Your Guide to the 2019 Built For Opportunity Event

It’s an event that puts diverse and traditional vendors, contractors and suppliers in the spotlight, alongside clients to help foster growth in everyone’s construction needs.

The Walbridge Built For Opportunity Event is a long-standing tradition within the company – one that began in 2014 with the growth of supplier diversity and morphed into helping everyone associated with our company to grow their network and build new relationships.

“We’ve seen companies walk into our events who have just recently started with Walbridge and walk out with viable contacts that help build the company for years to come,” Jackie Jackson, Walbridge’s Executive Director of Supplier Diversity said. “The event is all about us networking to grow and more forward together.”

Jackson started the event to support diverse businesses through connections at Walbridge and, over the years, the event grew from 50 people visiting 26 companies to now more than 400 people attending the event with more than 130 companies represented.

“Like many industries, the construction market is a very connection-based industry,” Scott Penrod, Walbridge Group Vice President, said. “Events like this help build with those relationships. It’s also an opportunity to highlight construction trends with technology, which was specifically showcased during last year’s event.”

Software, AI, headsets and even robots were subjects of previous events, with participants including Assemble, Autodesk, PlanGrid and Triax Technologies among the many companies showing the latest industry trends in construction innovation.

Twenty years ago, the thought of putting on virtual reality glasses to see BIM Models seemed like a Hollywood pipedream rather than a technology regularly incorporated on a construction site.

“Even in the last decade the industry is ever-changing,” Penrod said. “Walbridge’s innovation team is working directly with these companies as we utilize new technologies with our project teams around the globe. Bringing our contractors, vendors and clients in to see these new technologies is of the utmost importance – we all need to be on the same page, learning and growing together.”