Faculty Profile: Dan Luckhardt
NSAD often points out that its faculty members are industry experts who bring their professional experience directly to work for students in the classroom. One such example is Dan Luckhardt, who taught his first course at NewSchool of Architecture and Design, CM 202 Fundamentals of Construction Management, Construction Estimating, in the spring 2011 semester.
Luckhardt is a true industry professional, working full-time as Senior Cost Manager for Cumming, an international project and cost consultancy company (http://www.ccorpusa.com/about-us). Yet his affection for his profession has extended to his extracurricular activities as well. He has been active in the American Society of Professional Estimators (ASPE) since 1990, serving on the Board of Directors of the San Diego chapter since 2004.
Notably, the San Diego chapter has received national recognition for its educational seminars three times since 2005. Personally, Luckhardt received Estimator of the Year honors from ASPE in 2005 and 1996 and has been a Certified Professional Estimator (CPE) since September 2010. Additionally, Luckhardt has been an active member in the Association for Advancement of Cost Engineering since 2005.
He says that he enjoys teaching at NSAD because of the school’s “interest in developing a Construction Management program and curriculum within an exciting environment of design,” he says. “Combining recourses of the design world and community experience is a formula for success.”
So what was he able to bring to his students based on his considerable experience in this subject? “Estimating construction cost in today’s market requires an understanding of the fundamentals of project cost from a ground up approach,” Luckhardt explains. “Cost estimating as related to the construction management process has many challenges due to the rapid change in technologies, the multiple types of end use facilities, understanding sustainable measures, and being able to respond to impossible time constraints.”
Luckhardt emphasized that throughout the semester as well as his philosophy that “seeing is believing,” by which he means that walking the project site during the multiple phases of construction is the best way to witness firsthand the construction means, cost implementations, and the methods used throughout the process that a construction manager will face in real life. This was why, he says, “This spring, the CM 202 class visited a privately funded elementary/middle school campus currently under construction. The job site tour included biology classrooms, chemistry classrooms, and a gymnasium. Our tour guides included the general contractor and the director of development.”
Additionally, because Luckhardt applies on a daily basis the tools used in cost estimating, his CM 202 course presented an onscreen estimating tool called “On Screen Takeoff,” or OST. “The computer lab was a real-life experience where students evaluated design documents electronically and developed a clear understanding of extracting quantities with precession,” he notes.
Finally, Luckhardt’s students attended an all day education seminar organized by the local chapter of the ASPE, introducing them early in their careers to this valuable resource. Key topics discussed were “Moving to the Cloud,” “Current and Future Economic Trends and Escalation Projections,” “Estimating with Building Image Modeling (BIM),” and “The Use of Social Networking for Estimating.” Luckhardt says, “The students experienced a true, up-to-date moment in an industry, a moment that had the feel of a professional convention educational track.”
Luckhardt will be teaching CM 202 every spring semester or as needed and may be slated to teach another construction management course in the future.
He says that he is honored to be teaching at NSAD and to have been so-often recognized in his profession, yet he adds, “My greatest honor is being married to my wife Cheri since 1990 and proudly raising together our three children—future architectural students!”
