Alumni Network Panel Event
Public Private Partnerships - Solving complex social and civil infrastructure problems with Architectural, Engineering & Construction (AEC) professionals
As we move from stabilizing our economic decline to economic recovery and growth, we expect government investments in infrastructure and alternative delivery authorization to play a critical role. Join us to hear from a panel of alumni experts as they explore public private partnerships (P3) trends and the associated demands for alternative delivery solutions.
Wednesday, May 12, 2021
5 p.m. MT
Infrastructure investments are inherently complex, requiring broad stakeholder inputs from our communities coupled with a wide range of expert inputs necessary to rapidly mature solutions. While aspects of the AEC Industry are being commoditized, these Alternative Delivery vehicles present dynamic and challenging professional opportunities for our brightest minds.
After the panel discussion, there will be an opportunity to network and continue the conversation in small groups with the panelists and your fellow alumni. Learn more about our speakers below. We hope you'll be able to join us!
Michael Burns (MS 1996, Civil Engineering)
Executive Director of Infrastructure & P3 at Vanir Construction Management
Mike’s career has included planning, design, construction and finance roles across a broad range of infrastructure development programs. His empathetic leadership style and program management experiences honed his understanding of complex governance and economic models, deepening his enthusiasm for leading teams delivering sustainable & inclusive infrastructure solutions. He is currently an Executive Director at Vanir, an Owners Advisory & PMCM firm, leading strategy and operations focused on acquiring new business in the transportation and water markets. Mike’s previous work experiences include; eight years at AECOM - a global AEC service company and nine years at CDG - a domestic real estate development company. At AECOM, reporting to the Chief Risk Officer and Capital Group Chief Counsel, as a Corporate Vice President his responsibilities included leading Enterprise Risk Management and Integrated Delivery Initiatives globally. Prior to this experience, as the public face of a Colorado real estate business, he learned to navigate public elections, remaining deeply engaged, delivering a comprehensive portfolio of community infrastructure improvements.
Mike lives in Lafayette, Colorado with his wife Barbie. They have two daughters; Madison who lives and works in San Francisco and Whitney who is studying Psychology and Economics at Humboldt State University. Their son Taylor is studying Environmental Engineering at San Diego State University. Mike is a Boulder native whose enthusiasm for CU runs deep. In addition to receiving his MSCE from CU in 1996, he fondly remembers regular visits to campus with friends; taking swim classes in Carlson gym, playing hoops at the field house and researching in the library. The son of teachers who believe that “we are who we are becoming”, Mike enjoys following their commitment to continuous learning; Pam Burns regularly participated in continuing education courses at CU and Bill Burns proudly reminisces about his experiences teaching and tutoring in various minority programs at CU.
Walter Eggers (BS 1984, MS 1986, Civil Engineering)
Chief Bridge Engineer at Kiewit
Walter Eggers is Kiewit’s subject matter expert on bridge design and construction for all markets served by their Infrastructure business lines. He provides guidance to Kiewit’s design and field staff and oversight of external consultants for all aspects of design, specifications, code interpretation, fabrications and construction processes, erection engineering, and quality control. He has over 31 years’ experience providing engineering solutions for precast and cast-in-place segmental bridges, arch bridges, steel girder bridges, transit guideways, deep foundations, marine foundations, and subway stations. He has worked as a contractor’s designer or contractor’s advisor on design-build and P3 projects; for owners on bid-build projects; and as an advisor to the Construction Manager, Owner and Engineer of Record for CMGC project deliveries.
Prior to coming to Kiewit in 2010, Walter was a bridge design consultant, specializing in design of technical bridges, primarily for Design-Build Contractors. He has been instrumental in solving complex design and erection problems for many technical bridges, including the Windward Viaduct in Hawaii and the Bang Na Expressway in Bangkok. He was also the Design Manager for the Confederation Bridge in Atlantic Canada, one of North America’s first large P3 projects. Recently, Walter proposed alternate foundation and support-column designs for the new SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. Walter’s proposals, which were accepted by the Owner and the Engineer of Record, and built by Kiewit, took 18 months off the construction schedule and saved over $100 million.
As an industry leader in alternate delivery methods for infrastructure, power and energy projects, Kiewit was one of the first contractors to embrace alternate delivery for transportation in the United States with the San Juaquin project in Southern California and the I-15 Project in Salt Lake City. In 2009 they made the decision to bring design expertise into their organization to help manage the technical aspects of their alternate-delivery projects. Walter started the structural group within Kiewit when he joined the company in early 2010. Early on his worked centered on providing alternate structural solutions for pursuits and solving challenging construction-engineering problems on Kiewit’s construction sites. In the years since, Kiewit has brought on additional staff and expanded the scope of the group. In 2015 Kiewit began performing design for some of its design-build and P3 work in house. Walter continues to be responsible for the technical content of structural designs for both the design work done in-house and that subcontracted to consultants.
Matt Giraard (BS 1990, MS 1993, Civil Engineering)
Group Head of the Civil Division at Plenary Americas
Matt Girard is Group Head for Plenary Group’s Civil Division. In this capacity, Matt is responsible for project development, delivery, and asset management, teaming and business development for all Plenary Group Civil projects in North America. Plenary Group is a market leader in the North American PPP market, having closed more than $20+ billion worth of assets on 52 projects since 2005. This also includes being the Project Executive for the Pennsylvania Rapid Bridge Project – which includes replacing 558 bridges in 4 years that reached Substantial Completion in 2019; Board member for the Grandlinq Partnership that reached Substantial Completion on the Waterloo LRT project in June 2019; Board chair of the Plenary Roads Denver consortium that saw Substantial Completion on the US36 managed lanes project in the Denver area in 2015; as well as Project Executive on the State Street P3 project at Purdue University that reached Substantial Completion in late 2018, among numerous sothers.
Matt has over 30 years of hands-on experience in the heavy-civil construction industry and has been involved with the successful pursuit and delivery of public-private partnership (P3) projects in both the U.S. and Canada. This includes leading development efforts for over $6 billion worth of successful P3 pursuits, including projects individually valued at greater than $1 billion.
Matt also has been involved with design-build projects for over 25 years, including CDOT’s first ever design-build project back in 1995, an emergency landslide repair along Highway 93 just west of Golden. He has also been involved pursuit and on-site management of DB projects as a contractor on over $2 billion worth of design-build projects. Prior to joining Plenary, Matt was a senior executive leading all business development efforts for one of North America’s largest heavy-civil contractors (Flatiron Constructors) where he worked for 21 years.
Matt is also heavily engaged in bettering the industry via serving as a committee or board member to multiple engineering and construction advocacy groups, including: ASCE’s Public Policy Committee, DBIA’s P3 Procurement Subcommittee, TRB’s AFH15 Project Delivery Methods Committee, ARTBA’s P3 Division – Board Member and Past President, University of Colorado, Boulder – School of Civil Engineering CEM Advisory Committee, George Mason University – P3 Policy Program Advisory Board Member. Matt has a Bachelors and Masters in Civil Engineering from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and is a registered Design-Build professional with the Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA).
F. David Zanetell, Jr. (MS 1993, Civil Engineering)
President at Kraemer North America, LLC
Dave is the President of Kraemer North America LLC (Kraemer) an ENR top 400 contractor whose primary business is highway, marine, technical structures, and rail. Of note is Kraemer’s reputation as an industry leader in Alternately delivered transportation projects with emphasis on the advantages of integrating design and construction. During Dave’s tenure Kraemer has achieved record profitable growth with both business line and geographic expansion. Dave has been executive sponsor on numerous alternative delivery and major river crossing projects including several that were ‘first of kind’ delivery methods for various owners.
Previously Dave had over 25 years of distinguished public service culminating as Director of Engineering (chief engineer) for the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Central Federal Lands Highway Division responsible for 14 western states and territories, where he helped lead transformations of the org to a performance-based model, recognized for excellence in public sector delivery and execution. He is noted for managing high profile and nationally prominent projects including the Hoover Dam Bypass project which includes the longest concrete arch in the western hemisphere, and the fast-track design-build reconstruction in of flood decimated Highways in Yosemite National Park in 1997, which later helped shaped design-build delivery practices for highway projects nationwide. Dave has served on executive steering committees and been engaged to trouble shoot issues on several of the nation’s most high profile transportation projects.
Dave and Bev are both west slope Colorado natives, have two children, Morgan 20 (Exercise Science at Colorado Mesa), and Brock 17 (Columbine HS). In his spare time Dave is a volunteer HS football coach and avid hunter.