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F IRMS ON THE MOVE

BUSINESS NEWS STUDY SHOWS GREEN CONSTRUCTION IS MAJOR U.S. ECONOMIC DRIVER The green building sector is outpacing overall construction growth in the U.S. and will account for more than 2.3 million American jobs this year, according to a new U.S. Green Building Council study from Booz Allen Hamilton. The “2015 Green Building Economic Impact Study,” released by USGBC and prepared by Booz Allen, finds the green building industry contributes more than $134.3 billion in labor income to working Americans. The study also found that green construction’s growth rate is rapidly outpacing that of conventional construction and will continue to rise. By 2018, the study finds, green construction will account for more than 3.3 million U.S. jobs – more than one- third of the entire U.S. construction sector – and generate $190.3 billion in labor earnings. The industry’s direct contribution to U.S. Gross Domestic Product is also expected to reach $303.5 billion from 2015-2018. “Green building is playing a massive role in the U.S. construction sector, the clean and efficient energy sector and the U.S. economy as a whole,” said Rick Fedrizzi, CEO and founding chair of USGBC. “More than 2.3 million U.S. workers are taking home $134 billion annually in large part because of green building programs like LEED. Demand for green building will only continue to grow as individuals, businesses, and institutions continue to prioritize sustainable approaches to the design, construction, and operations of our built environment.” The new USGBC analysis also explores the multifaceted economic contribution of green construction to the U.S. economy and individual U.S. states, quantifying the economic impact of green building and LEED. “Our research shows that green building has created millions of jobs and contributed hundreds of billions of dollars to the U.S. economy, with the construction of LEED-certified buildings accounting for about 40 percent of green construction’s overall contribution to GDP in 2015,” said David Erne, a senior associate at Booz Allen. “This industry is certainly on the rise, and aggressive growth in the green building sector is anticipated over the next four years.” In addition to national jobs, GDP, and labor earnings from green building, the study projects significant growth in green building’s contribution to individual states’ tax contributions and environmental asset indicators at both the national and state levels. More BUSINESS NEWS, page 10

MEA RELOCATES Marino En- gineering Associates Inc. , a geotechnical and subsid- ence engineering firm, has relocated to St. Louis. The move stems from MEA's growth over the past years and will enable the company to better serve its clients in the Midwest and nationally. According to President Gennaro G. Marino, "It was a great time for us to relocate to St. Louis. Our new location near Forest Park allows us to maintain closer contact with our clients in Missouri and in southern Illinois. In addition, we are more accessible to our clients located across the U.S." The firm, formerly GGMEC, was founded by Marino, an award winning geotechnical

engineer, in 1980 in Champaign, Illinois.

the financial staff are not only tuned into the client and have great information that can be utilized from a predic- tive perspective, the integration of the resource planning drives more accurate revenue forecasting, which in turn allows your financial system to generate much more accu- rate forecasts of how well cash collections and cash flow are coming into the firm. This allows senior leadership to take a broader and predic- tive view, looking out months instead of days, being able to manage staff needs, capital expenditures, line of credit management, and the financial impacts driven from more accurate data. The financial staff being much closer to this data can also begin to spot trends as the firm’s client mix shifts from not just a revenue-planning perspective but also a cash flow perspective. Periodic reviews of the firm’s mix of clients and changes to contract payment terms will allow for a way to better predict financial performance. As a wise senior surveying professional imparted on me: “Our role is to seek to insure that each individual in the firm is being used for their highest and best purpose.” Is your firm utilizing your financial staff to their highest and best purpose? TED MAZIEJKA is a financial and management consultant for Zweig Group. Contact him at tmaziejka@zweiggroup.com. “The final place that the financial staff can really excel and support the project teams and the firm is in the area of cash management.”

TED MAZIEJKA, from page 3

proper awareness of why timely and accurate time card and expense entry is critical to project success, and being shining examples of this to all the staff in the firm, the financial staff can go from babysitting the staff to provid- ing much more accurate and effective information to the project team. For firms that embrace a mission-critical software like Del- tek Vision, Ajera, BST, Clearview, and Project Analyzer for resource planning, the financial staff’s value continues to increase as they shepherd proper planning of fees, hours, staff use, and project success. The firm’s backlog of work and pipeline are critical components to allowing senior leadership to plan the firm’s direction. Another benefit of the financial staff being integrated at this level is that the financial staff can be leveraged against the project team’s PM and PIC to work effectively with pre- paring the resource planning that can impact manpower forecasts, project schedules, and the overall review of the project budget. This places a much lower billing rate of the financial staff for these tasks, allowing the PM and PIC to apply their bill- ing rates to the management and maintenance of the proj- ect and the client. The effective leveraging of the staff can make large differences in the profit picture of your firm’s project performance! The final place that the financial staff can really excel and support the project teams and the firm is in the area of cash management. If the above integrations have occurred,

THE ZWEIG LETTER OCTOBER 5, 2015, ISSUE 1122

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