Insight

DAVIS X Peter Winants

Peter Winants

Peter Winants is an Assistant Project Manager within our Education group. He’s in the final stretch of completing the new College Park City Hall project, which you can read about here. We talked with Peter about his DAVIS experiences and what makes this project special—read on to learn more!

How long have you worked at DAVIS?

I’ve been here for two and a half years. I worked for a Geotech inspection company, so I knew a couple of general contractors in the area. I met some people that worked at DAVIS and loved it, so I applied, and here I am. At my previous job, I got to see projects from the very beginning stages, doing things like testing soil—but I never actually got to see the buildings get built. With DAVIS, I can experience that.

What was your first impression of DAVIS?

Everyone was really friendly and extremely smart – everyone knew what they were doing.

What are your responsibilities at the College Park City Hall project?

After being promoted from Project Engineer to Assistant Project Manager, I’ve been working with scheduling more and running trades. It’s exciting for me because I’m getting new experience on the interior of the building—much more than when I was a soil inspector.

I personally try and make meetings a little more exciting and fun—when it’s warranted of course. We work hard, and it’s been great to get to know our partners.

The project is almost complete—how has the process been?

We have a great team out here. Obviously, we had some things thrown our way with COVID, but we held it down. If we even thought there might be a COVID-related issue, like material delays, we would bring it to everyone’s attention and solve it as early as possible. We’ve kept a team feeling throughout the whole thing. This group is fantastic.

What makes a team like yours successful?

Open communication, and honesty. We can trust each other, and we know our roles. Nobody hesitates to help each other out. We’ve also embraced technology, and I think that’s been a game-changer. BIM coordination, Procore, StructionSite for daily progress photos, they’ve been great tools. Our virtual construction team has been bringing in so many new ideas. Also, working with the Education group has been awesome—we’re a small team, but we have a bright future ahead of us.

College Park has grown so much recently. What’s it like to be part of that growth?

It’s exciting, and City Hall is the centerpiece of all that. The public plaza is a place where people have a sense of community—they can grab a coffee and sit down, do homework, whatever they want. My favorite part of the project—and I’m a little biased because I had the interior scopes—is the acoustic wood, ceilings, and walls. I’m really proud of our work—at one point I drove up to New Jersey to look at a specific wood veneer. It’s going to be an amazing looking building.