Skanska’s small business incubator has led to $740M in partnerships

David Delancey’s father labored in building, however he mentioned he by no means noticed it as a profession for himself, calling it “tough, outdoors work.”

He attended the College of South Florida on a basketball scholarship, earlier than pursuing a profession on the executive facet of the development business in metropolis administration. It wasn’t till his brother studied building administration at Florida A&M College that Delancey reconsidered his profession path.

“We began speaking extra about it and he was identical to, ‘Look, man, it is part of us, you realize? You grew up in it as effectively, so why do not you look again into it?’” Delancey mentioned.

He did, beginning his personal agency, One Day Got here, in 2004. Twenty years later, Delancey returned to USF to see how his Tampa, Florida-based firm specializing in schooling and parks building might enhance by learning in Skanska’s Development Administration Constructing Blocks Program.

Skanska USA began the Constructing Blocks program in 2007 to assist smaller, various corporations develop and handle enterprise challenges, but additionally to search out alternatives to work for and with bigger companies, based on Tracy Hunt, common supervisor for Skanska’s Florida operations. The U.S. arm of the Sweden-based contractor has partnered with USF since 2021.

The free, multiweek programs cowl quite a lot of matters, together with contracting strategies, insurance coverage bonds, security necessities and sustainability, Hunt mentioned. Skanska staff educate lessons on human sources or web site logistics, for instance.

Then, ideally, this system additionally forges a partnership that each Skanska and the corporate can capitalize on. 

“In the end the aim is we need to get them in, and we definitely need them to start out working for us, but when they will exit and have a job going with us and the job going with 5 of our opponents, then the entire group’s rising, proper?” Hunt mentioned.

Since 2007, the Constructing Blocks program has educated about 800 corporations and led to roughly $740 million in contracts with Skanska, Hunt mentioned.

Constructing a future

One Day Got here is a type of companies to enter enterprise with Skanska. The 2 corporations have entered the pre-construction part on Simply Elementary College and Stewart Center College in Hillsborough County, Florida, an present campus that’s being demolished and rebuilt right into a $70 million new college, Delancey mentioned.

“I received on this program and I knew straight away that I used to be going to be taught fairly a bit,” mentioned Delancey. “Small corporations, we’re in our area, we’re in our lane, however we do know that there are different issues that we will be taught to get higher, to work a bit of quicker, to work a bit of extra environment friendly, to grow to be higher for our purchasers.”

Delancey described the elementary college challenge as his agency’s greatest alternative in 20 years, as he’s labored on a unbroken work contract with Hillsborough County on different schooling initiatives.

“My confidence with this enterprise has gone via the roof due to the sources that Skaska has in place for me as a mentor has simply actually modified lots for me,” Delancey mentioned. “It has modified every little thing for me in relation to this enterprise.”