When I was a boy, I loved Lincoln Logs® and Tinker Toys® and would spend hours on the floor dreaming up different little structures that I would eventually build.  Many of you probably did, too.  The cool thing is, those of us in the architecture/construction field get to do the same sort of building on a grand scale now and I think we sometimes can’t see the forest for the trees (in the form of all the day-to-day minutiae that’s part of our industry) and we fail to savor the immense pride that comes from seeing firsthand a finished project.

For example, I had viewed many pictures of our Duke Energy Center project (in fact, I have  a large print of it in my office), but it wasn’t until I stood at the base of that skyscraper while visiting Charlotte recently that I truly could comprehend its magnitude.  Standing there remembering when the drawings were on my desk and now seeing something monumental that I had played a small role in was simply awesome.

Doctors, lawyers, accountants, pilots, teachers, mechanics, police officers, military personnel, etc. all play a critical role in our society.  However, those of us in the architecture/construction industry BUILD things and I encourage you to think back to when you were young the next time you drive by one of your projects you haven’t seen in a while.  The fact that the fruits of our collective labor will be around long after we’re gone is something few professions can boast of.

Thanks for reading.  I hope you have a fantastic day.

Scott Stafford

Project of the week:  fittingly, this week we feature the 54-story Duke Energy Center, which has over 125,000 SF of our panels. View the online gallery, here.