Balfour Beatty believes deeply and personally in the mission of public education, and leaders like Senior Vice President Gil Fullen embody that belief, serving K-12 education clients as Relentless Allies with a shared drive for responsible stewardship of public funds.

Through decades of public education construction expertise, Gil has become a trusted expert and steward of public funds. His leadership is integral to Balfour Beatty’s ability to serve K-12 clients by delivering on our promises, maximizing value and coordinating complex projects to ensure that every cent spent is fully leveraged toward building brighter educational futures. As the Top Education Builder in California with a four-decade record of success, we can do no less.

Toward a Better Industry for All

For Gil, improving public schools is a deeply personal mission. While assessing a school’s existing facilities earlier in his career, having just become a new father, he found an unexpected personal connection to his work: if he wouldn’t want his own children in outdated, dilapidated schools, how could any parent?

Gil resolved to take on additional industry leadership roles and advocate for a better equipped, better prepared and more fiscally responsible construction industry overall. Yes, that even includes our direct competitors. A rising tide, as Gil believes, should raise all ships.

For several years, Gil has served as an integral member of the Coalition for Adequate School Housing (CASH) in California, a 501(c)(6) non-profit business league founded in 1978 as a response to diminished statewide resources for school facilities. CASH has over 1,200 members and is the preeminent statewide organization representing school facility professionals in both the public and private sectors. CASH provides advocacy, leadership development, educational opportunities, and resources within the school facilities arena. CASH advocacy ensures there are State funds to build new, renovate, and maintain K-12 schools. CASH is dedicated to making sure the students of California have access to quality, safe and healthy environments that foster learning and success.

Over time, Gil has risen to the position of the CASH organization’s top private-side seat. as treasurer and an officer on the board of directors. Gil also serves as one of four core instructors for the CASH’s School Leadership Academy and leads various workshops and presentations at CASH conferences, providing direct education based on his experience with K-12 facilities and construction topics.

“As a core instructor for the CASH Leadership Academy, I have the opportunity to contribute to a wider K-12 construction industry that maximizes value for every school district,” Gil says. “Our three other core instructors all come from district facilities and maintenance management backgrounds, so I offer a unique perspective on the contractor’s role in construction ethics, building budgetary trust and generally building the best possible schools.”

Balfour Beatty’s and Gil’s longtime support of CASH exemplifies our teams’ relentless advocacy for better education construction across the country and especially in California. And it’s no surprise that Gil and our K-12 teams across the state take this mission very seriously and personally: they’re often building schools in their own backyards, for friends, family or even their own children.

K-12 construction has grown by leaps and bounds over the past several decades, often incorporating more advanced (and thus more expensive and logistically complex) facilities for career training, community college engagement, sports and other extracurricular activities. Balfour Beatty teams have the local values and rich personal investment to take ownership of these projects, backed by the national networks and decades of broad industry expertise to take on even the largest and most complex projects.

The Power of Preconstruction

Before the first shovel hits dirt on a new K-12 project, our teams are already hard at work in preconstruction. After earning an education client’s trust by competing for and earning new school projects, the critical preconstruction process begins as our operations, scheduling, estimating and procurement teams coordinate and focus our efforts on mission alignment.

Constructability and site reviews, design partner collaboration, procurement forecasts, coordination with end-user facility management teams and all project stakeholders together set the stage for success with a strong foundation of mutual trust and communication.

For most public school districts, adhering to project budgets is not just a priority – it’s a non-negotiable parameter for success. When projects such as new campuses, new special facilities or school renovations are funded by taxpayer-approved bond elections, requesting additional budget allocations is simply not an option. Our teams seek out every opportunity during preconstruction to achieve cost certainty.

“When we engage all stakeholders as early as possible and approach preconstruction with the right mindset, as our clients’ Relentless Ally, we eliminate as many potential problems as possible,” Gil says. “From there, we can turn to contingency planning with our client to shield the project from anything that truly can’t be anticipated, but our mission is always to do that hard work up front.”

Delivering a comprehensive preconstruction experience is critically important for public education clients. Because projects are typically bond-funded and we want to ensure that we are as responsible as possible with taxpayer dollars. With clear and well-coordinated preconstruction, our teams can arrive at an accurate and reliable Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP) around which the client can make other important financial decisions.

“When we present a GMP to a K-12 client, we’re asking them to trust our expertise in this construction market, the careful, competitive selection process of trade partners and our collaboration with design partners,” Gil adds. “Thankfully their trust rests on strong evidence – our record of repeatedly successful K-12 projects.”

Even with comprehensive early planning, the unexpected can still occur. For example, early excavation might uncover an unknown utility that interferes with a planned new building foundation and thus requires relocation. Our teams often operate under a GMP with a built-in and budgeted contingency fund, subject to precise guidelines that prevent abuse or eventual overruns

Such contingency funds give our clients and our teams a great deal of flexibility when incorporating changes to the project while staying within the GMP. Whatever the project scope or budgetary considerations, Balfour Beatty’s K-12 teams believe wholeheartedly in the power of preconstruction, value engineering and collaboration at every step to help school districts serve as discerning stewards of public funds.

A Different Kind of Success

Whether through our client-first preconstruction solutions or our leaders’ involvement in advancing the industry at-large, Balfour Beatty is focused on creating a K-12 contracting environment that accomplishes every mission: better schools, leaner and more reliable budgets and fellow general contractors equipped to do the same.

Of course, our teams pursue focused success on every new project, but in a greater sense, Balfour Beatty seeks a different kind of success: the kind that translates into limitless opportunities for every student who walks through the doors of a publicly funded school campus.