Post-Presentation Interview with Pat Kiley at the Houston 2040 Scenarios Event
Immediately following the presentation of the two 2040 Scenarios, Pat Kiley, CEO of Kiley Advisors LLC and former president of the AGC in Houston, spoke with Donna Rybiski from the Center for Houston’s Future.
She asked Mr. Kiley for his first impressions following the presentation and discussion. Kiley felt that both scenarios were very plausible, and that both offered the construction industry in the Houston area a very positive prognosis, but also some very real challenges. He noted that both scenarios indicated an increase in construction which would create a demand for a larger skilled workforce than Houston is currently prepared to provide. Speaking about the decrease in training and the lack of increase in wages which has trended over the past several years, Kiley pointed out that the industry will need to do a lot of work to provide what will be needed, even if there were not going to be an increased need for double or triple the current skilled workf409orce, as the scenarios each suggested.
Rybiski asked Mr. Kiley what he would do to bring about the needed change. He encouraged support of the Construction Career Collaborative (C3) initiative that “tries to bring responsibility back”. He explained how C3 is 
“owner driven” and that when the owner gets involved, the rest of the contractor community from the general contractor on down to the sub-sub-contractors would all get in line. Rybiski asked why the owner would want to become involved – what advantage is an initiative such as C3 to the owner? Kiley responded that it would provide:
“Reliability of the project on time and in budget is greatly enhanced. And speed to market – the things that are critical to every owner are more assured. And the fact that he has the workforce that allows his expansion to occur and him to not have hindrance to his plans in any way because of the lack of a trained workforce. ... The cost increase is going to be offset in large part by productivity.”
You can view the interview in the following video.
