The sessions have started, the attendees are here, and we have officially kicked off one of the best weeks of the year at DBIA! We’re here in Portland for the 2018 Design-Build for Water/Wastewater and Design-Build in Transportation Conferences, two specialty conferences that are held back-to-back over the course of one week. This year, the Water/Wastewater Conference is being held first, and through the first two days we have already had quite an event! Between dynamic general sessions and speakers, concurrent education and the exhibit hall, there’s always something to do at a DBIA Conference! Here are some of the highlights from the first two days:

Monday

DBIA staff arrived over the weekend for an exciting week of back-to-back events!

The week got started early with some great pre-conference sessions for owners and practitioners.

CNN Top Ten Hero and Founder of Wine to Water Doc Hendley was on hand to deliver a powerful opening keynote in the afternoon, and at the exhibit hall afterwards conference attendees helped build more than 100 water filters to benefit Wine to Water!

Tuesday

Tuesday got off to a great start with an early-morning general session about the roles and qualifications of an Owner’s Consultant in Design-Build, and continued with tons of concurrent education on everything from progressive design-build to leadership & teamwork.

The afternoon general session on design-build in times of crisis featured a speaker, Jennifer Kline from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who discussed using design-build in the re-construction efforts after Hurricane Katrina.

All in all, the 2018 Design-Build for Water/Wastewater Conference has gotten off to a terrific start, and we couldn’t be more excited to share it with you! Stay tuned, because later in the week we’ll take you to our second event of the week – the 2018 Design-Build in Transportation Conference!