Five Minutes With Diaa Elmaddah, Jacobs Program Manager
Five Minutes With Diaa Elmaddah, Jacobs Program Manager
Abstract
ENR Senior Transportation Editor Aileen Cho interviewed him about the $2.6B LIRR third track expansion project, for which he was project director. During the past 25 years, I have managed various projects for rail agencies in the New York and New Jersey metropolitan area, including the Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North Railroad, NYC Transit and NJ Transit. Any lessons learned from these projects that informed the 3rd track expansion? Whether I'm acting as a project manager, construction manager or program manager, my priority is always to protect the client's interests, to facilitate a positive relationship with other stakeholders and create positive outcomes. What role did you play in getting the team onboard?The LIRR Expansion Project is essentially 50 projects combined into one. As Metropolitan Transportation Authority Construction and Development's first design-build project, the Arup and Jacobs JV team wanted to facilitate a successful delivery and provide a template for future projects. Having worked on several design-build projects, I understood that effective management of a design-build project of this magnitude would hinge on clearly delineating project goals and responsibilities and putting systems in place to support close coordination, clear communication, ongoing monitoring and accountability. We worked with MTA C&D and LIRR to develop a comprehensive project management plan which outlined how to deliver the project on time and within budget and provided a roadmap with clearly assigned goals and responsibilities.