virtual reality is one that we're currently developing.

We have the headsets and we use that a lot.

If you think about like, is there any type of building you can think of that has a lot of the same types of rooms in it?

Like an office building, like an office complex, or a hotel where the client may want to know what those rooms look like before we build it.

And so we can do what's called a virtual mockup.

So we will literally go in and put all of the finishes, the tile, the flooring, and then put them in a headset just like you would have at home for video gaming, like an oculus.

And they can walk through and see and approve.

Like, I don't like this color.

I want a different color.

I don't like the height of this.

And so we do a lot of that with our virtual reality headsets.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

So all of that is already developed in here.

What we're currently working on a lot is robotics, and we're doing that in a lot of different ways.

We have a group, an innovation group that is directly dedicated to those efforts.

And we have done a lot of partnerships with different industries and tested a lot of different robotics.

And we've also looked at building some of our own mainly around repetitive tasks.

Like if somebody has to walk around and take a picture, which we do that a lot, can we automate that and get a robot to do that?

Or is it safer for us to use a robot to build something instead of putting a person in harm's reach or a drone?

So one of the reasons we first started using drones was to fly up on a very high part of a building instead of dropping people down on a swing stage hundreds of feet in the air.

If it's safer for us to use technology, then we'll definitely take that route first.

Yeah, there's a lot with what we're calling digital dig boards.

And so if you see that pipe over there or look around, there's a lot of different utilities running underground here.

We're in the middle of a downtown area, so it's very congested with existing utilities like power, water, sewer, and we don't want to hit any of those that are already here and we don't always know where those are.

And so we have what we call digital dig boards, where you can put QR codes, like on our dozers and equipment.

And the person that's operating it can scan it and it works just like Google Maps, where it's like a blue dot and they can see the map of all the utilities underneath where they're standing so they know before they dig something.

There might be a utility here we might need to call and get that checked.

So it's a better, much more safer way for us to build projects, especially with utilities, which is a very high risk and very high frequency in the construction industry is striking utilities.

Interesting.

So how do you create those dots?

And how can you find what's underneath?

So we have an app that basically works on GPS that tells you where you are on a job site.

A lot of times we will get drawings from engineers of what they think is underground for existing utilities.

And then as we're out doing construction, we have these GPS rover heads that as we start digging up, you go and just place it on the pipe and it literally maps out the utilities as you're walking along it.

So it builds like a floor plan, basically, of the utilities underneath there.

That's amazing.

So what other kind of technology in the future is there?

So there's a lot we are doing with telematics.

So we have our own equipment shop that supplies cranes and dozers and equipment to our job sites.

And what you can do now is automate some of the digging you can load in our models and our files.

And it knows, just like I was saying, with GPS, where it is on that job site and where it needs to dig exactly to dig out a foundation or footing like you see behind you.

And so that helps eliminate a lot of operator error.

Like I said, you can track utilities there from a risk standpoint, and it really helps automate a lot of that process.

And we talked a lot about concrete earlier.

We do a lot of our own concrete work.

And you talked to William, who's a field engineer, so we work a lot with William.

He has what's called a total station.

So William goes out and lays out a lot of the work.

And it looks just like I was saying with a laser scanner.

It sits on a tripod, and you can take our 3D model that you just saw, and it loads directly into his total station, and it will shoot a laser point where he's trying to lay something out.

Like the corner of this table is where the footing is, whereas he used to have to go do a lot of different math and figure out where on the site is that footing supposed to lay out.

So it helps save him a lot of time and it helps him spend more time in the critical items in the field.

That's all amazing.

It definitely sounds like the construction industry is getting a lot more progressive in making it just work easier and quicker.

It is.

Yeah.

There's a lot of different backgrounds that go into construction, especially in my group as well.

What do you mean by that?

I mean, we have architects, we have civil engineers, we have mechanical engineers.

We've had an aerospace engineer in our department before, so my specific department did not exist 14 years ago when I came out of college.

We have over 60 people full time doing this now, which is quite a bit of growth over a decade.

So if you have an interest in construction and you like technology, whether it's architecture or engineering, there are roles in the construction industry to fit that mold as well.

Well thats really fascinating.

I'll see you guys next week on Alabama STEM Explorers Alabama STEM explores is made possible by the generous support of the Holle Family Foundation established to honor the legacy of Brigadier General Everett Holle and his parents, Evelyn and Fred Holle, champions of servant leadership.