WILL THE REAL (OR BEST) CM PLEASE STAND UP?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86-00244R000200530006-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 15, 2002
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: November 11, 1971
• Content Type: OPEN

It's mOStly uphill o~~~eFcelease 2002/02/06
Industry in this country is in shabby shape. We're
erecting not one, but two of the world's tallest build-
ings in New York City, and the steel for them comes
from Japan. We're the automobile center of the
world, but cars can be shipped to the U.S. from Eu-
rope and Japan and still beat us on price-if not on
quality. In many cases, our .products are beaten on
quality, too.
Clothing, shoes, Tv sets, radios, textiles, nails, opti-
cal equipment, electronic devices, chemicals-all these
can be made more cheaply in other countries and un-
dersell their U.S. counterparts even after they've been
saddled with the costs of transportation.
In 1971 we will import more than we export for the
first-probably not the last-time in the 20th Century.
We got this way by coasting, coasting on our abun-
dance of raw materials, the technical and managerial
enterprise of earlier- generations, and on prosperity
that we owed at least in part to wars that never
touched our shores. But the free ride is over.
Management has been coasting by inefficient meth-
ods, by laziness, by overstaffing, by a willingness to ac-
cept second or third best rather than rock the boat, by
a preoccupation with immediate profits rather than
investment in capital equipment and research and de-
velopment.
Labor, too, has been coasting. Organized . to the
point of uncontrolled monopoly, union labor has
strong-armed its way into wages, restrictive work
practices and resistance to technological progress that
defy the most ingenious management. Labor leaders
and the rank and file in most cases still hold with the
adolescent premise that the company is the enemy.
In the play "Peter Pan," when Tinker Bell, the
fairy, is dying, Peter appeals to the audience to dem-
onstrate its belief in fairies by applauding loudly so
Tinker Bell will recover. There are all too many per-
sons in the U.S. who think that if everyone hopes hard
enough, the economy will get well. It won't. What the
economy needs from you is participation-hard, hon-
est work. Inefficiency must be eliminated.
Our economy is ip trouble. If you own stock, man-
age acompany, or even appreciate your right and role
as a citizen,. use your influence to bring about better
management, more sensible taxation and productivity
in labor laws. Wishing isn't enough. .
$6-0 isn't necessarily a good score
The Senate last week passed Sen. Edmund
EDITORl~1LS
CIl,1~,~P8no~~o sugg00t0~045t~i0e~i~'C~Should have been
defeated. It is basically a good bill. It represents the
first serious attempt by the federal government to
meet its financial commitment in the pollution con-
trol field. But it is hard to believe that less than three
years ago the total federal appropriation for pollution
control nationwide was a miserly $214 million.
It is just as hard to believe that an entire program,
the state-established water quality standard program,
could be wiped out by the Muskie bill in favor of fed-
eral control without opposition from even one senator.
Just as surprising is the apparent willingness of the
state governments to relinquish their authority to con-
trol pollution within their own borders.
The bill is now in the House where it should get a
going over. A bill of this significance deserves thor-
ough review. National policy on pollution control
needs to be established-but not unthinkingly.
Will the read (or bes#) CM please stand up?
The CM, construction manager, is a new kind' of guy
who, as an owner's agent, is reviewing design, estimat-
ing costs, scheduling phased construction and control-
ling the entire design-construct process on projects
where design and construction are being telescoped to
save time and dollars.
In private construction, the turnkey operator long
has been just this-the manager of his own efforts to
deliver the product to the client in the least time and
at the least cost. In public works, the competent forces
of such federal, state. or local agencies that have the
capability, do the same thing.
What's new about construction management is that
a federal public works agency that lacks the in-house
capability, the General .Services Administration
(GSA), has begun hiring CMs as professional contrac-
tors on projects of the Public Buildings Service. And
other agencies are pushing the CM concept.
The result is that everybody wants to get into the
CM act. And the question is: Who is best equipped to
be the CM?
GSA's first CM was the design-construct firm
(builder of a turnkey airbase in Vietnam) Walter
Kidde Const~?uctors, Inc., with. McKee-Berger-Man-
sueto, Inc., the costs-scheduling-management special-
ists. Gerald McKee of that firm told a construction
audience recently that the "good" general contractor
(GC) had an edge in getting the CM role. In this week's
cover story (la. 22), architect George Heery says the
"capable" A-t3 is the owner's best bet fora construc-
pollution bill (see p. 7). That in itself was not unex- tion manager.
pected (ENR 10/28 p. 13). The surprise was the 86-to- The key words are "good" and "capable." The best
0 vote., When a measure that authorizes $14 billion in CMs will be those GCs and, we'd guess, to a lesser ex-
federal funds-and also wrests from the states control tent, those A-l: firms that really know costs, schedules,
over pollution-passes completely unopposed, one and how to coordinate- the team approach to construc-
wonders if anybody #~~~~Yl~ ~ptrease 2002/02/06 : Cp~Q~F2DP86-002448000200530006-1
88 ENR November l 1, 1971