VOICEThe The official magazine of The Construction Users Roundtable Register for Upcoming CURT Events! www.curtevents.com Issue 1, 2026 Waste Lines: 20 Years of Watching Our The Past, Present, and Future of LeanThe Construction Users Roundtable 3 VOICE The The official magazine of The Construction Users Roundtable :M OQ[\MZNWZ=XKWUQVO +=:<-^MV\[ ___K]Z\M^MV\[KWU Issue 1, 2026 ?I[\M4QVM[" AMIZ[WN ?I\KPQVO7]Z <PM8I[\ 8ZM[MV\IVL .]\]ZMWN4MIV LEADERSHIP 4 This Issue’s Experts 5 A Message from the CURT Chairman of the Board THE COVER 9 Built to Evolve: The Top Trends Shaping the Construction Sector 12 Rewriting Safety Culture: Safer Sites Start with Prioritizing Language Access 14 Building Safer Sites: How the Columbia Protocol Can Transform Mental-Health and Suicide Prevention LEADERSHIP Your Subscription Your Way! Scan this QR code or email distribution@matrixgroupinc.net to subscribe or update your existing subscription information. Note, The VOICE is free for representatives of CURT member companies. FEATURES 17 CURT Blog Briefs: Click to CURT’s Website to Read These Articles in Full 18 Index to Advertisers ON THE COVER: 20 Years of Watching Our Waste Lines: The Past, Present, and Future of Lean4 Helping owners achieve the most productive use of every capital dollar. John Matuska, PE, DBIA, is a Senior Principal and Industrial/Manufacturing Practice Area Leader at Ruby + Associates, a Degenkolb Company. He has over 30 years of constructability-focused structural engineering experience, helping owners, builders, and steel fabricators expedite their large construction projects. Loretta Mulberry is a Language Access Consultant helping bridge communication gaps in the construction industry so everyone can learn effectively and work safely regardless of their English proficiency. Loretta holds a Master’s degree in Spanish Translation and Interpreting Studies. She lives in Wisconsin with her family. Rob Wagner has been with Procter & Gamble for over 30 years and is currently leader in Capital Management for the Family Care Global Business Unit. His expertise includes cost engineering, project management, capital systems, and process engineering. Thank You to the Contributors who Shared Their Expertise This Issue. THIS ISSUE’S EXPERTS Jim Ellis is the current Chair of CURT. He is retired from Microsoft Corporation, and he has over 40 years of experience in business, operations, project management, and more. He is currently Chief Executive Officer of Ellisian, a global consulting and technology company dedicated to helping organizations develop safe, sustainable, and efficient capital projects. Matthew Gierke, Principal with FMI Corp’s consulting division, helps both general and self-performing contractors to solve business challenges related to project planning, execution, field leader development, and financial performance. His work centers on helping contractors build and implement solutions that improve field productivity and long-term operational success. He also leads FMI’s peer groups business, which provides a forum for construction industry leaders to collaborate on proven success strategies and enhancing profit. Wendy Lakso is a national leader in suicide prevention with 20+ years across DoD, VA, and public health. As an independent consultant for the Columbia Lighthouse Project, she advances global adoption of the Columbia Protocol, driven by deep personal ties to the military and commitment to saving lives. Klaus Lemke is the Managing Principal of Midion and author of Better Building: Lean Practice for the Project- Driven Organization. His firm sets up projects for success by creating high-performing teams through the right team structure, practices, and skills at all levels of the organization. The VOICE Write for If you’re interested, please send a short abstract and your contact information to: editor@matrixgroupinc.net Please note: Articles must be educational in nature. Submissions that promote a specific product or service will not be considered. All content is subject to editorial review and final approval by CURT. Share your expertise and help shape the future of construction through The VOICE. Do you have insights or ideas that would benefit construction owners across the United States? The VOICE, CURT’s official publication, is looking for industry experts to contribute articles for upcoming issues. • Sustainability Technology & Productivity • Procurement & Contracting • Lean Project Delivery • Talent Solutions • Offsite Construction/Modularization • Construction Research • Safety We welcome original content that ex- plores topics important to CURT members, including:The Construction Users Roundtable 5 A message from the CURT Chairman of the Board. WORDS OF WISDOM A s we close the door on 2025 and look ahead to the future, I am proud to reflect on the progress we have made together at the Construction Users Roundtable (CURT). For 25 years, CURT has been the preferred organization and conference for owners, contractors, and industry leaders who are committed to advancing excellence in the capital project and construction industries. This past year has only reaffirmed why CURT continues to hold that position – and why our future is brighter than ever. The construction landscape is ever evolving, and CURT is strategically positioning itself to move in step with those changes. We aim to continue supporting our industry for today, but are also reinventing ourselves to better align with construction of tomorrow. Our goal is simple yet ambitious: to do better, to deliver more value, and to ensure our members are equipped to succeed in this increasingly challenging environment. One of CURT’s greatest strengths has been creating opportunities for collaboration and networking, and we will continue working to bring together diverse voices from across the industry – owners, contractors, engineers, and innovators – to share knowledge and build relationships that drive meaningful outcomes. We are also focused on codifying best practices that can be applied across multiple industry verticals to break down barriers to better project delivery. Part of that is developing actionable tools that improve safety, cost and schedule performance, efficiency, predictability, sustainability, productivity, and – ultimately – profitability. In short, they help our members break down barriers to better project delivery. CURT is committed to continually build relationships with other construction organizations and creating collaborative frameworks that deliver better results for our members. This spirit of partnership is essential as we seek to overcome the challenges that no organization can solve on its own. Safety is at the heart of our mission at CURT and, this past year, we took significant steps forward by discussing our workers’ mental and physical health with an emphasis on identifying those at risk for suicide. (See the Building Safer Sites article by Wendy Lakso, on page 14, for a recap of our November workshop.) The health of our workforce is paramount to project delivery and the efforts CURT undertook in 2025 demonstrate our belief that safety is never an afterthought – it is a culture, a value, and a responsibility we all share. Also important, we made great strides at CURT in promoting diversity and inclusion within our industry and sought to increase female participation and visibility across our programs and events. We completed both the first and second CURT Women’s Leadership cohorts led by Dr. Gretchen Gagel. This highly acclaimed program by graduates was exclusively sponsored in the United States by CURT. Dr. Gagel provided actionable leadership strategies that are tailored to the requests/ needs of the participants. We recognize the excellence women bring to construction and we are committed to fostering an environment where they can thrive. Going forward, we will continue to build coaching, mentoring, and role model opportunities within CURT to encourage more women to join and take part in construction leadership. Doing so will be essential for continued innovation, resilience, and long-term success. As we look to the year ahead, CURT is dedicated to helping our members achieve excellence in every aspect of capital project delivery. We will work to continue being your preferred organization and build on what we do best and, whether through research, collaboration, or innovation, we will continue the momentum of the past year and expand our initiatives to strengthen CURT’s impact on construction. I am excited for what lies ahead and I thank you for your commitment, your partnership, and your continued belief in CURT. Let us continue to move forward together with confidence, purpose, and optimism – because the best is yet to come. The health of our workforce is paramount to project delivery and the efforts CURT undertook in 2025 demonstrate our belief that safety is never an afterthought – it is a culture, a value, and a responsibility we all share. ‘ ‘6 Helping owners achieve the most productive use of every capital dollar. ON THE COVER 20 Years of Watching Our Waste Lines! I n the 1970s, Japanese automaker, Toyota, was disrupting the existing common-sense thinking of the automotive sector with its Toyota Production System (TPS) – focused on quality, respect, and getting the job done right the first time. This was the establishment of Lean manufacturing, which made its way to the United States’ manufacturing sector in the 1980s in an attempt to emulate Toyota’s successes in the areas of just-in- time delivery and waste reduction. The term ‘Lean’ being used for this manufacturing process was first coined in the 1990 book, The Machine that Changed the World, by James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones, and Daniel Roos, which studied Toyota’s approach and the first, best effort to explain it in terms that Americans could understand. This Toyota methodology was then further explored in 1996 in the influential book, Lean Thinking, by Womack and Jones. At around the same time, a handful of construction thought leaders were conducting research on overcoming their industry’s legendary stagnant and declining productivity trends. Through this research, led by Glenn Ballard and Greg Howell, it was recognized that the problem was more about the interface between the work rather than the work itself. As a result, the Last Planner System (LPS) was born. The research and the system kickstarted the Lean construction revolution. “Several of the early thought leaders in this ‘revolution’ were heavily influenced by the Language-Action Perspective (LAP), first developed in Understanding Computers and Cognition by Fernando Flores and Terry Winograd in 1987,” says Klaus Lemke, Managing Principal at Midion. “Flores’ and Winograd recognized that the ways in which people interact through language can create – or close – new possibilities, and that reliability and trust among team members can remove much of the friction and breakdowns that impose delays and conflict into projects. Although not directly derived from Toyota, the Language-Action Perspective was baked into many of the early tools and Lean construction standards that continue to drive the industry even today.” In the construction space, Lean is a movement that focuses on creating smooth workflows by breaking down barriers between varying parties on a project. In the field, this requires a focus both on helping trade foremen coordinate their work, and on ensuring that every worker can do what is needed each day to maintain progress and meet the needs of the project. At the management level, Lean means shifting the relationship between the various stakeholders to form integrated teams built on transparency, trust, and mutual goals in the best interest of the project. “Whether it’s the owner, designer, or installer, each project member requires and expects a level of certainty on a project,” explains Robert Wagner, Family Care Operating Unit Construction Manager at Procter & Gamble. “A people-focused project process – one that is based on respect for all team members – places control of the delivery with those who do the work and involves them in the upfront planning. This sharing of responsibilities has been shown to improve costs, scheduling, and overall safety in the delivery of a project.” But Wagner also cautions that Lean is sometimes easier said than done. He says, “Lean is like golf; a simple game, but one that is hard to master. You must remember that Lean delivery involves a cultural change within an organization, which takes time. At my company, our vision was to become Lean as quickly as By Paul Adair, Staff Writer Past, Present, Futureof Lean The andpossible, so we ran with it. We tripped and fell and made mistakes along the way, but we also got back up, dusted ourselves off, and never looked back. We have since moved to the next level and are today a sophisticated user of Lean Integrated Project Delivery (IPD), which we see as one of our strategic advantages.” It is said that, since the Second World War, the only industry that has shown a significant decline in productivity is the construction industry. To be fair, however, construction is also one of the most complex industries in the world, with hundreds of stakeholders often working side by side on the same project. “I’ve had owners bring that up to me to say that the system is broken and we need to change it,” says John Matuska, a Structural Engineer with Ruby + Associates, a Degenkolb Company. “That’s where I always come back to the tenets of Lean: the flow efficiency and focusing on the outcome versus the resource efficiency, which is what the construction industry tends to do to minimize risk. Is there still room for improvement in the Lean tools we use and in the construction industry’s mindset? Yes, but we have definitely come a long way.” That said, in the early years of Lean, many in the construction industry were simply not interested in change. After all, change is hard and the reputation construction had as a laggard to innovation was not entirely unjustified. The challenge, as Lemke puts it, was to “reach those in the middle – the fence sitters.” These were people who were often best engaged through a simple introduction to Lean concepts, while avoiding much of the auto industry-specific jargon borrowed from Toyota. Leading the charge to make these introductions were organizations including the Construction Users Roundtable (CURT), the Lean Construction Institute (LCI), and the International Group For Lean Construction (IGLC). A Lean Construction Bootcamp was developed that included several hands-on simulations, along with many real-world examples and practices that showcased the benefits of Lean. “Because Lean IPD is a simple step-by-step process, there was a relatively quick adoption by the construction industry,” says Wagner. “However, this quick adoption meant that many skipped reading the instructions, which naturally led to miscommunication and stumbling along the way. Out of necessity, we had to develop standard nomenclature and definitions so that everyone would be speaking the same language.” CURT’s work on Lean officially commenced with the creation of a Lean Committee and the development of a Lean White Paper in 2007. The organization was an early adopter of Lean IPD because it understood the importance of bringing the benefits of Lean and Lean IPD to construction. CURT’s Lean Sprint Team (originally the Lean Committee) is now working to update the original White Paper. At the contracting level, there was also a lot of early work around changing the project delivery model to match the behaviors that promised better outcomes. Those efforts resulted in some of the first Integrated Project Delivery agreements, which consistently outperformed traditional projects. By its nature, the practice of Lean is always changing and improving. The most significant improvements over time have been tied to the continued push for more interconnectedness, trust, and collaboration at all levels of a project. In this type of environment, experimentation and growth often become the norm, and the owners can exert significant influence on the culture that exists on their projects, with their leadership being the difference. The Construction Users Roundtable 7 “Is there still room for improvement in the Lean tools we use and in the construction industry’s mindset? – Yes, but we have definitely come a long way.” – JohnMatuska, Ruby + Associates, a Degenkolb Company ‘‘8 Helping owners achieve the most productive use of every capital dollar. ON THE COVER Like Lean, construction has also evolved. Mega projects are much more common than they used to be, and many companies are struggling to keep up as their management structures and practices are unable to be scaled to meet the challenge. This is the space in which Lean thrives. The approach that worked on a billion- dollar data center five years ago will simply not succeed on ‘similar’ projects today when a data center campus can easily exceed the cost of $10 billion dollars. Instead, the most successful projects today are doubling down on the Lean principles of creating alignment, building trust, and driving responsibility as close to the work as possible. “This means paying close attention to what we think of as the three realms of a successful project team: designing the right organizational structure, implementing the right practices, and developing the right skills in your people – especially in your leaders,” says Lemke. “On these projects, it is critical to bring these fundamentals together as quickly as possible to create a management system that can truly be scaled to meet the needs of unwieldy projects. This is the only approach that will produce a team that can move fast, stay flexible, and respond quickly to changes, while still managing the immense complexity that these kinds of projects create.” True Lean practitioners in construction currently have a strong foundation of practices to rely on and know how to consistently create high-performing teams on construction projects. The challenge going forward will be in keeping up with the rapid pace of change in construction, as projects become larger and more complex, while also demanding quicker turn-around, lower costs, and a better work experience for all participants. At the same time, technology will continue to push the limits of what’s possible and adapt to new tools, such as artificial intelligence, which could lead to breakthrough performance improvements. “If we use these tools only to ‘optimize the work,’ we could be stuck in the same rut that gave the Lean movement its wings in the first place – optimized work silos with great friction, bottlenecks, and breakdowns between the work,” says Lemke. “I’m excited to see how technology and new practices can help us continue to make progress on these fundamental challenges, and those who lead the way will help with leading our industry into the future.” Matsuka agrees, adding, “Construction historically has been fairly siloed, where everyone is working for themselves. Lean has broken down those silos, where the focus is now more relational as opposed to transactional. I believe that, going forward, those silos will continue to crumble and construction will work more collaboratively to focus on the end product. We have come a long way in 20 years; I am excited to think about where we will be in 20 more.” If you’re reading this article at CURT’s National Conference, make sure to attend the Lean Sprint Team’s discussion on Lean and how owners, designers, contractors, and researchers can better support one another to drive meaningful improvement rather than just chasing tools, apps, and tasks. The agenda is available at www.curtnc.com.The Construction Users Roundtable 9 FEATURE The Top Trends Shaping the Construction Sector. T he construction industry is evolving faster than ever, driven by new technologies, sustainable practices, and a renewed focus on collaboration and efficiency. The pace of change is so rapid that it can be challenging to keep track. The VOICE recently caught up with Matthew Gierke, Principal at FMI Corp., prior to his appearance at the CURT National Conference in Orlando, Florida, to explore how innovation, data, and talent strategy are redefining how we build today – and how we’ll continue to build smarter tomorrow. *This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Gierke: The environment in which companies currently find themselves is challenging. Some of those challenges have been around for a while, some of them are systemic, and some are more recent. With Expertise from Matthew Gierke, Principal with FMI Corp’s consulting division. Compiled by Paul Adair, Staff Writer. Builtto EvolveNext >