Forum on Project Leadership: Speakers

Gregory Howell
Co-founder and Managing Director of the Lean Construction Institute (LCI)

Topic: “Leadership Lessons on the Way to Lean Construction”
Abstract: Changing how work is understood and managed, always calls on new leadership. The leaders I met as I moved from improving crew level performance with Timelapse photography, through finding a new way to collaborate, to Lean Construction, shared common characteristics. They were all curious, having more questions than answers. They led by example; exploring, learning, and experimenting. Their willingness to learn and change themselves made it possible to shift from motivating and training the workforce to taking responsibility for the design, operation and improvement of the systems as a whole.

Bio: Howell is both a co-founder and Managing Director of the Lean Construction Institute (LCI), a non-profit organization devoted to production management research in project settings, and a principal of Lean Project Consulting (LPC). Howell received a B.S.C.E from Stanford University in 1966 and spent the next 4 years as an officer in the Civil Engineer Corps of the United States Navy. He returned to Stanford and received an M.S.C. in Civil Engineering and Construction Management in 1973. For 8 years, he was the President of Timelapse Inc., a photo equipment manufacturer and Howell Associates, a productivity improvement consulting company that utilized the equipment. He was appointed the Associated General Contractors’ Visiting Professor in Construction Management at the University of New Mexico in 1987, and later served as Eminent Scholar at the Del E. Webb School of Construction in 1996, and in 1997 .He co-authored Productivity Improvement in Construction with Professors Clark Oglesby and Henry Parker of Stanford University. His expertise in improving performance has resulted in consulting engagements on healthcare facilities, hospitals, power plants, petro-chemical facilities, commercial and industrial buildings, single and multifamily housing, and infrastructure, in North and South America and Africa.