Industry & Community Education

1. Arranging and facilitating panel discussions between 4-5 EGCA contractors and agency inspectors from the City of San Diego, County Water Authority and City of Carlsbad, and other public agencies.
   1. Two- to three- hour sessions
   2. Share concerns (listen to each others’) and answer questions
   3. Offer examples of situations which could be done better
   4. Describe contractors’ estimating/bidding challenges including assumptions and risks taken, costs of bidding, bid success ratios, etc.
   5. Describe inspectors’ and resident engineers’ challenges including standards, procedures, expectations and obligations to the public
   6. Communicate the understanding that on any given day any inspector can break any contractor without varying from the specs
2. Arranging and coordinating a series of training sessions (perhaps with a Certificate of Completion) for agency field staff from the City of San Diego and other cities, County, Water Authority, etc. aimed specifically to expand the knowledge of public works field staff in:
   1. Estimating
   2. Construction site and crew coordination
   3. Logistics
   4. Insurance and safety (including labor markups)
   5. And other issues to be developed
3. With an EGCA contractor task force, develop a simple bid form for potential use by all agencies (perhaps based on the Caltrans model) which assists in correcting the following and other problems:
   1. Hidden or ambiguous requirements buried in bid docs
   2. Too many items being required to be submitted with the bid (when they could be submitted within a few days after award)
   3. Too much detailed subcontractor information being required at bid time, when only sub name and city are needed
   4. Allowing multiple vendors listed on a bid form
   5. Dealing with simple spreadsheet errors which lead to incorrect assessments
4. Other educational activities including public workshops to enhance the public’s understanding of the construction industry