AGC Houston Office

Bolger Center

Dallas, Texas

Sheraton Downtown Phoenix

4th Annual C3 Golf Tournament
Wildcat Golf Course

San Antonio Marriott Riverwalk
San Antonio, Texas

Registration for the CLC Leadership Development Conference, formerly known as Fall Working Weekend, is now open. This year’s event is co-hosted with the San Antonio Chapter of AGC and will take place October 23-25, 2014, at the San Antonio Marriott Riverwalk. Highlights of the program include keynote speaker George "The Iceman" Gervin, former San Antonio Spurs player; Chuck Greco, Linbeck Group, LLC, and Senior Vice President of AGC of America; and a roundtable session that will allow attendees to learn best practices from CLC groups from across the country.

Caesar's Palace

Cooper Guest Lodge

The ACE Mentor Program of Houston invites you to join in The Third Annual Build It Forward Event. This event brings together students involved in the ACE Mentor Program and industry-wide professionals. For more information and to learn how you can get involved, please click here.

BIM Unit 1 is designed specifically for construction professionals eager to learn the essential concepts of BIM. The full-day (8-hour) course explains the benefits of improved visualization on a construction project through the use of 3D, 4D, and 5D models, establishes a knowledge base of BIM terminology and outlines case studies showing successful BIM implementation.

Understand how basic contracts are structured, how different types of contracts are used, and how project documentation relates to effective contracting. Learn how different project delivery methods use different contracting strategies, and gain insight into contract law and language in relation to project risk.

Completion of this course meets the requirements of OSHA Paragraph 1926.50, and participants will receive an American Heart Association Heartsaver First Aid and CPR/AED wallet card valid for two years upon course completion.

Learn how to comply with contractual obligations concerning insurance and to assure compliance of other involved parties. Everything you need to know about insurance certificates will be covered.

AGC Houston - Frontline Leadership is a six-session training program designed to equip new, current, or aspiring supervisors with the tools they need to effectively manage and develop their people and projects. The format consists of six half-day modules that can be taken as stand-alone courses or as part of the series.

AGC Houston - Frontline Leadership is a six-session training program designed to equip new, current, or aspiring supervisors with the tools they need to effectively manage and develop their people and projects. The format consists of six half-day modules that can be taken as stand-alone courses or as part of the series.

This construction 10-hour safety course covers the safety requirements as contained in 29 CFR 1926.This course is designed to provide an entry-level construction worker general awareness on recognizing and preventing hazards on a construction site.

The Globally Harmonized System for Hazard Communication is an international standard for informing workers about health, and physical and environmental hazards in the workplace. This course will cover the regulatory requirements for container labeling, the nine pictograms and their meanings, the Safety Data Sheet format and content requirements. For the Spanish session, click here.

This course focuses on how to prepare for and conduct assessments, identifying issues, and the disposition of those issues. Classroom lecture and experiential exercises are utilized to provide students the opportunity to put into practice the knowledge and skills presented.

This course is designed for healthcare professionals who want to plan and present safety and health content to their employees/colleagues.The program covers topics specific to making safety and health training engaging, relevant, and impactful for all healthcare workers. In addition to the content, the participants will receive a Trainer's Tool Kit with a variety of resources and training material.

This course is designed to provide Spanish-speaking entry-level construction workers with a general awareness on recognizing and preventing hazards on the jobsite. Participants will learn about the safety requirements contained in 29 CFR 1926, review specific OSHA requirements and gain tips on how to keep a construction jobsite safe.

AGC Houston is asking for your help in updating our 2015 member directory. Last week, we emailed you a copy of your firm's information as it currently appears in the AGC Houston Chapter database. Please take a moment to complete and return the form to AGC Houston. If you have not yet received it, please look in your spam and junk Outlook folders or contact AGC Houston at 713-843-3700.

"The AGC Alternative," the first of its kind, nationwide private insurance exchange to serve the commercial construction industry, begins offering firms belonging to the Associated General Contractors of America quotes today. The private exchange, developed in collaboration with Willis North America, a unit of Willis Group Holdings, the global risk advisor, insurance and reinsurance broker, features comprehensive insurance coverage from Aetna, MetLife and Group Vision Service as part of its introductory suite of benefits. Now that the exchange's initial benefits providers have been selected, association members can now get coverage quotes for policies that go into effect as early as January 1, 2015.  For more information about the association's new private insurance exchange, click here.

During the past several months, the U.S. Green Building Council and the Green Building Certification Institute have been forging new relationships as well as strengthening existing ties with other organizations. Those working on Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and other green projects (such as Sustainable SITES) will be impacted by these developments. The unprecedented cooperation aims to create a comprehensive framework for jurisdictions looking to implement and adopt green building regulations and codes and/or provide incentives for voluntary leadership programs such as LEED.

Architect-engineer-contractor (AEC) professional liability insurance policies typically cover negligent wrongful acts, errors and/or omissions as long as the AEC is found negligent by a court of law for the wrongful or erroneous service provided to the client. However, it is yet to be fully determined if some forms of negligence related to green construction are actually covered under typical professional liability insurance policies.

On August 8, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that, if implemented, will require covered federal contractors and subcontractors to submit an annual Equal Pay Report on employee compensation. On an annual basis, contractors would have to submit on the new Equal Pay Report summary employee compensation data by sex, race, ethnicity, and specified job categories, as well as other relevant data points that would include hours worked and number of employees.

September 16, 2014

We're excited to announce new AGC Houston emblem stickers available to all members!

Contact AGC Houston today at (713) 843-3700 for your hard hat stickers while they last.

Benefit from financial strength and superior loss control program. It is managed by a board comprised of CompGroup AGC members—general contractors and subcontractors from all parts of Texas are represented. It is a TDI-approved Workers' Compensation Purchasing Group.

Benefits Include:

• Discount - the benefit of the purchasing power of millions of workers' comp dollars to give you the best premium discount.
• Claims Management - aggressively managed claims ensure that injured employees are paid promptly and fairly and fraudulent claims are dealt with accordingly.
• Loss Control - Safety plays a large role in this program. Members receive jobsite loss control visits to assist in controlling claims.
• Dividends - available to members based upon a Program then Individual loss ratio. Under Texas law, dividends cannot be guaranteed, until they have been declared.

Learn more about Membership Benefits in the CompGroup AGC, Inc. today! Contact your insurance agent and tell them you want a CompGroup AGC quote or contact Program Administrator Roberts & Crow at 800-406-9614 - ask for Julie Schatz.

Enterprise Fleet Management provides AGC members cost-effective and comprehensive fleet management solutions in the areas of: vehicle acquisition, maintenance management, risk management programs, vehicle disposal, fuel programs, license and title renewals, and monthly reporting. If your business has between 15 and 125 vehicles, Enterprise Fleet Management can help you start improving your cash flow today.

Construction spending reached its highest level since 2008 in July, according to the Census Bureau, and industry economists are forecasting similar spending patterns in the future. Spending on both private and public construction increased in July, reaching a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $981.3 billion. The report "provides further evidence that a vigorous nonresidential construction recovery is finally at hand," said Anirban Basu, chief economist for Associated Builders and Contractors. "Increased job growth, booming energy production, expanding industrial production and normalizing capital markets are all contributing to nonresidential construction's renewed momentum, and confidence among developers and other significant consumers of construction services is high, signaling ongoing recovery."

The increased coverage around Obamacare and the state’s strong economy has led to more people being covered under employer insurance which has played a role in bringing the number of uninsured down. However, due to Texas' lack of a comprehensive Medicaid program,  Texas has seen a much larger drop in the percentage of uninsured. This will begin to affect employers, especially those who hire low-income, uninsured workers. Employer penalties for uninsured employees will start in 2015. Dr. Vivian Ho of the Baker Institute states, "If these workers aren't insured, it’s more people these employers will have to take a penalty for because it’s expected the employers should provide insurance for uninsured people."

The Texas Supreme Court just issued a blockbuster opinion affirming the limited scope of no-damages for delay clauses. The Court recognized the traditional exceptions to the enforcement of no-damages-for-delay clauses. These include an owner’s "active interference" with a contractor "or other wrongful conduct," including "arbitrary and capricious acts."  The Court reasoned that the purpose of such exceptions is to "preclude a party from insulating himself from liability for his own deliberate, wrongful conduct." No longer is there uncertainty about the applicability of the traditionally recognized exceptions to no damages clauses. Texas now falls in line with the majority of states.

The demographics of the state are changing in ways that impact the workforce head on. According to State Comptroller Susan Combs, "unskilled" jobs are becoming a thing of the past, and the workers of today need to be adaptable to the point that they are lifelong learners. She argues that lawmakers need to tackle several issues including increased funding for adult education programs, multimedia information campaigns to promote industry-based certification, and economic incentives for companies to create apprenticeship programs. She also urges the state to make more money available for programs in order to streamline the process to reduce waiting lists for training programs.

After a slow start to the year, the economy is finally beginning to perk up. As of July, U.S. architecture firms have produced three straight months of accelerating gains in design billings. With solid monthly scores for new design contracts (at 54.9 this month) and new project inquiries (66.0), all signs indicate strong momentum building in design activity, which is expected to produce solid gains in construction later this year and into 2015. Firms in the South continue to report healthy business conditions, as they have every month for two straight years.

Sam Houston State University

The newest version of LEED v4, which will be the standard for any certification starting June 2015, includes a new location and transportation category that takes into account factors such as a building’s walkability to area amenities, as well as its proximity to public transportation. Building in areas such as downtown and the Galleria area, as well as within mixed-use projects where tenants can walk to amenities and housing rather than getting into their cars, will have a leg up on their counterparts in suburban locations where walkability is a challenge and development is not as dense.

Occupational Safety and Health Administration will extend the comment period on the proposed rule to improve tracking of workplace injuries and illnesses to Oct. 14, 2014. The proposal, published on Nov. 8, 2013, would amend the agency’s recordkeeping regulation to add requirements for the electronic submission of injury and illness information that employers are already required to keep. Individuals interested in submitting comments may do so electronically at www.regulations.gov, the federal e-Rulemaking Portal. Comments may also be submitted via mail or facsimile. See the Federal Register notice for details.