It’s likely that Joey Rhyne is one of the first people you’ll meet from Dow Smith Company.
When you work with Dow Smith Company to construct a new building, a tenant build-out, a renovation, or an addition to an existing facility, you’ll likely encounter a lot of our folks along the way. As design-builders, we can take a rough idea in your head and see it through the entire construction process to the day you open your doors for business.
We have a dedicated staff and we’re all here to serve you. So, because construction is complex and there are many moving parts, we want to make sure you know what everyone’s role is.
Partner and Design-Builder: Joey Rhyne
It’s likely that Joey is one of the first people you’ll meet from Dow Smith Company.
He works with Dow and other members of the team to manage relationships, develop new business and exceed clients’ expectations.
As a partner and design-builder, Joey oversees all of our project managers. He certifies everything he sees in the field. All estimates come to him, as does each project’s critical path schedule. He certifies invoices and projected final costs. Other than Dow, Joey is the final inspector on the quality of your project.
You’ll see Joey out at your jobsite at least once a week, sometimes more often.
Joey leads all project-related internal communications to make sure everything is running on schedule. “Communication is weaved into every role,” Joey says. “We have a group text for every project for day-to-day and then we have a weekly meeting on every project.”
Joey loves working with clients to take a dream and turn it into reality.
“I really enjoy going to ribbon-cutting ceremonies,” Joey said. “When we’re done and we’ve followed through and done what we said we’re going to do and the client is happy, that means we’ve earned their trust for the next project.”
Andrea Fall and Aaron Fisher keep projects moving along smoothly.
Project Managers/Estimators: Andrea Fall and Aaron Fisher
Even before your project gets started, a project manager/estimator will already be working on it. They do the preliminary planning and pricing. They submit your project to the codes department. At Dow Smith Company, they can also do in-house space planning and AutoCAD drawings.
As estimators, they may work with you on your project for several weeks before anyone else does. And then, when the project begins, they shift into the project management role, serving as a liaison between the superintendent and you, the owner. They’re in charge of the project’s accounting, subcontractor relations, owner relations and communications regarding the project.
They look at all of the bids and make sure everything in the proposal is correct. They build out a worksheet with a line-by-line budget so that you have a clear picture of the costs associated with your project.
Because of the detailed nature of this work, Dow Smith Company is a strong advocate for starting a project with us rather than getting drawings and estimates elsewhere beforehand. Our way is simpler, and it will ultimately save you time and money. Plus, we can catch potential design conflicts and perform value engineering on the design to bring it within budget.
“When we’re at the table from the very beginning, we can keep costs where they need to be,” Aaron said. “I’m definitely a true believer in the method we use.”
Andrea said it’s fulfilling to see a project through from beginning to end. She is elated when she sees the owners functioning in their new space after all the hard work that went into their project.
“At Autism in Motion (a project she recently worked on) it was neat to go in there and see all of the stuff they had set up for the kids and see how they were going to use the space. The transformation of that whole building is amazing.”
Field Operations Manager Trey King.
Field Operations Manager:Trey King
In a lot of ways, the field operations manager is the voice from the field to the office and from the office back to the field.
Some companies don’t have field operations managers, but at Dow Smith Company we believe they serve a key role.
On the jobsite, the field operations manager does all of the labor planning. He goes from job-to-job to find out who needs what. Because superintendents use a lot of the same subcontractors, the field operations manager coordinates them to make sure they’re always working on the most critical parts of the job. He’s responsible for quality. He works with vendors and orders materials—and then makes sure those materials are put in the proper place on the jobsite. He works with the safety coordinator.
“It can be tricky,” Trey said. “The main thing is communicating with everyone. I have to think about the big picture of everything. I have to think weeks out and forecast.”
But Trey said it’s all worth it when he sees the finished product for our clients.
"We get caught in the trenches day-to-day and sometimes we don’t think about how many people it will help. Whether it’s a church or a dentist office or a law office, the most rewarding thing is how we affect our clients and the people who are involved with them.”
Pictured clockwise from the upper left-hand corner: Superintendents Troy Briesch, Zac Neely, Nathan Pfiefer, and Joel Tellez.
Superintendents: Troy Briesch, Zac Neely, Nathan Pfiefer, Joel Tellez
We refer to superintendents as our “generals on the jobsites.”
While our project managers serve our clients by managing budgets and keeping jobs on schedule, superintendents are the point of contact for day-to-day activities and progress on the project.
They make sure all of the safety regulations are being upheld. They keep track of who’s coming and going from the jobsite every day. They make sure everything gets done according to plan—and they find a way to move forward when there are challenges.
“You’ve always got to find a way to make things work,” Zac said. “Electricians may want outlets in certain places that don’t fit or there might be a steel post in the design that needs to be moved by an inch. We sit down and discuss these things because we’re working with what the client wants, what the architect draws up and what codes demand. We always find a way to make it work together.”
Finding that balance for our clients is satisfying for a superintendent, Zac said.
“It’s always extremely rewarding to get to the end of the project and see the customer so excited about it,” he said. “It’s also great to work with so many good people and to work for a company that shows the appreciation they’ve shown me.”
