A Night to Remember: The 2025 SLC3 Show Me Awards Gala

The SLC3 Show Me Awards Gala was held on Wednesday, March 26th, 2025, and was nothing short of spectacular! This sold-out evening brought together over 300 industry leaders, innovators, and professionals for a night filled with elegance, celebration, and meaningful connections.

The energy in the room was electric as we gathered to honor the outstanding individuals and projects that have made a significant impact on our region’s construction industry. From groundbreaking innovations to inspiring leadership, this year’s finalists and winners truly embodied excellence. Congratulations to all who were recognized for their incredible achievements. Your dedication to quality, safety, and innovation continues to push our industry forward.

We would like to recognize the unwavering leadership and vision of our Executive Director, Kelly Jackson. Kelly’s guidance played a pivotal role in shaping this remarkable evening. Her dedication to advancing our mission and commitment to fostering excellence in the AEC industry continues to inspire us all. We would like to extend a special thank you to Rebecca Hale and Lydia Meyer for their remarkable efforts in bringing this event to life. Their hard work and creativity were evident in every detail—from the beautifully designed programs to the elegant centerpieces and seamless event planning.

Finally, this incredible evening would not have been possible without the generous support of our sponsors. Your partnership allowed us to create a night that truly celebrated the best of our industry. Thank you for your invaluable contributions.

2025 SLC3 Show Me Awards Sponsors:

• Rising Star Award Sponsor: Haberberger, Inc.
• Specialty Contractor of the Year Award Sponsor: Milwaukee Tool
• Cocktail Sponsor: M+H Architects
• Centerpiece Sponsor: National Safety Consulting
• VIP Table Sponsors:
• Bayer
• D. Johnson Painting
• Haberberger, Inc.
• McCarthy Building Companies
• UHY
• SITE Improvement Association

The 2025 Show Me Awards Gala was a true testament to the strength and dedication of our community. We are grateful to everyone who attended and contributed to making this event such a resounding success. Here’s to another year of growth, innovation, and collaboration in the AEC industry!

Celebrating 60 Years of Excellence: Kozeny-Wagner

We are proud to recognize Kozeny-Wagner, our Platinum Training & Education Sponsor, as they celebrate an incredible 60-year milestone!

Founded by Don Kozeny and Rich Wagner, Kozeny-Wagner has built a legacy of integrity, hard work, and innovation, shaping the landscape of our communities through projects that stand the test of time. Their dedication to excellence extends beyond construction; it’s evident in their commitment to their employees, partners, and the industry as a whole.

We are grateful for their continued partnership and investment in training and education, helping to strengthen the future of construction. Congratulations to the entire Kozeny-Wagner team on this remarkable achievement—here’s to the next 60 years of success!

Technical Execution in Complex Concrete Projects

Tarlton Corporation’s Concrete Group focuses on high-difficulty concrete construction projects that often require non-standard solutions. Their work includes structural, civil, and concrete restoration services, frequently involving projects with challenging designs, tight site constraints, and atypical construction conditions.

Recent work includes the concrete construction of a proton therapy vault in Peoria, Illinois, requiring radiation shielding without lead lining. This involved placing 4,520 cubic yards of mass concrete with walls exceeding 25 feet thick. Precision placement, thermal control planning, and coordination with multiple trades and engineering consultants were essential to ensure performance and containment integrity.

The group uses a layered approach to scheduling and planning that integrates baseline project management tools like Primavera P6 with detailed four-week look-ahead schedules for field teams. These short-term schedules break work into daily activities, enabling close tracking of deliverables and dependencies.

Pull planning sessions with subcontractors support coordination, especially when handling embedded systems and zero-tolerance installation conditions. In recent projects like the First Bank headquarters and infrastructure work in the River Des Peres channel, the group adapted workflows to accommodate extreme weather variability, irregular site geometry, and mixed material installations.

This methodical and coordinated approach is central to executing high-risk, technically demanding concrete projects within critical timelines.

Everyday Excellence, One Habit at a Time with Jeff Koziatek

Habit #14: Sleep

Sleeping is the backbone of life. Adequate sleep ensures that we...

• begin each day at the starting line
• perform at optimal energy levels
• AND experience sharpened perception

Beginning from a state of rest, positions us at the starting line - anything less will set us back. Sleep puts us in pole position, but it is often the first thing we sacrifice.

How much sleep are you getting?

Remember:

Sleep for improved productivity and sharpened focus.

Performance Tips:

• Establish a regular sleep schedule with consistent bedtime and wake-up times whenever possible.

• Prepare your mind for sleep by making lists to empty your mind of upcoming tasks or concerns and avoiding screens just before bedtime.

Poettker Construction: How Launching A Drone Program Elevated Illinois GC’s Safety, Productivity

Poettker Construction’s rollout was brisk, but the builder said it’s essential to stay grounded in construction fundamentals when implementing the tech.

Poettker Construction, located in Breese, Illinois, uses its drones as a “jack of all trades” tool, according to the company’s in-house operator. Inspection, marketing, photography and safety all fit neatly into Poettker’s drone program, which the builder announced in February.

Already, people on the ground and in the front office are seeing it pay dividends.

Here, Charles Wilson, Poettker’s vice president of risk management, and Logan Decker, who runs the drone program, talk with Construction Dive about its origins, how the firm overcame hurdles and advice for builders curious about drones.

CONSTRUCTION DIVE: How did the drone program at Poettker start?

CHARLES WILSON: Utilizing outside resources can be costly, and at some point in time, there’s a return on investment if you were to invest in your own drone equipment and own operator. Plus, there’s an advantage to having control over the data and being able to do more with the data that you’re collecting.

When the decision came to whether or not we wanted to have a drone and drone operator in-house, it really was a no brainer for us. 

We decided that we wanted this to live within our risk management department, because we felt like the equipment had the opportunity to drive down our rework and also promote the workmanship that’s being put in place out there, and overall, make people safer.

When we sat back and we analyzed that internally, we also realized that we were able to support other initiatives and how we execute them, those being safety, quality and production.

How do you deploy the technology in those areas?

WILSON: With safety, we can perform inspections of elevated positions without having to have a physical person access the work. We are able to inspect our project sites and identify hazards from the air. 

With quality, we can fly our projects and have our quality staff review the footage of definable features of work. This allows our staff to cover more of our projects at once while still reviewing the quality of work being put in place in near to real time.

There’s also the marketing aspect, which is primarily what we’re using the photography for. 

What was it like implementing the program on the jobsite? 

LOGAN DECKER: Whenever you implement technology to oversee safety and quality and all these different things that we use it for, you tend to get a little pushback, but it’s been pretty good so far. 

We’re trying to get people to know that it’s there for their use whenever they need it. It doesn’t always come to everyone’s mind at first. Normally, they’re going to go to what they’ve relied on over the past few years or even longer, until we can drive home that the drone is here for your use and your position, whatever that may be. Then it’s just slowly and steadily growing the number of flights and the frequency.

WILSON: I think one thing that could be very easy to run into, especially when you start a program like this, is you don’t know what you don’t know. Logan started back in June, so we’re not even a year into having this program going, but there is a lot of buzz out there.

I think we may not have anticipated it taking off as fast as it did. We actually had to come up with our own scheduling solution to ensure that everybody’s getting the service that they require in a timely manner.



We have to remind ourselves too, because the equipment is so robust and it does have such a benefit that we don’t want to oversell ourselves because we’re still learning it. We’re still learning not only the equipment, but the capabilities and perfecting that.

And at times, we have to remind ourselves that we are a construction company that has drones. We’re not a drone company that happens to do construction.

If you were starting this program again, what would you do differently?

WILSON: When it comes to technology, it moves fast, and it changes fast. I would say there’s multiple times as we’ve been going through this process that we’ve tried something and we had to tweak it or change it. It’s a part of adapting and overcoming.

Some advice that I would give somebody is, understand your company’s needs and your client’s needs, and establish buy-in with your stakeholders. 

I think it was pretty pivotal for us when we purchased the equipment, we also purchased training on the equipment. They actually sent out the instructor and did physical training here at our facility with Logan, and that was really critical for us to understand not only the capabilities of equipment, but the capabilities of Logan and actually see our money that we spent in use...

How to Write a Good AI Prompt

Provided by: GadellNet

AI Prompt Introduction

Microsoft Copilot, like most generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) platforms, imitates or reflects a humanlike experience. It accomplishes this by using plain language queries or, as they’re better known, AI prompts.

You can imagine working with AI prompts as working with a hairstylist. Explain yourself well, and you have very little to worry about. Give vague or unclear instructions, and the result becomes a coin toss.

Microsoft Copilot is only as powerful as you allow it to be. It is a tool to augment your workflow. Just as a hammer cannot perform its task without the carpenter’s hand, AI needs your voice and insights to return good results. Further, if you swing the hammer lazily or haphazardly, it will cost you more time in the long run.



Save time with Copilot by taking the extra time to interact with it correctly.

How to Work with AI Prompts Effectively

Let’s start by remembering this simple acronym: ACES. It stands for:

A – Aim

C – Context

E – Expectations

S – Source

ACES in Action



AIM

Aim refers to “what you want.” This is the introduction to your request.

Think about what you are trying to accomplish. Are you crafting an email to send off asking for the latest financial reports? Are you creating a blog about the rising cost of eggs? Consider carefully what exactly you are trying to accomplish with your AI prompt and take aim.

CONTEXT

Context is the meat of your AI prompt. It is the information Copilot will draw from to create your output. Just like in life, Copilot can misunderstand your request without proper context, leading to a messy generation.

Consider why you need this output. What purpose will it ideally serve? You’ll also want to ensure you designate who, if any, the stakeholders are.

EXPECTATIONS

Setting expectations is the secret sauce to saving time with AI prompts. The words you choose shape the responses you receive. Be intentional with your word choice, and clearly designate the tone you wish to have.

AI is constantly learning and reshaping itself to serve your needs. The clearer you are with your voice, the better the AI is at creating it.

SOURCE

A major, and justified, concern when using Generative AI is its source. Where is the AI pulling the information to create the output? How can I be sure this information is correct?

Copilot is really spectacular in this regard. You can inform the source directly in the AI prompt! Be specific with this, tell Copilot where to draw its information from, and even better if that information is located within the Microsoft ecosystem.

For example, you can ask it to pull information from a previously created document or presentation, or even from past emails and/or chats with a specific person.

STL Tech Week

March 31st - April 4th

STL TechWeek is 5 full days of disruptive and emerging technology at venues across the St. Louis Metro. All events are free and open to the public.

SAME Sporting Clays Event

Tuesday, April 15th

10:30 am @

St. Louis Skeet & Trap Club

18854 Franklin Rd,

Pacific, Mo 63069

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