Department of Finance & Administration
Mark Emkes, Commissioner

Office of the State Architect Announces New Staff

It continues to be my pleasure to have the opportunity to work with Georgia Martin and Alan Robertson in regards to addressing the administrative and operational needs of the State Building Commission and this office on a project level. However, the lengthening list of unmet program issues and goals which this office needs to pursue in an effort to improve the efficiency, effectiveness and transparency of State Government, has presented us with more than we three can successfully address in a timely manner.

I am pleased to announce the following people have joined our team. Paul Shrem, was previously head of Design & Construction Services for Metro Nashville for a number of years and most recently Director of Design Build Services for Knestrick Contractor. Paul is serving in the capacity of Architectural Program Director and will assist my office in revising existing and developing new programs as we strive to improve the management, operations and delivery of general government and higher education projects statewide. Angela Scott has joined us as an Executive Administrative Assistant. Angela brings her research and financial analysis experience to our office in support of our intensified focus on managing the State’s programs, performance and portfolio. Rich Cardwell has joined our team as Director of Compliance. He is an Attorney previously from Ohio with twenty years of construction law expertise, predominantly for public owners. Rich will assist in reviewing and revising Owner Agreements, contracts, RFPs, grants, policies and other documents.

Goals for 2012 from the Office of the State Architect

I have been in my current capacity now for one year, and am appreciative of my role with the State. Among the many things I enjoy about my position is traveling across the state and getting to visit with many of you as I did in 2011, and I look forward to doing more of the same this year. I can’t say enough good things about the people with whom I work, their support, and all we have already achieved. While we have even more to accomplish, we are definitely making significant headway towards improving customer relations and service, and improving our operations – particularly by focusing on being more efficient, effective and transparent.

For those of you who heard me speak this past year, you have heard me say that one of the big items we continue to focus on is getting our own “house in order ”, addressing a variety of issues but in particular, our outdated internal processes. This includes our continuing to revise our policies and procedures on how we design, build, operate and maintain our buildings. As I have said during my presentations, we are also looking for better productivity and performance from our design and construction teams. This is not just a Tennessee issue but an industry wide problem and I would like to see our state’s industry make significant improvements.

Areas of focus include (1) having a holistic life-cycle design/construction/operations view of our program and it’s processes; (2) furthering the use of technology (BIM, clash detection, estimating, scheduling, etc.) and  the sharing of information between the project team’s design and construction members, and Owner; and (3) advancing the use of offsite fabrication and modularization. These areas all contribute to our design and construction industry’s ability to create Greater Owner Value (GOV). More specifically, we need to work together to better deliver high quality projects with lower operating costs, and do so in less time and for less money.

We appreciate what you have done for us in the past and look forward to working with you this year as we strive to make additional improvements towards achieving these goals. Let’s make 2012 a highly successful year together!