Announcements

UNH wins the CIM-LRD’s 3rd Annual Student Competition!

On Saturday, April 12, 2025, the CIM-LRD held its 3rd Annual Design/Construction Student Competition at Tufts University! The UNH team consisted of Lucas Bernstein, Daniel Bartus and Tyler Beresford, was coached by Fei Han, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UNH, and staff from SPS New England.

This year the teams were required to submit a PowerPoint presentation showing the design and construction for the MBTA Blue Line subway western extension at Hynes Auditorium. Jim Lambrechts, professor at Wentworth School of Technology, once again prepared the competition packet. The teams were asked to included design, construction pricing and scheduling in their presentations. The teams appeared before a panel of six judges from the industry, presented their submissions, and answered the panel’s questions. Criteria for judging included originality, feasibility, practicality, reasonableness of structural components, and meeting other expectations included in the criteria provided at the outset of the competition.  The students worked with advisors from their schools or the industry. 

After the students made their presentations, Tom Day from Skanska Civil USA provided a “model” presentation to demonstrate to the student competitors how these packets are put together in the real world. Thank you, Tom!

Here is how the teams fared:

Place                   College                                             Prize Money

1st                         UNH                                                   $15,000

2nd                        Tufts                                                  $10,000

Honorable Mentions:

University of Connecticut                                             $5,000

Northeastern University                                               $5,000

University of Vermont                                                   $5,000

University of Massachusetts-Lowell                            $5,000

Springfield Technical Community College                  $5,000

Additionally, for the first time this year, each team was informed after the competition that they would receive $10,000 in prize money that was split equally amongst the team members.

Many thanks to our judges this year: Davie Pusa, Executive Director of the MOLES; Brendan Casey, MBTA Project Manager; Aaron Lewis, a senior principal at SGH; Joe Allegro, owner of Allegro Construction Services, Rob Pine, Vice-President of Operations at Skanska USA Civil, and Tom Day, Director of Estimating at Skanska USA Civil Northeast.

And of course, our heartfelt gratitude to John Roma for putting the competition together again this year!