New Facility Gives Ferris Construction Programs Room to Grow

Bob Eastley’s office is in the Swan Building, third floor, on the campus of Ferris State University. It’s easily a five-minute walk uphill from the Construction Technology Center, where he teaches—no mean feat when you’re a writer running late to interview the department chair and assume his office is near the labs in which he teaches.
“I don’t know if we have a clearly defined home,” Eastley says. “Our instructors have offices in Johnson Hall; we have classrooms here in Swan and labs in the CTC.”
A Construction Technology and Management department with no building to call its own? Not for long.

Laying the Foundation
The CT&M programs at Ferris State have been a big draw for decades. Students come to Big Rapids for two-year programs in Building Construction Technology (residential and light construction) or Civil Engineering Technology (focusing on the road industry), and stay on to earn their bachelors’ degrees in Construction Management. Ferris’ four-year program is nationally accredited by the American Council for Construction Education, and interest is expanding rapidly.
“Enrollment has skyrocketed,” says Eastley. “We’re up over 50 percent in total enrollment since 1993. Our freshman class has more than 70 students this year. We have more than 250 students total, and that number is expected to climb.”
Demand for graduates is growing, too, as employers learn what Ferris graduates bring to the job site. Matt Theut hires Ferris graduates for Pulte Home Corporation of Royal Oak, Mich.
“They arrive with good technical experience and good management skills,” Theut says. “Ferris graduates know how to be soft with homeowners, or stiff if needed, and can manage the technical aspects as well. They come knowing their way around a construction site, so you don’t have to start from scratch.”
Theut began recruiting from Ferris just a few years ago. He hires only four-year graduates and says the size of the program is what attracted his attention.
“We’ve always hired the bulk of our employees from Michigan State, but they tend to be from the southeast part of the state and want to return to the Detroit area,” he says. “Ferris draws from all over— the demographics make it easy to send people to Grand Rapids, Detroit
or Chicago.”
Ferris alumnus Bob Shilander (T’69) was among the earliest construction graduates from the University, before a four-year degree was even offered. “I’d always loved construction and enrolled in the pre-engineering program with the idea that I would transfer to Michigan State and become a civil engineer,” he says. “It was a tough program, and the only reason I wanted to become a civil engineer was to do construction—then I learned Ferris had exactly what I was looking for.”
Shilander is president of Ann Arbor-based PMC Constructors and Technical Services, which specializes in designing and building new power plants and maintenance and decommissioning of nuclear facilities. Historically the company has been one of the largest recruiters of construction graduates from Ferris—a trend Shilander credits to the historic opportunity mission of the institution.
“Ferris has given opportunities to individuals who may not fit as engineers, but who are good in the industry,” he says. “We found that engineers are always looking for something else. Ferris graduates get into construction because they want to—they stay with the organization and stay satisfied with their careers. They make excellent long-term employees.”
Students often begin their careers before they graduate. Phil Frederickson, president of Christman Company and father of a recent Construction Management graduate (Stephen Frederickson, T’01), says he looks to Ferris for a number of interns each summer in an effort to grow management recruits who are ready to work for Christman right out of college.
“Ferris is one of the best hands-on construction management (non-engineering) schools in the state,” Frederickson says. “Written and oral communication skills are vital—a lot of what we do is to coordinate other professional-technical services. Ferris students are ready to go—especially if they’ve had internship opportunities.”

Blueprint for Success
Demand for the program and its graduates has Eastley and his department scrambling for lab space. “The CTC has one high-bay (two-story) lab, which serves as our practices, framing, soils and materials lab. We hold almost 40 hours of labs in there each semester— and even then, section sizes are becoming too large for convenience and safety.”
That single lab is a two-story space that typically has a house in it, a steel building frame being erected and several concrete formwork projects underway. “There’s no floor space for the other labs,” Eastley says.
Help is on the way, however. In January 2001, Michigan Governor John Engler signed a bill approving $18 million in renovation and construction to create a state-of-the-art facility that would meet the needs of both the CT&M and HVACR programs at Ferris. The state has pledged 75 percent of the funding needed, bringing the University’s share to $4.5 million.
Faculty members have spent hours providing design input to ensure the new facility will accommodate faculty, staff and students in the face of continuing enrollment growth. One strategy behind continuing growth is the addition of a mechanical/electrical option in Construction Management, for students who want to become mechanical or electrical contractors.
“This option creates a natural pairing with our HVACR program,” Eastley says. “And it’s something we’re already teaching to an extent, through cooperative teaching ventures between the two departments.”
The new facility will have dedicated labs for practices and framing, soils and materials, as well as computer labs, classrooms and offices. It also will make Ferris’ CT&M department one of only a few in the nation with a dedicated facility.
“This is going to create a much closer atmosphere—it will make it easy for students to meet with faculty, to get help or just say hello,” says Eastley. “That kind of closeness clearly helps the teaching process.”