D. Kent Smith is well aware there are no shortcuts when it comes to cleaning up 60 years of radioactive and other wastes at the U.S. Energy Dept.'s Hanford former nuclear-weapons site in Washington state.

It took teamwork to build the New York City Dept. of Environmental Protection's $1.4-billion, 2-billion-gallon-per-day Catskill/Delaware Ultraviolet Disinfection Facility—the world's largest—on time, on budget and with less than 2% change-order costs.

A decade ago, Jack P. Moehle got a bee in his bonnet about the sorry state of the approvals process for performance-based seismic design of tall buildings.

Inspired by the one-room schoolhouses of a bygone era, Marshall G. Zotara is bringing an array of construction industry giants together to perform old-fashioned barn raisings for low-income, Title 1 school districts around the country.

Their remarks came from the heart. Some were passionate, some were funny. Sharing their awards, they all thanked the teams that helped them achieve this recognition, as everything in this industry requires enormous collaboration.

The U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Jeffrey M. Baker, the visionary behind the nation’s newest symbol for sustainability, loves to recount the tale of the dreaded Kobayashi Maru test. For Baker, the fictional test from the “Star Trek” series is an allegory that became a guidepost during his 15-year crusade to develop a replicable model for the design and construction of affordable, ultra-green buildings.